Students of the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Calabar (UNICAL), has  staged a protest on campus, expressing frustration over the institution’s handling of the accreditation process for the pharmacy programme.

The students alleged that the university’s management has been neglectful and unresponsive to their plight, which has put their academic future in jeopardy.

The students claimed that the programme, which started in 2016, has been facing setbacks due to the university’s failure to meet basic accreditation standards set by the National Universities Commission (NUC) and the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN).

They alleged that the university began the programme without proper resource verification by NUC.

The students highlighted the poor state of infrastructure, including ill-equipped laboratories and lack of classrooms.

They also expressed concern about the severe manpower shortage, with some departments having only two or three lecturers handling hundreds of students.

The students, numbering over a thousand, are calling on the federal and state governments, as well as the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria, to intervene urgently to prevent the collapse of the programme.

They fear that if nothing is done, their years of academic efforts will be in vain.

But  the  university’s public relations officer,  Eyo Effiong, during a telephone conversation claimed  that the students weren’t protesting but only came to engage the vice chancellor in a discussion to look into a particular situation.

“As I speak the VC had asked them to meet with her by the end of the week,” he said.