About 3,000 persons were displaced on Monday in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, following the demolition of illegal structures at the state-owned University of Science and Technology (RSUST).
Bulldozers from the state Sanitation Authority arrived the university in the morning hours and pulled down about 250 structures, most of them inhabited by the students.
Most of the structures demolished were located around the second gate of the university along Azikiwe Road that housed junior staff, students and hoodlums who often invaded the campus to cause confusion.
Unlike previous demolition in the city, there was less drama during the exercise as most of the inhabitants who received prior notice had vacated the structures.
Special Adviser to the Governor on Environmental Matters, Mr Ipalibo Harry, who supervised the demolition, lamented the indiscriminate building of more than 120 pit toilets around the area, which he said polluted the environment.
Harry, who is also chairman of the Sanitation Authority, however refused to say whether the victims would be compensated, claiming that there were only 10 such buildings at the time the university was built while others were constructed after the institution acquired the land.
But in a separate interview with journalists in his office, chairman of the university�s Governing Council, Professor Godwin Tasie, claimed the illegal structures contributed to the denial of the university accreditation in some disciplines by the National Universities Commission (NUC).
He said the illegal structures not only made the university untidy but also not conducive for learning, accusing some of the staff of erecting the structures and collecting rents from students without remitting anything to the authorities.
As a way of cushioning the effect of the demolition, Tasie said the university had entered into an agreement with 14 banks to guarantee them housing loans.