We learnt our lessons from the 49 lecturers’ saga – Unilorin VC

What are your projections for the institution in the next 40 years? Right now we have set up a few units within the university and my prayer is that in the next 40 years, those units of projects would come to fruition so that the people would have started feeling the impact of having the […]

What are your projections for the institution in the next 40 years?
Right now we have set up a few units within the university and my prayer is that in the next 40 years, those units of projects would come to fruition so that the people would have started feeling the impact of having the University of Ilorin status within their domain. We just set up a renewable energy centre which when it comes to fruition, should be able to address our energy need in the country, in terms of augmenting what PHCN is able to do and curb desertification that is encroaching our land, as it will also make the environment friendlier; there will be less pollution while cooking will be done under more conducive environment.
The next centre we just set up is called the L2P – it is a laboratory which will help in translating all our research findings into products that could be used by everybody and, of course, when we do that it will translate into making the university more buoyant financially. It will also bring development and innovation closer to the people so that everybody around should be able to use such innovations with the hope of bettering their lives; making life more comfortable and much easier.
In the next 40 years, more research funds would be made available to researchers to be able to refine whatever they are doing so that they can turn up better products for people. This, I hope, would come through the revenue that will be generated through these inventions and, of course, all our investments in terms of tree plantation, palm oil plantation etc, so that there would be more money available to the University of Ilorin to carry out its exercises and get involved in more investments that will bring more money. I foresee a more buoyant University of Ilorin in a few years to come; a university that would be able to make more impact in the society and make more money for itself. 

            
The university asked for capital vote for its projects. To what extent has the federal government responded to this?
On capital projects, we all know that Nigeria is undergoing a tough time in terms of funds availability, as such we are also cutting down our capital projects to a reasonable size that will not embarrass us in our dealing with the contractors. We are very careful in embarking on capital projects for which the fund comes from the federal government.

What are the immediate challenges of the institution that require urgent government intervention?
The university needs more money. I think that is the usual thing because we have, in our plans, a few projects that we need to execute. For instance, we want a self-sell laboratory which costs some money because self-sell research is the state of the art research that needs a separate infrastructure, as well as the equipment to drive it.
Right now we have three of our staff who are in the United States of America to improve their skills and before they come back, I need to put two things in place so that the skills they acquired will not evaporate.     
 

What is your take on capital punishment being proposed for corrupt leaders?
It is something we have to look at more carefully. We should look at examples of countries that have instituted that and know the aftermath.

Have people learnt anything from it, because when you talk of punishment, the aim of punishing somebody is to allow such person and others learn from his mistake?

But if there are other forms of punishment that will allow him the second chance, I think it would be better.
Such person should be allowed to surrender all the loots and then be imprisoned. Those are possible alternatives, but if you don’t collect the loot and you kill him, he just transfers the loot to the next set of people who may learn little or nothing but rather enjoy what is left for them. If you collect the loot and still kill, that will be double jeopardy. It is a very dicey situation that the country needs to look at very well and defines the aim of any step that it wants to take and then maps out the best road map.

What is the selling point of Unilorin that makes students rush for it and other institutions aspire to be like it?
The selling point of the University of Ilorin is our academic stability because it is only when you are stable that you can sit down and think positively on what you want to do, where you want to be and how to get there, not in a situation where you don’t know what will happen tomorrow – maybe there is a strike – as a staff you want to rush what you have to do and all that. Here, because of academic stability, we have been able to attain our own standard.

What is the most challenging period that the university has experienced and what is its happiest moment? 
The challenging period was when we had the 49 staff issue. Everybody was touched but I am sure we all went through and survived it and are the better for it now. Those 49 people have a great experience and are now better citizens. Quite a number of them have left the school and I am sure they are well behaved where they are now and the Unilorin they left also learnt some good lessons. The best time which I look forward to will be at the end of my tenure when I will have a clear picture of the whole thing, but right now I am getting a good experience in what I am doing.   

  
No doubt Unilorin has established itself as a stable institution. Is this because the school has been meeting the demands of staff or is it that the kind of unionism that affected other universities has been criminalized here?
Ninety percent of us here are married and you hardly discuss marriage issues with a third party. A couple that does not come forward does not mean that they do not have problems but they calmly devise a means of settling their quarrels in-house so that by the time they go out, they will be smiling to everybody, but right inside, probably, they had just finished quarrelling. The union leaders here have become very constructive and the management has been very open to them.

When it comes to conflict between union and management, what are the challenges?

It is either there is no water, no light or dirty environment.       
There is the insinuation that the University of Ilorin is fast becoming one for Ilorin and Kwara people alone.

How are you coping with this to ensure that every part of the country benefits in its admission quota?
It is an insinuation that we have to really educate ourselves on because the University of Ilorin is a federal government institution that has the rules and regulations governing admission by JAMB and we make sure that at faculty level, those that are going to implement that adhere strictly to the JAMB rules and regulations. There is equal opportunity for everybody irrespective of where they come from. In fact, the University of Ilorin is one of the few universities that pride themselves of having representation from all the states of the federation in terms of employment or admission. Let us disabuse our minds from such insinuation. For example, our admission quota for Medicine is just 150 candidates for a whole class and when you share that among the 36 states each state gets probably five or four and when we have 10 people with 230 which is our minimum for medicine, the college will then take the best four among the 10.
The college may take somebody with 230 from Osun and leave somebody with 236 from Oyo because there are other candidates who scored higher than that from Oyo. Because of that students will start asking questions. JAMB says if the quota is not followed accordingly, we will end up training doctors only from one state and before you realize it, the country will not be stable because you have greater manpower from one state of the federation than the others. That is how we practise our quota system. Of course, we have merit, educational advantage and catchment areas. There are other variables that come into play when it comes to selecting people.

What is the status of the sugar research of the university?     
Work is ongoing on it and I think we have two projects there. One is the laboratory and offices and the other one is the green house which has been completed and the offices are now at an advanced stage

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There is a call for the Minister of Education to come from the tertiary institution. What is your take on this?
What we need is somebody who has the interest of education in mind irrespective of his background. We have had a minister of education who was from the academia but who disappointed the system, while we have also had somebody who is not from the academia but who really gave it the best. To me it doesn’t matter where he comes from as long as he has the interest of the sector at heart. That is what will propel the educational sector to greater heights.

There is the allegation that Unilorin admits more students than it can manage only for the institution to kick them out after the second  year. How true is this?   
The insinuation is not true and that is why we screen them thoroughly. As much as possible we try to monitor everything during the post-UTME test and most of our activities here are computer-based, so if you are not computer literate it is likely that such person will have challenges. And then you get some younger students who become carried away once they are in school, they forget why they are here with the euphoria of being an undergraduate and take some decisions that can be detrimental to their studies.
Usually the first semester is what destabilizes students. Students meet challenges on the way and once a student fails a course, two or three, the university advises him to go for another course and if that cannot be done, such a student would be asked to leave, especially when  his GP is below 1.50. We do not do that intentionally.

What has been the impact of the university on the host community in the last 40 years?     
We have come a long way. We started from the mini campus when the university was right in the middle of the community and I think that has created a great awareness and rapport between the school and community. We moved to the permanent site, even though it is a bit far from the centre but we still keep in touch with our community through our advocacy projects, like the secondary school near the university.
We have designated secondary schools that our staff patronize such as for their teaching practice and we donate books to the schools and use them as our pilot project in some instances. In ensuring that they feel the impact of the school, there are some categories of staff that the federal government designated to be enjoyed by the host community. We participate actively in the community activities; we make our presence known and they ask us for assistance sometimes and where we can afford such request, we respond positively. I think the community is feeling our impact and we are also employing local people for our plantations and we hope that by the time the plantations mature, they will also be part of those that will help us to process and be agents, if they want to purchase some of those things.
When I came here about three years ago I promised to pursue and solve the problem of accommodation and I am happy to say that since our campaign started we have had reasonable responses. We have four or five entrepreneurs that responded and are putting up some edifices to accommodate students. The student’s accommodation is improving and we have more people now on campus. Come October we might likely have more and the private hostels will be commissioned and we will be able to take more on board. Plans are still on to have more because we have people both within and outside Nigeria wanting to come and put up structures that will accommodate more students.

What’s your take on having a minimum of a university degree as qualification for those seeking political appointments in Nigeria?
I subscribe to it because when you look at the House of Representatives, Senate and the state houses of assembly they are passing laws that will eventually affect all of us and we need people that can think deeply and positively, so that they can pass laws that will make life easy for all of us.
Quite a number of them do have committees, which means we need to have people who are educated so that when they are talking about a university they can comprehend what is being discussed. A university degree, irrespective of what you read, is supposed to give you that mind-set of being able to listen to issues, analyse them and look at the wider aspect before contributing. And unless you have somebody who has that basic qualification, there is every tendency of missing the point.