Why we retain certificates of lecturers studying abroad – VC

You were appointed VC in 2015. How would you describe the university today?  The emphasis at university is for students to earn some experience through entrepreneurial development. When I came in, there was only one faculty that had full accreditation, and that was the Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences. Today, all the faculties have […]

You were appointed VC in 2015. How would you describe the university today? 

The emphasis at university is for students to earn some experience through entrepreneurial development. When I came in, there was only one faculty that had full accreditation, and that was the Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences. Today, all the faculties have been fully accredited except three programmes which are History and International Relations, Mass Communication and Marine Engineering. The National Universities Commission (NUC) team is coming between October and November for that accreditation, which I believe we would definitely have fully. When I came in, the student population was 3,000, by the end of this year I think we will have up to N10, 000. We have been involved in steady recruitment of students and what we have done in the university is that we don’t over admit so that we can meet the carrying capacity.

 So far everything in the university is happening as planned in terms of salary payment and projects. There is no project in the university that has not met the required standard, including buildings. The governor is the visitor and the governing council which is headed by a focused technocrat has been supportive in building structures. We have very pragmatic and focused members; this is one governing council that the chairman is donating postgraduate hostel to the university; the project is on-going. Councils come to take money but here, this governing council donates.

How is the university’s relationship with the state government? 

 We have very good working relationship to the level that when we get our school fees, because the major source of internally generated revenue is the schools fees, we write to government on the projects we want to execute with the IGR. We don’t give contracts. When I came in, I met with the officials of the works, physical planning, engineering and other technical units, and we set up a committee on projects headed by the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Academics, who is an engineer. We told them to give us designs and drawings and we go to the open market, buy whatever we are looking for and build. This administrative block was built through that process; direct labour by staff and students, not by contracts. It has helped us to manage our limited resources.

As of today, we have 7,300 students and we have an admission quota of 2,500 and I am projecting 10,000 students by the end of the year. We are charging N53,000 per student and we are prudent in spending. We have been able to put so many things in place. The governor also supports us. Once in a while, the government will release funds to augment how far we had gone. 

When I came in, accreditation started from Faculty of Agriculture and faculties in Obio Akpa campus. The government had built all the internal roads, you are aware that we have the pinnacle theatre and the mass communication complex which has the radio/ television, and print media integrated. We have an integrated farm and as we speak, we produce our palm oil and we produce our feed meal for birds. We have already bought machinery for producing fish meal; just one or two components of feeds are remaining. The feed of fish floats, so they have to apply a different technology called pulverizer (which we have already ordered). All our students of agriculture carry out their industrial training on campus.

What has happened to the pioneer staff sent abroad for training in line with the institution’s original plan of a science and technology based institution?  

The university was for science and technology as we are all aware but then, we discovered that university access has become limited over the years in other programmes. So one campus is still science and technology based while the Obio Akpa campus is for Arts, Social and Management Science and Agriculture. We are putting machinery in place to get back those staff members that are now going outside the country for further training. For those that were sent out before now, due diligence was not taken into cognizance in the process of sending them out. “Now, even if we are sending people out through TETFund in synergy with other institutions and other bodies, before you leave, we collect your original certificates, NYSC certificate and other things so that if you choose to abandon them, you are on your own”. 

Out of the over 50 people that left, 60 per cent of them never came back; some came back, collected their entitlements and disappeared. We have talked about it at the governing council meeting, written to the governor about it but you cannot stop anybody; that is why the university is a universal place. So what you should rather ask is, “are you retaining people here”, “do you have the welfare, the facilities, and the infrastructure to maintain your staff”, and “are they happy that they are here”? And the answer is yes. As a matter of fact, we are encouraging them. 

In the university setup, research and development is important. We are encouraging our staff to go into research and develop the place. I don’t think those on ground are going back. That is why we send people now to only Britain because in the USA and Canada, you can’t stop them, they fuse into the system and there is nothing you can do about it. 

How have you been able to develop and provide world-class experience for students and lecturers in science and technology?  

The university has entered into international collaborations with other universities. We have collaboration with Tempo University; we recently (it is not up to one month) signed the MOU for mechanical engineering, civil engineering and computer science. We are speaking with Bradford University, UK. Texas A & M University is the headquarters of marine programme in the world and if we must have marine engineering, we must synergize with the people on ground in such programmes. 

Two years after you have graduated your students, you are entitled to start a postgraduate programme. We just submitted a proposal for 78 postgraduate courses and are waiting for a call for resource verification. We have brought in some facilities to upgrade the kind of machineries we have on ground.

To drive these collaborations, we have established a smart classroom in conjunction with a foreign university. Now if a lecture is to hold by 11am in that university, we can sit here by 4pm and discuss in real time with the lecturer there. At the end of the day, you discover that what you are looking for out there is already here.

 The university is said to strip students naked during admission screening process, is it designed to check cultism?  

What we do here is that we do not give cultism the opportunity to manifest. As a university, we put machineries in place to curb excesses with the local community, the Obio Akpa community. We work with the vigilante group, we announce to students to stay where they are after 10pm. If you are on campus, stay on campus, if you are outside; stay there so that we do not have refraction with the community. If someone is coming to school and has a tattoo of arts on his shoulder, we will not admit the person and we write to JAMB that the person was disqualified because of dangerous tattoo. If you ask, I will say yes, that is why we are stripping them because prevention is better than cure, and we won’t stop doing it because it has paid off. The prevalence of cultism here is very limited.