She said, “I want to really appeal to the students and to parents because I have read somewhere where students are getting depressed and some of them are threatening suicide. I want to really appeal to my students to hold it, to be calm, that on my honour, we will see how, together, with MDCN (can resolve the problem).

“I am going to my minister to appeal to him to intervene because if we have some staff which is the critical issue, if we have staff and we know that the minister has given us the permission to employ, the sooner we employ them and get the dental clearance that MDCN has asked us to do, we will be able to invite them in the next one or two months and part of these problems will be resolved.”

Prof. Obi said that the issue is essentially as a result of overadmission of students, with the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) saying that these students cannot be accommodated.

Instead of the approved 10 students, the institution admitted 60, which violated the MDCN’s directive.

She said the university is working hard to resolve the issue, adding that they have been networking with other programmes within the university and other universities to see where the affected students could be fixed.

“We may not be able to say conclusively that we have the solution, but I am sure that before the end of this week and getting to next week where I may travel and perhaps plead with our honourable minister to give us audience and attention and also help us in some areas largely with a solution to this.

The VC indicted some of the university’s officials, including the dean, the admission officer and the provost on the issue of overadmission, promising that all those involved would face consequences.

“We are going to invoke the university’s internal mechanism to handle that, we have to query some people. Definitely, there will be consequences.”

Asked if she as the head of the institution takes responsibility for the crisis, Prof. Obi said, “Of course I am the head, I take responsibility, even the ones I inherited, I take responsibility, I am the head.”

She said she is personally pained by the whole situation because she has given a lot to get the dentistry problem sorted.

The affected students have been protesting and demanding for a solution for the lingering problem.