By Faith Igbudu
After 8 years of dormancy, Benue State Government is set to re-open it’s Staff Development Centre, Makurdi for academic activities.
The school which is said to re-open on Monday, 16th November, 2020, at its old site, along Jonah Jang Crescent, follows a decision by the EXCO to re-open it, after a long period of non-functionality, with approval from the Executive Governor, Samuel Ortom.
According to The Voice findings, the school was in 2012, relocated to the defunct Lobi Bank, headquarters building in Makurdi, which led to its gradual collapse.
Speaking to our reporter, a source who pleaded anonymity said, the school was relocated in 2012 when Benue State got the approval to become headquarters for the Entrepreneurship Development Centre, for North-Central states, thereby taking up the old site of the centre.
His words: “I don’t know the politics involved anyway, but I heard Benue State lost out on being the headquarters of the Entrepreneurship Development Centre. I hear now that it is Kogi State hosting it. So, with the structure on ground, the EXCO thought it wise that the initial plan of a staff development centre, should be re-opened, especially, given that, where the school was taken to was not a conducive environment for academic activities to thrive.
“Early this year, in one of the council meetings, the EXCO approved that the centre be re-opened, and the governor, magnanimously supported the idea, by making available, resources to facilitate its smooth take off.
“It is a thing of joy, as many people have been stagnated in the civil service, they can not be promoted because the school has been shut down. This school served not only Benue people but also North-Central states such as; Nasarawa, Kogi, some parts of Cross River states, men of the paramilitary and federal civil servants resident in Benue.”
The Voice investigations reveal that, the school is said to bounce back with five departments and about nineteen courses, including certificates in Public Personnel Management, Land Acquisition, Social Welfare as well as a course as confidential secretaries, with different durations for each.
It could be recalled that, the school was established in October, 1977 as a solution to the need to set-up a staff training centre to cater for the manpower needs of junior and supervisory staff, in the clerical and sub-clerical cadres, following the creation of Benue State out of the defunct Benue-Plateau State.
