In spite of increase in number of universities, access still inadequate – Prof. Yaqub
Professor Nuhu Omeiza Yaqub became the pioneer Vice Chancellor of the Sokoto State University after serving as VC of University of Abuja. In this interview he said the challenge of access to university education persists in spite of the establishment of additional universities. What are the challenges facing university education in Nigeria and in what […]
Professor Nuhu Omeiza Yaqub became the pioneer Vice Chancellor of the Sokoto State University after serving as VC of University of Abuja. In this interview he said the challenge of access to university education persists in spite of the establishment of additional universities.
What are the challenges facing university education in Nigeria and in what ways do you think they can be solved?
People have talked generally about lower standard of education, but my problem with that has always been the way such idea is conceived. You see, standard is relative; what we had in the Nigerian education system is the broadening of the base such that if you compare this generation to the generation of 30s and 40s where people read very few subjects, may be maximum of six to get into the university from secondary school which also included Latin which is no more in use anywhere except probably in the Vatican, you discover that students have more time to concentrate. You find out that students read between nine and 13 subjects now. During my time in primary school, I didn’t know anything called computer but primary school pupils nowadays are familiar with computer and they have the skills which later in life will help them to learn some of the specialized subjects they want to study. So, the broadening of the base could also have led to the decline of knowledge in a particular subject but to say that the standard had fallen is neither here nor there.
The second thing is the lack of adequate funding for education generally in this country, especially for the public schools. Government has to take very big share of the blame. Governments have to think twice before they go about proliferating universities, in particular. You don’t have to set up universities for the glamour of it; universities are set up for specific purposes. So, even if you are setting up universities for political purposes just like what former President Goodluck Jonathan did by attempting to locate universities in each of the states, you would need to think seriously. Of course, in a way, that’s a good thing to do as everybody will have a sense of belonging, but then again, you need to ask yourself whether or not you have the wherewithal to sustain these universities. If you don’t have, you use other means to assuage the feelings of neglect by such communities. For instance, places that have no federal universities could equally be given an industrial complex because it will create employment opportunities. I see that state governments are competing among themselves to set up universities, and some even have two universities. But you see universities are very expensive projects; any government that wants to set up university must do diligent survey of its own resources and the capacity of the university to maintain standard.
Another challenge for universities is that there is the problem of access. In spite of the increasing number of universities, you still discover that there are few number of people being absorbed by these institutions. The number of students in University of South Africa (Unisa), for instance, doubles the aggregate number of our university students in Nigeria. It is a distant learning university. We have a university in Nigeria that can boast of that number if the right thing is done. The government should fund it well so that it can adequately absorb quite the number of people who could not get admission into the conventional universities year-in year-out. So, in the university system, access and quality are very important. Also, the intervention agencies like the National Universities Commission (NUC) should not be overbearing in terms of intervention role it plays; at the same time it should ensure that universities are properly funded. In fact, I even think that the role of the NUC should be basically to get more resources to the universities from the government.
Cultism in universities must also be tackled. The attitude of Nigerians and even some professors, who would want to cheat on behalf of their children either to secure admission or even help them scale through the academic wall, needs to change. Sometimes you see professors in the universities begging colleagues to award grades to their wards. I think professionalism in the university must be given priority.
As VC, you introduced courses such as medicine, engineering, agriculture and veterinary medicine in the University of Abuja and when you left, they generated accreditation controversy; what happened?
I was not given the opportunity to be VC for ten years. I had only five years and everything I needed to do was done within these five years. I left a legacy for my successor to build upon. Unfortunately, I had somebody who didn’t seem to know that Rome was never built in a day, because if he knew he would have done his best to improve upon what I left. When I came in, I met what Professor Gambo Laraba, my predecessor, had put in the blueprint of the Institute of Education, and I developed it to a sustainable level such that it was not only providing education to Nigerians but also generating income for the university. My successor’s years as VC, were years of what I like to refer to as years of the locusts. I think his mission was simply to come and destroy everything that I tried to do to raise the profile of the university. I will give you an example. I was told that a group of Americans came to the university and requested to establish a center of excellence in Medicine. They were actually debating whether to take it to Ibadan or Ghana, and a director in the ministry of health tried to convince them to carry out the project in Abuja because the university was pursuing a medical programme. They got to the university and the then VC, Professor James Adelabu was said to have received them coldly. It was a programme that would have generated no less than N70 million for the university. The people decided not to consider the University of Abuja and then they took the programme elsewhere. I think it eventually went to Ibadan, which was actually one of the areas of consideration.
At the preliminary stage of agriculture, we bided for Step B project and we got some grants to produce honey. I also had an agreement with the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) and they promised to make their laboratories available to our engineering students because no university in this world including Harvard and Oxford can stay without partnerships. My successor at the university could not sustain what I put in place until that project wound up. So I am saying that if the necessary efforts were made to sustain these programmes rather than orchestrated attempts to destroy them, we would not have heard all the controversies you just referred to. That’s why when I heard all the noises people were making about the courses which were not accredited by NUC, I just laughed.
University of Abuja could not hold convocation for seven years, why?
When I was there for five years, I held four convocation ceremonies. We even set February of each year as the date of convocation just like University of Ibadan has 17th of November as its convocation day whether or not the university is on strike because that was the founder’s day. The university was founded in January 1988 and we moved the convocation to February because January was a busy date. That was the decision and everything was done in a manner that was procedural and if the man who succeeded me had maintained that, there won’t be problem. But clearly he never did. I am happy that the new VC that was appointed after him was able to hold combined convocation for seven years after I left office and he has also made sure those inaugural lectures which I also brought to light were sustained.
What is your assessment of the present administration’s fight against terrorism and corruption?
I can close my eyes and follow President Buhari like a blind person over the war against corruption. I detest corruption as a person; I can never be involved in it. In fact, if I reflect on what positions I held in the past and realize that at any point in time I mismanaged or embezzled resources, believe you me, I will go back to the institution and return the money. But I have never been part of corruption even when I was head of department of political science in UDUS, dean of the faculty of social science and later deputy vice chancellor where I coordinated four faculties and the VC of University of Abuja and later as providence would have it, the pioneer VC of the Sokoto State University.
Corruption is what has brought this country to its present level of decadence. If you can fight corruption well, at least you have solved reasonable percentage of the country’s problems. So I think that the present administration should be given all the necessary encouragement and support that it deserves to carry on this crusade.