Despite Boko Haram, UNIMAID admitted more students than other universities in 2019

The University of Maiduguri ranked top of Nigerian universities with the highest admission figure for 2019, data from the JAMB shows.

The school admitted 12,523 students for the year, an increase from the 11,665 students it matriculated the previous academic year.

The university is located on the outskirts of Maiduguri en route Bama in Borno State, the hotbed of the decade-long Boko Haram war.

The school has not been spared from attacks by Boko Haram, an extremist sect that professes to hate education. The group has killed thousands and displaced millons in northern Nigeria.

In 2017, a twin bomb in the university killed four people, including a professor, Aliyu Mani, and one of the attackers.

More explosions would be recorded later in the year with no casualties save the attackers.

In the years that followed, there were reports of foiled attempts to attack the school by the insurgents.

Asked about the school’s rising admission figure in the face of the war, the school’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.”

He said asides the federal and state security agencies, the school has employed local hunters to ensure security of the school.

There have also been reports of authorities in Borno digging a 27 km (17 mile) trench around the University of Maiduguri to prevent attacks by Boko Haram militants.

“Before you enter (the school), you are being checked thoroughly. If you don’t have a means of identification, you cannot be allowed into the school,” Mr Muhammad said.

“We have other security measures which we don’t need to mention so that if anyone tries us…so that they don’t even try to come.”

Top ten

For every six students admitted by Nigerian tertiary institutions in 2019, at least one of them was admitted by 10 universities, a review of data from JAMB shows.

These universities account for about one-sixth of all admissions in 2019.

UNIMAID aside, the schools that admitted the highest number of students include Universities of Calabar, Benin, Ilorin, Lagos and Port Harcourt.

Others are Nnamdi Azikiwe University, University of Nigeria, Ekiti State University and Rivers State University.

 

The admission data released by JAMB shows that the nation’s universities admitted a total of 444,947 students. Judging by this, a quarter of these students were admitted by the aforementioned universities.

While UNIMAID offered 12,435 students admission, UNICAL offered 12,237; UNIBEN, 11,747; UNILORIN, 11,616; UNILAG, 9,625; UNIPORT, 9,107.

NAU admitted 8,880 students; UNN, 8,585; EKSU, 8,119; RSU, 7,843.

 

Comparatively, the admission figures of UNIMAID, UNICAL and NAU are only about a quarter of their applicants.

For UNIBEN and UNIPORT, admissions were offered to one-seventh of their respective applicants. In UNILORIN, UNILAG and UNN, it is respectively one in eleven, one in ten and one in nine applicants that made the admission cut respectively.

 

The duo of EKSU and RSU, in that order, offered half and a third of their applicants admission.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how two-thirds of about two million candidates who applied for tertiary education in the country in 2019 were not admitted as revealed by the JAMB.

Data from the board while about two million students applied for the Unified Tertiary and Matriculation Examinations and Direct Entry, the country’s institutions had a target of 600,000.

This is in spite of roughly 1.2 million making JAMB’s cutoff of 140 and above and having five O Level credits, including mathematics and English.

Polytechnics and Monotechnics

A third of the 96,423 students who gained entry into the nation’s polytechnics and monotechnics did so into:

 

Kaduna Polytechnic, Kaduna — 7,897

Yaba College of Technology, Yaba, Lagos — 4,046

The Polytechnic, Ibadan, Oyo — 3,270

Akanu Ibiam Federal Polytechnic, Unwana, Ebonyi — 3,212

Plateau State Polytechnic, Barkin-Ladi — 3,024

Lagos State Poly, Ikorodu — 2,822

Federal Polytechnic, Offa, Kwara — 2,711

Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro — 2,646

Ogun State Institute of Tech (formerly Gateway ICT Poly), Igbesa — 2,471

Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti — 2,432

Colleges of Education

More than half of the 69,810 students admitted by colleges of education nationwide were admitted into:

 

Federal College of Education, Pankshin, Plateau — 4,828

Federal College of Education, Kano — 4,793

Federal College of Education (Technology), Gombe — 4,720

Kaduna State College of Education, Gidan-Waya — 4,276

Federal College of Education, Zaria — 4,188

College of Education, Akwanga, Nasarawa — 2,923

Federal College of Education (Special), Oyo — 2,771

Isa Kaita College of Education, Dutsin-Ma, Katsina — 2,735

Federal College of Education (Technology), Potiskum, Yobe — 2,650

Federal College of Education, Osiele, Abeokuta — 2,638

Innovation Enterprise Institutions (IEIs)

Almost all the 1,377 students that were admitted into Nigeria’s innovation enterprise institutions were admitted by:

 

Katsina State Institute of Technology and Management, Katsina — 428

Eko College of Management and Technology, Ikotun, Lagos — 160

PEFTI Film Institute, Lagos, Lagos — 106

Highland College of Technology and Further Education, Ibadan, Oyo — 105

Global Maritime Academy, Ogoni-Olomu, Ughelli South, Delta — 69

Mbara Ozioma College of Technology, Ehime-Mbano, Imo — 66

College of Banking and Finance, Ibadan, Oyo — 55

Maurid Institute of Management and Technology, Mbiaso, Akwa Ibom — 42

Ipetu-Ijesha College of Technology, Osun — 39

Federal College of Forestry, Mechanisation, Afaka, Kaduna — 38