By Ikechukwu Odu

The Management of the Enugu State University of Science and Technology, ESUT, on Wednesday, April 29, 2026, expressed displeasure over apparent abandonment of work at the perimeter fencing, and 1,600 capacity students hostel sites in the University.

The Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Aloysius-Michaels Okolie, who led other Principal and key functionaries of the University on project inspection at the permanent site of the University at Ebeano City, Enugu State, was shocked to discover that neither the contractors nor their workers were on the sites of the aforementioned projects.

While addressing journalists at the perimeter fencing site contracted to the City Concrete Limited, the Professor Okolie, bemoaned lack of communication between the contractor handling the project and the ESUT Management.

“ESUT Management appears to be in the dark with regards to the perimeter fencing project in the University. Nobody is telling us anything. We as Management of ESUT do not know why the contractor abandoned the site of this project, no work is going on here.

“The critical point is that it appears the work has been abandoned by the contractor. We are hopeful that the contractor should come and engage the Management of ESUT on any challenge they are having, we deserve to know the issues slowing the progress of work in this project,” he said.

The VC stated that the last formal engagement with the contractor was in February 2026 during the ground-breaking ceremony, adding that if the workers failed to return to site, the University Management would inform the appropriate authorities.

Equally, at the 1,600 capacity students hostel, the University Management expressed dissatisfaction with the state of things at the project site as no worker was seen during inspection.

The University Management therefore, called on Afri Plus Nigeria Limited (Developer) to fulfill their part of the agreement by commencing the construction of the hostel facility, stating that the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, had already released the counterpart fund of N1 billion to the Developer for the project.

“We are not going to allow ESUT to be used as a demonstration site for any contractor and we made it very clear on the day of the ground-breaking ceremony that we would not take it lightly with any contractor in the University who failed to fulfill his part of Memorandum of Understanding, MoU. We have 10 months to the date of project completion and we are worried that work has not commenced” the Vice Chancellor said.

He noted that if work failed to commence as planned, the University Management would write the Developer for the reimbursement of the N1 billion counterpart fund to TETFund.

Other project sites inspected by the University Management included: The ESUT Printing Press; 600 capacity Faculty of Engineering Hall; NOCA Male Hostel; 500 capacity TETFund sponsored auditorium; and the Faculty of Social Sciences building.