With the determination of the State Government to physically establish and open the Institute in 1970, some eighty contractors laboured between May and November, 1970, to reconstruct and convert the premises of Mariere College ( a Teacher Training College) into the site of the Institute. An Administration Block, a Central Library with a capacity of 30,000 volumes, two blocks consisting of twelve lecture rooms, six laboratories, workshops and offices, a student centre including students’ and staff dinning rooms, a students’ common room and a kitchen were built and four blocks of students’ dormitories were reconstructed and converted into students hostels. In addition, a new block of six laboratories and six lecture rooms were completed on what were to become the Iyaro Campus, to accommodate the Institute’s Faculty of Science.

On November 23, 1970, the Institute was formally opened and the first batch of 108 students drawn from all parts of the Federation began courses in Science and Mathematics. To quote the words of the first Rector, Professor Glyn Phillips, the establishment of the Institute represented “a dream come true for the people of the Midwest”.