The presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 elections, Mr. Peter Obi, has called on the Federal Government to urgently help students of the University of Calabar (UNICAL) who are affected by the ongoing crisis in the school’s dental department.
He made the call on Friday, July 19, 2025, through a statement on his official X (formerly Twitter) page. Obi said the government must act fast to make sure that no student suffers because of problems they did not cause.
Earlier this month, news broke that UNICAL had been admitting up to 90 dental students every year, even though the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) only approved a quota of 10 students per year. Because of this, MDCN refused to approve or verify the graduation list of the school’s dental students, putting their future at risk.
In his post, Peter Obi said he was very concerned about the matter and called it a failure of leadership. He said students should never suffer for the mistakes of those in charge. He noted that even though the full details of the issue are still being looked into, it is important that all problems are solved so that students can graduate on time.
Obi mentioned that he had visited the Faculty of Dental Studies at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), and was told about the crisis in UNICAL. He thanked the Vice Chancellor of UNICAL for promising to handle the matter and said he looked forward to a good outcome.
He shared a personal story from when he was Governor of Anambra State. Back then, the Medical and Dental Council shut down the state’s medical school because there was no teaching hospital. Many students who had already studied for years were at risk of not graduating as doctors. Obi said he met with the Council and promised to fix the problem. In less than 18 months, he built and opened the Odumegwu-Ojukwu Teaching Hospital in Awka, saving the students’ future.
He urged the Federal Government to support UNICAL with both money and leadership to solve the current problem. He said the school management must be given everything they need to fix the issue and protect the students.
Obi ended by warning that Nigeria cannot continue to neglect important areas like education and healthcare. He said the country should stop wasting money on things that do not matter while allowing young people’s futures to be destroyed.
“Our children must not continue to lose their future in Nigeria,” he said.
