Niger Delta undergraduates told to shun militancy

STUDENTS of the Bayelsa owned Niger Delta University (NDU), Amassoma has been told to commit quality time to their studies and shun overtures to engage in nefarious activities such as militancy, pipeline vandalism and sea piracy.

Rear Admiral Thomas Lokoson (rtd), former Commandant of the National Defence College of Nigeria, Abuja, gave the advice Tuesday in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, while receiving an award of honour bestowed on him by the Niger Delta University Development Students’ Working Committee of the Students’ Union Government, in recognition of his remarkable philanthropy towards the institution.

Lokoson had in April 2014 donated 800 volumes of multi-disciplinary books to the NDU and instituted an award of N20, 000.00 for each best graduating students in political science and marine engineering with13 students as beneficiaries of his scholarship scheme.

Continuing, in May 2015, the former Defence College Commandant also donated medical equipment and consumables worth over N100million to the NDU. The items were imported from Canada, included beds, bedside drawers, incubators, wheelchairs, operating theatre equipment, drugs and syringes, among others.

He told the NDU students that militancy and oil bunkering had resulted in insecurity and massive pollution of the Niger Delta environment thereby adversely impacting means of livelihood and hampering development in the area.

Said he ‘’Take their studies seriously and resist the temptation of engaging in acts that are inimical to their academic pursuits.

The ex-defence college boss while thanking the students for the honour further charged them to be conscious of their political environment and also have passion for the development of their states, stressing that “nobody will come to develop your state for you”.

Presenting the award of honour to Rear Admiral Thomas Lokoson (rtd), chairman of the NDU-DSWC, Raphael Godfrey, commended him “for being a life-saver and promoter of scholarship in the Niger Delta”.

Responding, after the presentation, Dr Philips Okolo of the Political Science Department in the NDU lauded Lokoson for his sacrifice and commitment towards developing society, particularly university undergraduates; and urged others doing well in the private and public sector to emulate the gesture.