Authorities of the University of Jos have engaged the services of local hunters to protect students on campus and their hostels.

This was disclosed by the outgoing Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Sebastian Maimako on Tuesday during the valedictory session to mark the end of his five-year tenure. 

According to him, the development is not unconnected to the worsening state of insecurity in the nation.

“It is no longer news that the security situation in the country is quite tenuous.

“This is why under my administration, we made frantic efforts to ensure that all lives and property within the university are adequately protected.

“When we got a security report that we were the soft target, we close our hostels for almost two weeks and suspended lectures eventually. Before we could reopen, we were given a condition that we must employ the services of local hunters to help us secure our hostels, particularly at night.

“Today, this is where we are, but thank God, the Director of Peace and Conflict Studies, looking at the happening, has offered to train these hunters on the rule of engagement in their working in the university.”

Maimako noted the institution has collaborated with various security experts for a significant drop in crimes on campus while some staff were recruited to address the deficits in security personnel.

The VC said his administration initiated and completed 85 projects which have been commissioned.

He explained out of the 75 programmes, which the institution was to run, 43 have full accreditation status while 30 programmes have interim accreditation status.