Distance learning students of the University of Abuja will resume their examinations today after two days of protest by medical students disrupted academic activities.
The exams were disrupted for two days by protests in which medical students demanded to be farmed out to other universities with accredited medical programmes and to be paid N10 million each in compensation for wasting their time at Uniabuja.
The senate said farming out students was beyond it. It is an issue to be handled by the National Universities Commission, said Uniabuja vice chancellor, James Adedibu, after the senate met yesterday.
"It is not the university that will farm them out. For engineering students [farmed out early this year over accreditation issues], we didn't do it. It was the NUC," he said.
He said the medical students have been kept aware of progress to secure accreditation for its college of health sciences from Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria.
Last month, a laboratory was opened as part of requirements for accreditation but recruitment to staff the lab was halted on account of irregularities.
A verification team was planned to visit in coming weeks before accreditation moved forward.
Uniabuja senate meeting lasted nearly two hours under police security at the school's mini campus in Gwagwalada - some 20 minutes' drive away from the university's permanent campus on Airport Road.
Police cordoned off roads around the gates amidst what officials said were concerns that protesting students could reach the meeting venue. Students also accused the school management of using local herdsmen as assault force, claims the school denied.
Daily Trust reporters on the campus met men in mufti, armed with sticks, manning the school gates metres away from the road junction held by security men.
The school insisted the men armed with sticks were vigilantes.
Separate detachments of police, soldiers and a naval patrol unit quelled the second day of protest yesterday morning at the school gate and cleared a student blockade on Airport Road.
