Nigerians, Come Out, Help ABU
By Kenneth Oboko
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Shehu Usman Abdulllahi, vice-chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, has never hidden his determination to leave the university better than he met it. Since May 25, 2004 when he assumed the position of helmsman of the institution, Abdullahi has brought a lot of positive changes to the university. But the 57-year-old veterinary surgeon is not fulfilled yet. In this interview with Kenneth Oboko, assistant special projects manager, Abdullahi talks about the challenges faced by educational institutions in Nigeria, his new plans to give the university a face-lift among other issues. Excerpts:
Newswatch: Would you say that ABU as at today has met the objectives of its founding fathers for setting it up?
Abdullahi: In a way, yes. Of course, there are problems but regarding the philosophy behind the establishment of the university, I think the institution’s objective has, to a large extent been met. The founding fathers of ABU, particularly, the late Ahmadu Bello, the Sarduana of Sokoto, who was then the Northern premier, wanted a university that is of world class standard, a university that would provide education to people irrespective of their belief, ethnicity or religion, including people from outside Nigeria, so that we could have a good mix from which we could have the best that would enable us realise our mandate in the area of teaching, research and community services. And to that extent, the cosmopolitan nature of ABU is a proof of this fact. ABU is cosmopolitan in outlook. I do not know of any other university in Nigeria that looks like ABU in terms of the diversity of people - staff and students. So to us, and the fact that we have produced a lot of alumni who are in important positions, who have contributed and are still contributing greatly to the development of this country. We believe that we are rooted to realising our objectives.
Newswatch: I noticed some new buildings here on campus. I also saw many dilapidated ones within the university. What is the current position of things in terms of structures?
Abdullahi: ABU, I must say has grown so big over the years. This is obvious in the level of infrastructure in the university: new faculties, new departments, new facilities and so on. But because of poor funding of universities over the years, these structures have suffered in terms of low maintenance and, so, some of them are already dilapidated. The hostels for instance, you will see that they look very dilapidated. Some of the academic blocks too don’t look as good as they should. You also find some lecture theatres that are yet to be completed and so many other problems. Essentially, like any other first generation university in Nigeria, what we have is huge infrastructure but maintenance is such a big problem.
Newswatch: There is this belief in some quarters that funding is a major problem in Nigerian universities. Do you agree with this?
Abdullahi: Of course, I do agree. I am one of the VCs that has been complaining that indeed our universities are not well funded the way they should. The federal government which funds the universities have so many other institutions of higher learning to cater for and, of course, other competing areas under its jurisdiction. Therefore, it will be out of place for one to expect that the government would fully fund the 27 universities that we have in this country under the federal government. What we are saying is that education should be given priority at least for a period of time. You can pay more attention to education than other areas that are competing with it. For instance, we know that for over thirty years, some countries like Malaysia spent over 30 percent of their budget annually on education and now they are reaping from what they invested. So if we could do that, even if it is for twenty years, get some of the universities to reach a certain standard, I think that will be better than just spending money on education in general. We will really be making a difference in those universities. But I understand that Mr. President recently decided that in line with the original mandate of ETF, more attention should be paid to higher education than primary, secondary and other sub-sectors of education. Which means that a couple of universities will hopefully be focused on and the standard will be brought up much closer to world standard than what we presently have. So I think that the decision has to be taken that these universities need to be up graded to a certain level. This is why we cannot be part of the world ranking of universities and we cannot dream of that if funding does not improve. You have seen it yourself, you have seen how the structures are and if you enter the lecture theatres, you will even see worse things.
Newswatch: If we agree that federal government alone cannot fund all the universities, are you looking for alternative means of funding?
Abdullahi: Well, in ABU, we have really been looking outwards for funding. For instance, recently, Mac Arthur Foundation provided 2.4 million dollars to us to improve our library, our teaching capacity and also most importantly to improve our ICT infrastructure on the campus. So this is very good money and we are utilising it effectively. We are hoping to get more funds like that because if we continue to rely on capital allocation for universities as provided by government, we are not likely to expand or even maintain what we have. So these are some of the sources we are looking at to get more funding and, of course, we are planning to launch an endowment fund through which we believe we will get some money and that money will be used for what we really need a lot of funds for. We believe that, come November 15th this year, God willing, we will launch this endowment fund and that will be another source of funding apart from government allocation.
Newswatch: How much are you targeting from this endowment fund?
Abdullahi: We are looking at approximately N100 billion naira and we believe we will make it because we have a lot of alumni, about half a million alumni all over the world. We also have people in influential positions that can influence our getting this money. For instance, Mr. President, who is an alumnus of this university, is most likely to help the university. He has already agreed to come for the launching. He is coming to host his friends to assist us. We also believe that corporate bodies will contribute to the launching because they are using our graduates in most of these companies, banks, oil companies etc. So I believe that we will get something substantial. But whatever we get, we are going to use it very judiciously and also according to our needs.
Newswatch: You said "according to our needs." What are these needs?
Abdullahi: Quite a number of areas. Of course, you know, we are now into modern learning and techniques of learning, what we call e-learning and we are going to deploy part of that money to improve the way we deliver our teachings through electronic means such as internet. And this will take a lot of money. Remember, I did mention that Mac Arthur donated money to us but that is for infrastructure but e-learning will require a lot of money because every lecturer in this university will have to prepare his/her lecture which will be on the net so that students can access them and we will also like to do distance learning to people away from us, so that we can teach them from here. So this is one of the most important areas.
The other areas include the provision of electricity or energy. We still face problems even when the university tried to improve electricity supply through the power station that was established in the university. But we still have problems with that. So solar energy or other sources of energy will have to be used to improve the energy supply. Because even if you have the e-learning facilities without electricity, you cannot utilise them.
Another area is that of lecture theatres, we are very much in need of them. We believe that a lot of funds will go into the provision of additional lecture theatres so that the students will be comfortable and the lecturers will be able to deliver lectures in a conducive environment. And then, of course, in the area of infrastructure too; the buildings that are dilapidated, the roads are bad and more importantly is that of supply of water. We have a dam that has silted over the years. These are some of the areas we intend to deploy money into.
Newswatch: Are you carrying your alumni along on this very project?
Abdullahi: Indeed we are. In the past three years, we have been mobilising our alumni all over the country and indeed outside the country. At the moment we have well over 20 state chapters including Abuja. And in these chapters, we have alumni that are organized. We know where they are and who they are, and we have been discussing with them. We have a website where they can register and the effort continues because we have some states that are yet to organise themselves. So we are happy with that aspect and even if we don’t complete it within my tenure, whoever is taking over from me will be able to build upon it. So the alumni anywhere in the world are playing a big role in the funding of the university. And some of these alumni are very important people-some governors, ministers, even Mr. President himself. So we are comfortable here and we will continue to mobilise them so that we can work with them.
Newswatch: Apart from the launching of this proposed endowment fund, is there anything the alumni association has done for the university?
Abdullahi: Indeed a lot of the chapters and this will surprise you, particularly in the southern part of the country including Rivers and Lagos, they have contributed immensely in terms of provision of equipment and money to the university, and other state chapters are also picking up. We believe that after some time, we will be able to systematically organise them and get them to start something. But so far a lot of them are meeting some of our important needs particularly in ICT and laboratory equipment.
Newswatch: There is this growing concern on agriculture and food crisis. What role do you think universities can play, maybe through research, to agricultural development in Nigeria?
Abdullahi: Well, I am glad you mentioned agriculture because I happen to be from an agric area. And I want to also tell you that ABU has the best agricultural setup in the country as a university. We have a faculty of agriculture; we have a faculty of veterinary medicine for livestock; we have an institute of animal production; we have an institute of agricultural research and we have an institute that takes care of extension. In other words, if you develop a new technology in any of these areas, the institute will now take the technology to the farmers. So, that arrangement is one of the best in the world and it is through this arrangement that the university has developed a lot of technologies in agriculture. Nearly every technology, simple and complicated, within the northern parts of the country came from ABU. Infact, agriculture is our number one area of excellence. So, we believe that we have a lot of role to play in this and again, it depends on funding because we cannot do much research without funding. But happily within the past two years, we have noticed that government has been paying a lot of attention to research in agriculture. And now a lot of our researchers, a lot of the professors are now engaged in research and we are glad to say that something is coming out of that. So we have a role to play, because with research we can increase production and that is the way you can meet your food security and export food to neighboring countries. So we believe that with two or three institutes related to agriculture, we have a big role to play in ensuring food security in this country and I think we are doing that. What we need is additional support from government in terms of funding and collaboration. On our part we are making effort to collaborate with international organisations and international donor agencies.
Newswatch: Is ABU in any collaborative efforts with corporate bodies in Nigeria?
Abdullahi: Frankly, we don’t liaise as much as we would like to, but we do collaborate with a few banks. They came here and built some facilities for us. Effort was also made at one time by First Bank to establish a professional chair in agronomy. But I must say that the interaction between the university and corporate bodies is very limited. To us, it is understandable because industries are struggling to survive in this country and to start talking about collaboration, about research, may not make much meaning to them. But we are making effort, certainly we believe this endowment launch will bring us together because some of them will be part of it and have shown interest in working with us so that we can produce graduates that will be useful to them. That way, they also will benefit from the university. But at the moment, there is very little collaboration.
Newswatch: Concerning the forthcoming endowment fund launch, what are you asking Nigerians to do?
Abdullahi: I expect Nigerians to come and be involved, especially those who are ready to donate, to come and donate to a great cause, to a university that has a vision of playing an important role not only in the educational sector but also the economy of this country. We will prefer that they come and do something for us directly but whatever they give us, we are going to use judiciously and certainly, it is going to be of benefit to Nigerians and the country at large. We are particularly targeting our alumni; we will make it easier for them to donate whatever they want to, no matter how little, through banks that will be identified and publicised even if they may not be physically present. It will also be on our website, so that they can access it and donate to us whatever they want to give. But we will prefer that major donors will come and ask us what we need because we are going to make available our needs on that day. In other words, we are going to prioritise our needs according to importance like the e-learning that I talked about. If any company wants to take that up, fine. They don’t have to give us money. We are hoping that people will respond to that.
We have great hope in this endowment fund. We believe we can do that because for instance, we are in the process of becoming what you call a post graduate university. In other words, our emphasis will be more on post graduate training than undergraduate. That is not to say that we are not going to continue undergraduate training. We have over 70 undergraduate programmes, so we will continue. But we think that having been around for long, we should focus on producing graduates that will populate or be employed by other universities that are coming up everyday, especially the private and state universities. So that is the way we look at ourselves and certainly our vision and strategic planning is geared towards that. In other words, in about ten years time, ABU will be producing a lot of post graduate people who will now go to the universities, industries and wherever to add to the development of our country.
Another area is that we will like as much as possible to go back to our culture of research. Recently, government provided some money for research and that has sparked off a lot of competition in the sense that, if you want to get the money, you have to go into competition with other universities. We are happy to say that, of all the universities, only ABU got four projects approved. Even then we are looking at other sources of getting funds because we believe that we have a role to play in research. Agriculture is very important to us and we want to emphasise biotechnology in research. Biotechnology is really the thing now in terms of research, in terms of improving technology for production, particularly in agriculture. We have already established a centre for biotechnology research and training. We train and we also conduct research and we are trying to find funds from outside the country to run that centre because that is one area that we are very much comfortable with.
Then, we have also been a leader in the area of energy research, particularly nuclear energy. We have the only reactor in West Africa in our centre here. We are using it, for instance, in the area of agriculture, medicine, veterinary medicine and pharmacy at the moment. So we really need to get support particularly from the Atomic Energy Commission that was recently established, and we are in touch with them.
Newswatch: Apart from funding, what other major challenges does the university face?
Abdullahi: When we assumed administrative council in this university in May 2004, we found a university that was in major crisis. The university was closed down for one session and there was a lot of crisis between the unions, the administration and so on. So, one of the major challenges was to bring back a conducive environment which will enable teaching and learning to thrive, and that, we have done. But there are certain issues that we will not be able to solve. For instance, when we came, we discovered that there was a backlog of four years in terms of promotion of staff, which we were able to handle through our council. But now we have not had a council for almost a year and we cannot do promotion exercise without a council. We are also limited in the area of giving out contracts to provide facilities without the council. So these are some challenges. We believe that if we have a council on ground we should be able to handle them better.
|
