Eminent Nigerians, including legal icon, Aare Afe Babalola, (SAN), former Senate Leader in the 9th Assembly, Senator. Mohammed Gobir, and former Governor of Zamfara, Aliyu Shinkafi have called for concerted efforts, capable of ending rots in Nigerian universities, especially issues of certificate racketeering.
They identified proliferation, underfunding, and inconsistency in policies, as major causes of mess in the system, calling on all relevant authorities to be more alive to their responsibilities, by making education, a top priority, to change the narrative.
The trio, spoke last Friday when they met at the Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, ABUAD, during a familiarisation visit by the duo of Gobir, Shinkafi, and other top Nigerians, including some high echelons of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, on Babalola, who is the Founder and Chancellor of the University.
Welcoming the visitors, Babalola described recent media reports that over 107 private universities in Nigeria are involved in certificate racketeering as both disturbing and embarrassing, saying this would never have happened, if the Federal Government had been very decisive, as not granting operational licenses to proprietors who did not meet the required standard.
” For those who do not understand why ASUU is always on strike, please read my book.
” They gave over 62 reasons why they always go on strike, and mostly because the universities are underfunded. In many of our universities, the students use the nearest bushes as toilets.
” Going to my Engineering Department in this university, for instance, even the teachers, confessed that they have not seen the type of equipment I bought there.
” The same thing in Medicine and Pharmacy, the teachers said they have only learned them in books”, Babalola lamented.
Continuing, he said, ” We are joking too much about education in this country, whereas, education is very important. The importance can also be seen in me.
” But for the quality education which I acquired, through University of London correspondence, I would have died long ago. Quality education ordinarily takes away ignorance from people.
” Anything you want to do in life, if you have a quality education, you can achieve it. We are playing with quality education in this country, and this is worrisome.
” Let us try to update, and improve what we have in public universities. Nothing can be more unpleasant than a situation where it is reported that 107 private universities face a probe for degree racketeering. That will never happen in ABUAD. I knew what I went through to get my license to start this university.
” The NUC people came to this place to first see the land, to see the drawing, and to see the first sets of buildings.
“They told me then that until you have graduated your first set, we will not allow you to start certain degrees. For instance, they said we can’t start Medicine until after 10 years, and now it sounds funny and unbelievable that some are establishing universities to start Medicine, even when they don’t have buildings”.
According to him, “The laws are there. I believe that whatever our national lawmakers say in the parliament, should be subject to the NUC law on how you can establish a university”.
Babalola vowed to take this up with the Minister of Education, saying, ” I am going to write him a letter”.
Corroborating him, Shinkafi who said ABUAD, under Babalola had set a good example of how a University should operate and function, noted that the priority of government should be to improve the existing universities, rather than dissipating energy on establishing more, without considering the infrastructure and facility deficit in them.
” We are going to join you in this struggle. Even some of the older universities need to be funded. The ASUU strikes are caused by a lack of proper funding for the universities.
” We can see that the lecturers here are highly skilled. So other universities should learn from this. There is no basis for establishing more universities without taking care of those already in existence, as well as their lecturers”, he said.
On his part, former governor Gobri, who explained that the team came to acquaint themselves with activities in ABUAD, noted that the ranking of the university, both in the country and globally, was a very good advertisement for Nigeria in itself.
” Quality is very important in anything, and that is why we have come to ABUAD to acquaint ourselves with what is happening here. We have gone around the institution to see things for ourselves, and we are proud to say the achievements so far by the institution, are commendable.
” Even when you talk about medical tourism, there are lots of things that we saw at the Multi-System Hospital, owned by ABUAD, particularly the issue of kidney transplants. The issue of acute kidney transfer is the reason why many people go to India, Germany, and Dubai. If people have the experience of what is happening here, there will be no need to travel to those places, and will also save the pressure on the Naira.
” The much you are doing in the hospitals is supposed to be made public for Nigerians to know. I will discuss with some people in the National Assembly to see what could be done to assist the university.
“I believe some of this information will be passed to them, especially the current Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele who took over from me, so they can look into them”, he said.
Earlier in her welcome remarks, ABUAD Vice Chancellor, Prof.Smaranda Olarinde, said the University and her students had remained consistent yearly winners of laurels, both at home and abroad, due to its uniqueness.
Highlights of the visit included the conferment of honorary Ambassadorial status of the University and its Business School on the ex-Senate leader and the former governor.
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