UNIABUJA’s problems deeper than programme suspension – Former VC

In this interview with JOHN ALECHENU, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Abuja, Prof. Nuhu Yakub, says the problems of the institution are deeper than the recent suspension of programmes in three faculties.

The Federal Ministry of Education recently suspended the faculties of Medical Sciences, Veterinary Medicine and Engineering in UNIABUJA for lack of accreditation, what do you think happened?

I have actually prepared a 12 -paged memorandum which I sent to the Minister of Education and she also invited me and we sat down with the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, the Director of Tertiary Education and the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission. We looked at the issues, I gave a detailed account of what transpired. For anybody to say I just came and started the programmes by fiat is an insult.

It also betrays a lack of intellectual honesty for people (not) to admit that procedures were followed. For instance, when I came for the interview for the position of vice-chancellor, they asked me what vision I had for the university –before I came, I did a study of what the environment was and discovered that there was only one faculty of science and that faculty of science was only conducting a few range of science courses: Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics, Biological Sciences, Computer Science and Statistics, these were the courses and the science ratio situation of the university then was 18 per cent science and 82 per cent arts.

By the Federal Government’s standing order to universities as it were – conventional universities which the University of Abuja is; should have a ratio of 60-40 in favour of the sciences.

Luckily, I got appointed as a political scientist of repute, this is what I teach my students- especially those of them who nurse political ambitions- when you have a manifesto which you used in appealing for votes; when you get into office, you have a moral obligation to implement that manifesto upon which the people have given you their votes.

You were reputed to have started all these faculties including Agriculture on the same day. Is this true?

By the law setting up the University of Abuja, the function of the Senate is the establishment, control of faculties, colleges, departments, schools, institute and other teaching and research units in the university and the allocation of responsibilities and branches of learning. Section 6 of that law, which was enacted in 1992 by the Federal Government, setting up  programmes is the function of the university Senate not Nuhu Yakub contrary to the views some of the misinformed and clearly academically dishonest lecturers or so-called professors of the University of Abuja, will want the public to accept.

But you were the VC and should take responsibility for any action taken by the university.

Agreed. As the VC, I came with the ideas but the moment these programmes were taken to the Senate and Council and both approved of their existence, they are no more my programmes, they became  the programmes of the university.

When I came to the university, over 70 per cent of the programmes had interim accreditation status but I made sure that we got all the programmes except education where we had a problem. Law had no accreditation even from Law School, I got accreditation from Law School and in addition to that, the school authorities increased our quota from 80 to 120, this was an achievement. This is what people should ascribe to me. The things that were not possible in the University of Abuja, I made them possible.

What specifically did you do to get these programmes running in the beginning?

I recruited lecturers who had made their mark. For instance, when we started the medical programme, Prof. Otubu, who is a renowned gynaecologist was the pioneer provost, nobody will doubt his academic achievements, I also had Professor Salako who started engineering and then I brought  in a Professor of Veterinary Medicine from Usman dan fodiyo University Sokoto- Ajabuna, who has also proved his mettle because he was appointed Professor before coming here. Most of the people who came to the university to start these programmes were professors of many years standing. In fact, the Professor for Engineering was retired from FUT Minna as DVC. These are people who made their marks and when they came, we put heads together. I am a social scientist, they were advising me on what to do and we were doing them.

For instance, before I left, the medical students had started using cadavers; they were more or less going to the clinic because we had a unit in the teaching hospital in Gwagwalada where they had their practical.

The Faculty of Agriculture, as young as it was- because they barely existed for three years before I left office. They bided for the World Bank Step B grant and they got hundreds of thousands of dollars and we proposed that we were going to start the production of honey bee. We started selling. We also made proposals for ICT, but after I left all these things were left to die.

With the benefit of hindsight, what will you say is the problem of the university?

It’s a question of leadership. The issue of the suspension of the programmes in UNIABUJA is simply the issue of the competence of leadership and the morality of leadership, what even baffles me is that this was the same person  we planned these things together. As a matter of fact, because we competed for the same office at the same time, he came with a proposal to set up the same programmes. Everything that happens in a university setting is collegial. It is team work; nobody can take absolute credit for it. In fact, what I expected him to do was to build on the foundation already laid.

Sadly, the university at the moment is not only a question of the suspended programmes. Let the National Universities Commission carry out the accreditation of all the programmes in the university even those ones for which I got accreditation you will discover that they cannot meet accreditation status now.

The bottom is so heavy with graduate assistants, Lecturers 1 and Assistant Lecturers such that when the NUC comes to accredit programmes, they are going to look at the quality of staff, this situation will lower the marks these programmes will score in the end, they will also be denied accreditation.

You also talk about partnerships …

In modern university system, there is no university, not even Harvard that can go it alone. Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, MIT cannot go it alone. That is why top universities in the world go for partnerships because they also know that in the third world countries, there could be outstanding professors who might not even be interested in going out, they could afford them by saying come on sabbatical leave. Come and have a short adjunct appointment to boost their image. I established such partnerships across the various disciplines. For engineering, I had partnerships with FUTO Minna, for them to have their practical training, all these were stopped when this man came on board. I went to Florida Agricultural University to establish linkages with the  faculty of medicine, when I left office I left the university with not less than 20 such partnerships both internally and externally but none is working now.

There was also an issue about UNIABUJA owning radio stations, can you please clarify this?

I approached the Open Society Initiative for Africa, they gave us radio equipment to enable us to start a radio station since we were the only institution by law until the setting up of the Open University of Nigeria, we were the first university by law that was asked to provide distance learning programmes for people who did not have an opportunity to go to school to embark on their working career. OSIWA approved the sum of $75,000 dollars, but I told them since they had approved this sum for us, I did not want to be involved in the bidding process.

They brought the equipment; we installed everything, the only thing that was left before we went on air was the issue of tiling the floor where this equipment was installed. That was what I left, we went to Senate, Senate approved that the station be called Excellence Radio Station, I went to the NBC and got a licence for this station. Let me tell you as I am talking to you now, the radio is not on air despite the installation of the equipment, for three years, the equipment is just lying fallow. Even the licence I obtained from NBC has been revoked because NBC said it could not give licence that cannot be utilised.

I also spent a lot of money installing Internet facilities on campus. Will you believe that the staff of the Computer Centre have nothing to do, they just sit down in the office and when it’s time they go home. ASUU in its own memo to the Minister of Education used this as one of the sore points in asking that this man be removed from office because of ineptitude.

There is no Internet facility that is working in the university, it is there in the visitation panel report. The university is completely cut off from the rest of the world as far as Internet and computer facilities are concerned,  the university is completely in the back waters. That is just the plain fact. Why it is that three years after I left office, the university has not been able to hold convocations? The students have been graduating, how can they have convocation when the Senate does not meet? For a period of time- eight months, ASUU also mentioned it, there was no Senate meeting, what  type of university is that? When I was there,  the Senate was not only meeting every month, but because of the robustness of the discussion in Senate, we set aside two days every month to hold Senate meetings. Attendance was always full, people would  have things to come and say.

I went to the Senate one time, a Senator asked, ‘I understand in your school it is now money for admission’ I said well, distinguished Senator, I am no longer there. I don’t know what is happening and you are not the only person who has mentioned this issue of money for admission.

These are the issues that a person who is bothered about the academic activities at the University of Abuja should consider and not just stopping at oh, they have suspended four faculties.

CULLED FROM PUNCH NEWSPAPER