The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lieutenant General Tukur Yusuf Burutai on Monday commissioned a pedestrian bridge that collapsed and killed three students at the Gubi Permanent Campus of the Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa University (ATBU).
Speaking at the event, Lt.General Burutai said the action taken by the Nigerian Army is part of its social responsibility to the community.
He tasked the university community particularly the students to use the new bridge to embark on academic researches in different fields in order to keep the memories of the three students who lost their lives during the unfortunate incidence last August.
The COAS, who was represented by the Corps Commander Armour Corps, Bauchi, Major General James Akomolafe, said the new bridge is designed to handle students’ traffic to and from the Academic zone of the university.
He charged the university’s management to ensure that the bridge was put to proper use and maintained adequately so that it will last long.
Also speaking, the GOC, 3 Division, Major General Nuhu Angbazo, revealed that on the receipt of the sad news of the incidence, the COAS directed the Division to immediately mobilize the engineering corps of the Nigerian Army to ensure the reconstruction of the collapsed bridge.
Angbazo lauded the officers and men of the engineering corps for a job well done assuring that the Nigerian Army will continue to embark on social responsibilities to the communities it is serving across the country.
Responding, the Vice Chancellor of the ATBU, Professor Muhammed Abdulazeez, thanked the COAS and the Nigerian Army for coming to the aide of the university by reconstructing the bridge, thus making it a standard one.
“In all of the sympathy and condolences we received, one organization took its demonstration of love one step further. In all our wildest imagination, nobody in this community ever thought that help will come from the Nigerian Army.
“With the challenging state of our country’s internal security and the fact that our Army is stretch to its limit, it was a pleasant surprise when they offered to build for us, a standard bridge to replace the collapsed one,” he said.
