Professor Alex Okwuashi (Prof of Maritime Administration)
I think the students of the schools have a long time to graduate and declining of the bill should not be an issue, of course we know that politics is involved, however if the bill is not assented to today, it doesn’t mean it will not be given assent tomorrow, the position of government may be because probably the university was set up by another regime, so it may be the cold war between the former regime and this regime. If that is the case, there is institution that took a longer time to be given assent, so if this government did not give acssent to the bill, that doesn’t mean the next government, will not assent to it as well.
Barr Alex Afolalu (Maritime Lawyer)
First we need to understand that the President have the prerogative to assent or decline assent, but on how the National Assembly can revive the bill, if the Maritime Industry feel that the bill is such important to be passed into law they could seek the consent of the National Assembly to leverage on section 58 sub section five of the 1999 constitution as amended that the legislature power to override the president assent to sign a bill or not.
Stanley Ezenga (PRO NAGAFF)
The National Assembly, being the body vest with this law I believe should rather seek advice from industry experts, because I believe that as it is now the President couldn’t have declined assent without consultation, so if some stakeholders like you said think the president should not have declined the bill, then it is left for the National Assembly seek experts on whether the bill needs to be revisited or not.
Matthew Alalade (President, Merchant Navy)
I think it will be the best thing for the National Assembly to revive the bill, like I said before it’s very important that this bill is revisited due to the numbers of students in the school. So let the National Assembly push for the bill let’s hope that the president will give assent to the bill
Captain Tajudeen Alao
You have to look at why it was rejected in the first place, once you know the reasons these are the issues you can tackle. If it was as result of funding, the cost is too much it cannot be more than any other university that is established in Nigeria. And if you are talking about MAN, Oron, it has its source of funding but the cost of funding a maritime university is 1000 times bigger than the cost of funding MAN, Oron. So we have to be objective, you know federal university generally the problem is always funding. So this university cannot be more than the cost of funding any other university. The money they put there is too much, it is not sustainable.
Mr. John Egesi (Stakeholder)
To me it is like saying you have a bus stop, but no buses to occupy them, I like to be real that I am educated in maritime economics and to create a university for something that does not yet have a root is silly, that is my principle. The second principle is that in line with all other fields, for instance accounting, we don’t have accounting university and so many other fields, why maritime university?
Rev Nicodemus Odollo (Stakeholder)
When such thing is established considering the financial status, I think it has to be in phases. Like in an average university you know we have a lot of faculties, so you cannot put the whole faculty at once. You check the faculties you can start with now as the funds are coming you improve on others. It is when you want to do the whole thing at the same time that it becomes capital intensive; you know Rome was not built in a day. So it has to be a gradual thing, we look at the areas of priority, it is something that cannot and must not be cancelled.
Muda Yusuf (DG, LCCI)
I don’t have much to say because I don’t really believe in establishing another university, let us strengthen the existing ones. We can form faculties if there is need for that.
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