Yabatech Loses Director to Covid-19, Orders Closure Of Hostels …As Lectures Go Online Immediately

Yaba College of Technology (Yabatech), on Tuesday, announced the death of the College Director, Academic Planning Unit, Mr. M.A.O Omoighe to complications arising from COVID-19 disease.

Following the development, the management at the end of an emergency meeting and based on the report submitted by the Ag. Director, Medical Services, ordered all students to vacate the hotels latest Thursday, January 28, 2021.

As part of measures to control the spread of the deadly disease at the Yaba main campus of the college, the management in addition to the vacation order on students and closure of the Medical Centre for a minimum of two weeks instructed lecturers to resort to the online teaching mode immediately.

Besides, the statement also ordered all staff of the Medical Centre that had direct contacts with the deceased to proceed on self-isolation and go for COVID-19 test thereafter while the unit would be disinfected before reopening.

The recommendations of the academic board read, “The College should resort to online teaching immediately, for smooth lecturing, lecturers should provide lecture notes to students beforehand and utilize the online period for explanations of the lecture notes, lecturers are to adopt acceptable modality for the online lecturing.

“The Centre for Information Technology and Management (CITM) and the Flexible Skill Development (FSD) should work out improved modalities to enhance e-learning in the college.”

“Any meeting of more than 10 persons should be held virtually. Students should vacate the hotels latest Thursday, January 28, 2021. Management will make arrangements to decontaminate the college in due course. This will be done on weekends. Offices are to operate at half capacity.”

“All administrative staff should come to the office on alternate days. Any staff that manifests malaria symptoms should self-isolate immediately for two weeks and go for COVID-19 test.”

“The Academic planning unit should be closed down for two weeks. All staff of the unit should go on isolation and carry out COVID-19 test. The unit should be de-decontaminated before reopening.”

“The medical Centre should be closed for two weeks and thereafter disinfected and staff that had direct contacts with the deceased should self-isolate and carry outCOVID-19 test,” the statement added.

Since the second wave of the disease, the academia, in quick succession, lost four eminent scholars in the persons of Habu Galadima, Director-General, National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS); Femi Odekunle, renowned criminologist and member of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC);Oyewusi Ibidapo-Obe, former Vice-Chancellor, University of Lagos and Duro Ajeyalemi, a former dean of the institution’s faculty of education and the pioneer registrar of the Joint Universities Preliminary Examination Board (JUPEB).

Within the same period, the College of Medicine of the Lagos State University (LASUTH) was shut as many students and officials tested positive for COVID-19 at its campusin Ikeja.

Reports by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), as at Monday 25thJanuary 2021, puts COVID-19 figures at Lagos 744, Plateau 100, Oyo 77, FCT 75, Nasarawa 74, Katsina 48, Edo 42, Kano 41, Enugu 37, Rivers 34, Ogun 33, Kwara 32, Niger 28, Ebonyi 27, Kaduna 26, Borno 12, Yobe 10, Ekiti 5 and Gombe 1.The figures show Nigeria had 112,996 confirmed cases,98,359 discharged 1,507 fatalities.