PRE-DEGREE/CERTIFICATE REGISTRATION/SCHOOL FEES

AMNI PETROLEUM DONATES COVID-19 TEST EQUIPMENT TO UNIPORT

The University of Port Harcourt has joined the exclusive league of institutions with Coronavirus testing equipment courtesy of an indigenous firm, AMNI International Petroleum Development Company Limited. Chairman of the company, Chief Tunde J. Afolabi, MFR, sent a proposal to the Vice Chancellor containing the mouth-watering offer to set up a COVID-19 Test Centre in the University. Professor Afolabi, special assistant to the Chairman, who was the former head of service to the Government of the Federation, said the move was necessitated by the explosion in the number of people infected by the virus, and the need to “provide adequate services to as many people as possible with the ultimate aim of subduing the pandemic.”

The company has personnel working offshore and rotating on a frequent basis, with a need to be tested to ensure they neither carry nor become infected by the deadly virus, Professor Afolabi said in his letter to the Vice Chancellor. The emergent Test Centre is expected to shorten the turnaround time for people wishing to be tested for the Coronavirus. AMNI believes that it would be mutually beneficial to partner the University in establishing a Test Centre to offer services to both its staff and the University community.

AMNI promised to supply all the equipment required for the NCDC-certified Test Centre, while the University is expected to provide a suitable Virology or Microbiology Laboratory with the complement of personnel to run it in a mutually beneficial manner.

Welcoming representatives of AMNI who visited the University for exploratory talks on Tuesday, May 5, 2020, the Vice Chancellor, Professor Ndowa Lale, told them that the University had already set up a COVID-19 Committee and held sensitisation meetings. He expressed gratitude to AMNI for the seriousness it has so far shown towards setting up the Test Centre in the University, assuring the company that requisite staff were on ground to run the facility once it is fully installed. “We are ready with a Memorandum of Understanding that would cement the partnership with AMNI and we would be set to go. We cannot express our collective gratitude enough to the Chairman of AMNI Chief Tunde J. Afolabi, MFR, for his philanthropic gesture in these lean times. Posterity would remember this kind gesture that is meant to afford people in our University and catchment areas a rare opportunity to have easy access to a standard COVID-19 Test Centre,” Professor Lale said. 

The AMNI team comprising Sam Famofo, Gafer Abdullahi, Ayo-Abdul Samuel and Andrew Iyere, later joined officials of the University on a facility tour of the Regional Centre for Biotechnology and Bioresources Research (RCBBR). The visiting team expressed satisfaction with what it saw on ground, promising to report its findings to the company Chairman for further action. The latest news is that AMNI has already defrayed the cost of importing all the equipment required to set up the standard laboratory for installation and commencement of tests at the Centre.

*Report by WILLIAMS WODI

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