This news was culled from The Vanguard Newspaper’s publication of May 14, 2022
The Congregation for Catholic Education, has approved the request for establishment of Ecclesiastical faculties of Philosophy and Theology by Veritas University, Abuja.
The Vice Chancellor of Veritas University,Rev. Father Prof. Hyacinth Ichoku,who revealed this while hosting the Regional Episcopal Conference of West Africa, RECOWA, at the university’s campus,in Bwari, Abuja,said a letter to that effect by the Congregation for Catholic Education,was received by his school last Friday.
“Let me state that one major important project to Veritas University is the establishment of the Ecclesiastical Faculties of Philosophy and Theology. I am happy to announce that jut yesterday,we received a letter from the Congregation for Catholic Education granting our request to commence these two Ecclesiastical faculties,”he said.
To this end,he has appealed to his hosts to consider sending priests and seminarians “to come and study at Veritas University”, which he described as being”serene and very condusive for learning”, assuring them of ” quick completion of their studies.”
Prof. Ichoku told his guests that in the school’s effort to ensure the security of staff and students,it has provided external perimeter fencing for much of the university and internal fencing for hotels.
“Our security architecture comprises five layers five layers of security that operate 24 hours on campus, including the military,police,armed guards,the DSS,hunters and the Sheriff Deputies. In addition,we have digital CCTV monitoring every movement around the campus,”he said.
Recalling that the private university owned by the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria,CBCN,established in 2007, commenced operations with nine undergraduate academic programmes in August,2008,at its rake-off campus in Obehie,Abia State, he said the academic programmes of the university have grown in number.
“From the nine undergraduate programs at its commencement,Veritas University now offers 35 undergraduate and 21 postgraduate programmes leading to the award of Postgraduate Diploma,PGD, Masters and PhD.
“These 56 academic prgrammes are all domiciled in eight facilities that include faculties of Education, Humanities, Natural and Applied Sciences, Management, Sciences, Social Sciences,Law, Engineering and Faculty of Health Sciences.
“Only recently,the National Universities Commission granted us approval to commence four new undergraduate programmes in Nursing, Pharmacy,Medical Laboratory Sciences and Software Engineering programmes. These programmes have fully commenced in the 2021/2022 academic session.
“Approvals were also granted by the NUC to run two new Masters Programmes in Counselling and Mass Communication and three PhD courses in Mass Communication, English and Literary Studies and Accounting, thereby bringing the total number to give PhD programmes offered by Veritas University.
“We earlier got approval for PhD in Economics and PhD in Political Science and Diplomacy. We plan that Veritas University will commence the full College of Medicine by 2025/2026 session,”he explained.
Açcording to him,”With all the academic programmes offered at Veritas University,there is need for more physical infrastructure to accommodate the fast-growing pace of the university.”
He spoke further:”With a student population of over 3000,we are in dire need of additional hostels, auditoriums, classroom blocks and other essential facilities to serve the growing student population of the university as well as to make Veritas University a world class university,that is fully equipped and meets international standards.
“To this end,the university currently spends a huge chunk of its internally generated revenue on capital projects to bridge the infrastructural deficit in the campus.”
He listed some of the ongoing projects in the school to include the construction of Justice Idigbe Law Facility “which is almost completed”, the construction of Faculty of Health Sciences,the construction of Engineering workshop, equipping of the University Medical Centre and the construction of the E-Library, being funded by the Association of Papal Knights and Medalists.
“All these projects are capital intensive,but by the grace of God we shall continue to manage our resources to achieve the dream of our founding fathers,”he said.
