By Chernor Alimamy Kamara
In a bid to aid the constraints faced by students in accessing conducive classrooms, an alumnus of Fourah Bay College (FBC) University of Sierra Leone (USL) has handed over an ultra-modern building to the college administration.
Speaking at the commissioning of the building, the alumnus Engineer Alhaji Mohamed Babatunde Cole said that the gesture is just part of meeting his duty to his alma mater.
He recalled during the launching of the 198 years magazine of FBC where he said he sat and listened carefully with sadness to the speeches delivered by various speakers who cried out for infrastructural development.
“I felt so sad when one of the speakers said that as a senior lecturer, he had no choice but to remove the junior class from the classroom so that he could deliver his lectures.
I said to myself this should not happen to this prestigious college, once the Athens of West Africa,’’ he said.
Engineer Cole said he immediately approached one of the lecturers, Engineer Savage after the ceremony, to confirm if indeed there were not enough classrooms, and he did confirm it. He said the humanitarian side of him immediately kicked in and pledged that he will donate a building to the Engineering Faculty of FBC.
He stated that, after consultation with various stakeholders at the college, he contacted Centurion engineering & Construction Company for the project which he said lasted for 18 months.
He said the building will house 722 students with suitable classrooms, tables, and modern chairs.
He pointed out that, the building has 2 auditoria that will host 170 students overhead projector each, and smart boards. He said the other building at the other end has 6 lecture rooms with smart boards where two (2) of the classrooms will accommodate 40 students each, the other two (2) he said will accommodate 44 and 78 students respectively, whiles the last two (2) will host 90 students.
The donor proudly noted that the building has uninterrupted power supply with a system installed that automatically switches on in the event of power cut from EDSA. He added that it can also boast of a garden facility with sitting areas and a canteen which he said is not only accessible to students, but also lecturers and staff of the college in general.
‘’The gadgets that this building carry makes it the first building in Sierra Leone with such modern facilities and can be seen in other top universities worldwide,’’ he said.
He added that it also has a video conference room that can serve multiple purposes like online courses, and office spaces for the engineering faculty and the Alumni Association.
In his keynote address, President Julius Maada Bio thanked the donor Babatunde Cole for such a great initiative. He said for over a century FBC was called the Athens of West Africa for providing high-quality education, with Europe-oriented standards, with a mission to train, shape and reinforce the values, principles and aspirations of young Africans.
He noted that the country has been producing some of the best scholars, researchers, philosophers, and public servants all over Africa. He said people who were driven by a mission to transform a nation and those who share a core value of citizenship with compassion and selflessness, will always demonstrate the optimism and commitment that a few could do to better the lives of many others.
President Bio said that those people believe the best way to love their country is to work with other citizens to make things better.
‘’That is what I always ask for, as I have no monopoly over ideas. I believe that we are good people when we act together,’’ he said.
He reiterated that the building will solve some of the constraints being faced by students and lecturers on campus for the lack of lecture rooms. He thanked Cole for the goodwill he has done not only for present students at FBC but for generations yet unborn.
The programme was climaxed with the President, lecturers, Ministers, and the Cole making a tour of the three -storey ultra-modern facility which reportedly cost 2 Million United States Dollars.
Copyright © 2022 Politico Online (20/07/22)
