The World Bank on Wednesday inaugurated the N95 million campus-wide Fibre Optics Network at the University of Ilorin (Unilorin).

The bank’s Senior Education Specialist and Co-Task Leader of STEP-B Projects, Dr. Tunde Adekola, said the project was executed under the World Bank-assisted Science and Technology Education Post-Basic (STEP-B) project.

The specialist, who spoke while inaugurating the project in Ilorin, said the university benefited due to the leadership style evolved by the institution’s management under the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. AbdulGaniyu Ambali.

“This had largely accounted for the interest of the Breton Woods institution in assisting the university to realise its objective of becoming an international centre for academic excellence,’’ he said.

Adekola said the university had demonstrated transparency and diligence in its activities, saying “such a university deserves to be assisted and supported in order to encourage her to do more”.

He charged those managing public universities in Nigeria and in Africa as a whole to be prudent with funds and embrace accountability.

“These are the basic elements of public morality,’’ the bank official said.

Adekola said the University of Ilorin was one of the few universities in Africa which had been able to achieve the objectives for which the STEP-B project was initiated.

He said the bank’s interest in assisting African universities under the STEP-B scheme was to connect them to global knowledge, using Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

In his remarks, the Vice-Chancellor thanked the World Bank for the gesture, adding that the stable academic calendar of the institution had continued to endear it to admission-seekers.

News Source: Daily Times of Nigeria.