Reports have it that the VCN has denied the institution approval to run its veterinary medicine courses, citing lack of infrastructure and violation of accreditation procedure.

The council's regulations require that the institution must have qualified full-time academic staff of a minimum rank of a reader and senior lecturer as well as technical and laboratory staff.

Other requirements include a veterinary teaching hospital to be headed by a director who should be a registered veterinary surgeon of consultant status but not lower than senior lecturer.

Speaking with NAN in Abuja, Prof Nuhu Yaqub, the vice-chancellor, said the delay in the accreditation of the faculty was unnecessary.
Yaqub accused the council of playing politics with the exercise instead of concentrating on standards and National Universities Commission's guidelines.

According to him, the university has fulfilled NUC requirements following the inspection of the institution's facilities by five professors of veterinary medicine. He described the delay and utterances of some VCN members as unfortunate and an affront to the growth of education.

But the VCN has insisted that it would not rescind its decision to deny UNIABUJA approval for its veterinary medicine programme since the university had refused to comply with its directives.

The Registrar, Dr. Daniel Maddo, said the decision was taken at the council's 95th meeting in April 2008, in Jos. The outcome, Maddo said, had been communicated to the dean of the faculty with another reminder on June 4, 2008, but that the institution was yet to respond.
He explained that the basis of the denial was that the university had not yet met the requisite human and material infrastructure to run the programme, three years after its take-off.