Adequate Funding Key To Growth Of Education — Prof. Akinwumi

Prof. Olayemi Akinwumi, a Distinguished Professor of History and Fellow of the Historical Society of Nigeria (HSN), is the Vice Chancellor (VC) of Federal University of Lokoja (FUL). Until his appointment as FUL VC in February, 2021, the erstwhile President of HSN was the VC (Academics) of the Nasarawa State University, Keffi.

In this interview, the FUL VC discloses how the university has been striving to be the best amidst a major challenge of funding. He also lamented the poor remuneration for lecturers, considering the great impact they are making in the growth and development of education in the country. Excerpt: How has it been since you assumed office as the Vice Chancellor (VC) of Federal University of Lokoja (FUL)? We are filled with happiness and joy that one has been able to change the narrative.



Let me give you a brief back­ground. Before we came in, the universi­ty had four faculties. But in the two new faculties – Education and Management programmes were introduced without resource verification.

This is not proper. And NUC frowns at it. So, it was when I came, I started the battle to do resource verification for those new programmes.

So, as at the time I became the VC, in a way I can say that we only have four fac­ulties in name and on paper. But the real commencement came with the steps I and my management team took to ensure successful resource verification for those programmes. Today, as we speak, we now have up to ten faculties in the university.

We have a College of Medicine or Health Sciences. We now have engineering. We have nursing.

We have added law. We have added Pharmacy. We equally added agric and new programmes under education and management.

And apart from that we have many institutes that we have created. They include Institute Gender Studies, Institute of Governance and De­velopment Studies. Actually, we should call it the Faculty of Multidisciplinary Studies.

We invigorated the Postgradu­ate School. We now have postgraduate programmes in collaboration with the National Institute of Legislative Studies. Our agreement with Federal Polytechnic Auchi to run some programmes togeth­er has been approved by NUC.

We now have programmes for distance learning. We have established the Centre for Dis­tance and E-learning. We have been able to achieve a lot in this direction since we came in, particularly in the area of securing accreditation for our academic programmes.

What about infrastructural devel­opment? Yes, in terms of infrastructure we are also doing all we can to give the school the best. Most of the infrastructure you see here today we brought them in. When we came in, we were determined to make a clear difference.

It was my time that we fully moved to the permanent site and be­gan full academic activities here in the Felele Campus with the relocation of all the faculties from the Adankolo Campus where we have the College of Health Sci­ences. We have done much to get support from the government and individuals. My PhD students supported us in road construction.

I went out seeking for these projects and seeking for assistance. The agric business centre was given to us. We started the zoo which was recently com­missioned.

Former Governor Babatunde Fashola had assisted the school with the rehabilitation of internal roads, when he was minister of works. Hon James Faleke, a member of the House of Rep­resentatives is one man that has really assisted the Federal University Lokoja. Most of the projects we got were through Faleke.

The stadium was through Faleke. The street lights and most of the build­ings were through Faleke. He has done much for us.

There are some projects that are under construction too. The Assem­bly hall and a lecture theatre under con­struction were also part of what we got from Faleke. Then the Faculty of Phar­macy building.

We got somebody (Alhaji Ahmadu Saleh, the Madaki of Lokoja) who built it and provided everything there. Construction of another lecture theatre by another person (Dr. Gladys Makoju).

We have the lawn tennis court here donated by the Commissioner for Finance in Kogi State. All of these we are able to seek. And as we move on, we are going to have more structures in this university than what TETFund is giving.

This is just a brief background of what we have done and what we are doing to take FUL to greater heights. What has been the major chal­lenge so far? The major challenge has been lack of funding. It’s so serious.

All these pro­grammes that we have, we need lecturers. What we have been doing is to engage many people on part time and we are paying them. So, inadequate funding is the main problem.

You talked about the issue of lec­turers. There is a recent report indi­cating that federal universities have been granted waivers to address the issue of staff shortage. How about that? It’s a welcome development.

Let’s see how it goes. What level of cooperation are you getting from your colleagues and members of the management team in the course of running the affairs of FUL? There is cooperation among us. I have a fantastic principal officers committee.

Fantastic one! We work together for the good of the university. We work together for the growth of the school. We are one big family.

Of course, sometimes you have this internal crisis. But we try as much as possible to resolve it amicably. There is obviously that cooperation.

My principal officers are 100% dedicated, very dedicat­ed and committed to the service of FUL. The working relationship among the principal officers have been very much cordial. In fact, nobody will know who is the Vice Chancellor amongst us.

We do things together all for the interest of the university. Superior argument prevails. On the issue of lack of funding, what are you doing as the VC to over­come this challenge? What I have done so far is to grow our Internal Generated Revenue (IGR).

Be­fore I became the Vice Chancellor, ther was nothing like IGR here. So, when I became the Vice Chancellor what I have been able to do is to establish a consul­tancy unit. The consultancy unit is tak­ing care of our business ventures.

And some of the money we have been able to get from that is what we are using to sta­bilize many things in the university. We now have a printing press through BOT. We also have a water factory through BOT.

We have many programmes, un­dergraduate programmes, part time programmes. And very soon we will start our micro-finance bank. This is what we have been doing.

You mean the school is working towards having its own micro-finance bank? Yes, we are working towards having our micro-finance bank. How soon is it being expected? By next year we should be able to have it. At the second edition of the Re­search Fair/Exhibition which you initiated last year, FUL’s Pro-Chan­cellor, Distinguished Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, spoke extensively on the importance of research, where he described research as the engine room of the knowledge economy.

What are you doing to improve on the research fair to use it as much as possible to advance, promote and advertise the institution? What I have in mind now is how we will bring many of the industries around to also come and display what they have while we are displaying ours, so that there can be a meeting point. The industries need us, we also need the industries. So, this is what we intend to work on in the next edition so that they will know what we are doing and we too will know what they are doing.

The issue of grants which the Governing Council Chairman, Ndo­ma-Egba also talked about. Like he rightly said, without grants there is no way you can effectively carry out research. What steps are you going to be taking in this regard? Well, this has to do with the individ­ual lecturers.

The grants are available. Application for it is what is missing. Many don’t know the approach to seek for the grant.

And that is why I’m trying to work with the Chairman, to have a big workshop for the purpose of assist­ing our upcoming lecturers and junior colleagues. We are going to organise a workshop very early next year, the first quarter of next year. Thirteen years after the Federal University of Lokoja came into ex­istence, what can you say about the quality of students that you have been graduating from here? How have they made this school proud? Yeah, thank you.

We are happy about what we are hearing about our students. They are really making us proud. For instance, our accounting students, we make sure that they participate in the ICAN programme before they graduate.

And many of them are ICAN certified even before they leave the university. We have encouraged many of them to do the programme. And I think they are making us proud.

The reports we are receiving from the field about the activities of our students are impressive. We are proud of them. We have some of our students who are footballers and have been registered outside the country.

And they are doing well. Relatively, it is still a young univer­sity but we are doing the best we can to lift it to enviable heights. Before long you will start hearing about FUL in a bigger way.

Our lecturers are trying a lot. They are doing all their best to put the students in proper shape and prepare them for the future. Where are you looking at taking FUL to at the end of your tenure which is less than two years from now? My vision from the day I took over as the VC of FUL, is to transform the insti­tution into a 21st Century University.

At least if we cannot reach the standard of the Harvard and co, we should be able to entrench the standard of a 21st century university. Knowing that this vision can only be achieved by constant availability of internet connectivity, we have made serious efforts in that direction and today our Adankolo College of Health Sciences is connected with the internet. You can go there and use it.

What we have in mind is to see that our programmes are ICT-driv­en. Our senate now operates paperless. FUL has fully embraced a paperless Sen­ate where you no longer need to carry correspondences in files about.

So, we are seriously working towards making FUL a 21st century university. Few months ago, new Governing Councils for tertiary institutions were constituted by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. And FUL has Distin­guished Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba as its Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council.

How do you see that development and how has the relationship of your manage­ment team been with him? We thank God for the appointment of a man like Senator Victor Ndoma-Eg­ba as our Pro-Chancellor. Immediately he was appointed, many of my friends started calling me to say you are a lucky man, you are a lucky man. And our inter­actions so far have shown that we are in­deed lucky to have him as our Pro-Chan­cellor and Chairman of the Governing Council.

We are very much convinced that with his support we are going to take the university to the next level. He is such a nice gentleman, an intellectual, influential and well-connected politician. Somebody who is not after the pocket.

It is what he is giving to the university that matters to him. We are really fortunate to have him. God has answered our prayer! So you feel very much comfort­able with him (Ndoma-Egba) as FUL Pro-Chancellor? Very, very comfortable! Look at the way he conducts our meetings.

The way he presides over the meetings. Before this time when we want to go for our meetings, I always have blood pressure. But now with the Distinguished Senator Ndoma-Egba, everybody is relaxed, no tension.

He is such a fantastic man. As an astute educationist and dis­tinguished scholar, would you say as a country we have taken education seriously, talking about the standard of education? As a country much has not been done in terms of promoting education and enhancing the standard of education. There are many things that have been abandoned.

Look at the issue of autono­my for example. The University should be able to bring any scholar from any part of the world to come here. In our days in the university we have foreigners teach­ing here.

You cannot do that now. See the salaries lecturers are receiving. Who will leave his country to come and teach here? Funding is inadequate.

We have not put in adequate funding in education. I think the Vice Chancellors should be commended. How they run the univer­sity with low funding.

Money is nowhere to be found. Government should take ed­ucation more seriously. Nigeria’s educa­tion standard needs improvement.

And adequate funding is very key. Do you foresee this present ad­ministration led by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu doing something meaningful about education? Yes, he has promised. And he has started with the NETfund which is very fantastic.

The attempt to remove univer­sities from IPPIS is also an indication that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is keen about the advancement of education in the country. With the way he is going, we hope to have a better education sector un­der his watch..