NO CASE OF COVID-19 IN BENUE STATE UNIVERSITY, MAKURDI

NO CASE OF COVID-19 IN BENUE STATE UNIVERSITY, MAKURDI

In the last 36 hours, or nearly so, the cyberspace, especially some social media blogs, have been awash with unconfirmed reports that very high number of staff of Benue State University, have been infected with the COVID-19 disease.

It is very likely that these rumours (for that is what unconfirmed reports from authoritative sources are) may have been fired by the decision of the University authorities on Monday, 29th June, 2020, directing most non-teaching staff of the University to stay at home as from the following day.

The truth of the matter is that all staff of the University had been staying, or working from, home since 20th March 2020 when the Federal government, through the National Universities Commission  (NUC) directed all universities to close down in response to the COVID-19 challenge.

After almost three months of the closure and when it was imminent that the agitation for the reopening of institutions of Learning might compel the government to direct all institutions to reopen, authorities of Benue State University acted proactively by directing all non-teaching staff to resume work on the 8th of June, in anticipation of directives to reopen.

However, on Monday, 29 June, the Federal Government came out with guidelines for possible reopening of institutions of Learning, which did not include universities and other institutions of higher learning.
It was the unveiling of these guidelines and their non-inclusion of universities that informed the decision of Management of Benue State University to issue another internal memo directing all staff on non-essential services to revert to the earlier directive of “work from home” or stay at home as dictated by the COVID-19 protocols.

The decision is also meant to allow the specialists engaged by the University to fumigate the entire campus with ease.

It is instructive to note that the Deputy Vice-chancellor  (Administration) of the university, a professor of medicine, is a member of the Benue State government committee on COVID-19 and so a case of infection among staff of the University would be fully brought to the attention of the Committee, headed by the State Deputy Governor, Engineer Benson Abounu.

In other words, with this close proximity to the official line of interventions and management chain of COVID-19 in Benue State, a case of infection of the disease of any university staff would certainly not be a subject of discussion in hushed tones or rumour.

Tser Vanger Terzungwe, JP, MNIPR
Principal Assistant Registrar
(Information & Public Relations)