University once plagued by terror now has growing enrolment

The University of Maiduguri has been ranked as one of the Nigerian universities with the highest admission figures for 2019, data from the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board shows, writes Yusuf Akinpelu for Premium Times.

The university, which admitted 12,523 students for the year, an increase from the 11,665 students it matriculated the previous academic year, is located on the outskirts of Maiduguri in Borno State, the hotbed of the decade-long Boko Haram war. The university has not been spared from attacks by Boko Haram, an extremist sect that professes to hate education. In 2017, a twin bomb in the university killed four people, including a professor, Aliyu Mani, and one of the attackers. More explosions were recorded later in the year with no casualties, save the attackers.

Asked about the university’s rising admission figure in the face of the war, the university’s director of information, Ahmed Muhammed, told Premium Times that admission only dipped at the peak of insurgency in the state, but has increased in recent years due to “the security measures put in place by the management”.
Full report on the Premium Times site