By Olufemi Oni, Ilorin
The management of the University of Ilorin has put necessary machinery in motion to introduce electric bus services as well as integral-train to ease the transportation challenges facing the students and staff of the institution.
The Vice Chancellor of the institution, Prof. Abdulwahab Egbewole, who disclosed this during an interactive Ramadan Iftar with journalists in Ilorin at the VC’s Lodge on the main campus, said: “Aside from the effort the institution is making on the railway transportation, we are also looking at the possibility of electric bus transportation,” adding that their colleagues in the Department of Electrical Engineering are already working on that model and part of the Senate Research grant recently released would be used to work on that model.
Prof. Egbewole, however, added that in the interim, more buses would be injected on the university road, saying fruitful discussions had been held with some of the stakeholders who expressed their willingness to introduce more buses on the road.
He said: “However, transportation problem has reduced because we have created smooth ride at least within our campus from the university gate to the campus. We are also looking at the government of Kwara State to complete the ongoing Tanke overhead bridge project which will further reduce the transportation challenge being faced by our students and staff.”
Fielding a question from a journalist on where he intended to see the University by the end of his five-year tenure, the Vice Chancellor expressed optimism in making the institution “the number one University in Nigeria as well as in Africa and to be one of the prominent key players in the world with our vision one ten five hundred”.
On sports, Prof. Egbewole expressed his willingness and readiness to support sports in all its ramification.
“We will continue to support sporting activities because we believe that the health of our students is important and that sports have a way of impacting positively on our students,” he added.
“Our contingent will be part of the world University community games that are going to happen somewhere in Europe in May or June as I discussed with the Director of Sports on logistics for that trip.”