I’m Worried About Half-Baked Graduates

Professor Bamitale Omole, Vice Chancellor, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, speaks to TOKUNBO OLAJIDE on how he is running the institution, which recently turned 50

By June, you’d have spent two years as Vice Chancellor of this institution. How would you describe your experience?

It’s been very stressful, but at the same time exceedingly rewarding. I graduated from here. I studied History and finished in 1976. I came back for my master’s, then went to France for five years for another master’s and my PhD. I returned here around 1986 and since then, I’ve been part and parcel of this community. Being a VC is not a man’s making. It takes God’s grace to reach this top position. I’m the tenth VC of the school in 50 years. When I look back, it’s just like a dream. I grew up here. In the process, I became the head of department of International Relations; I was Dean, Faculty of Administration; then Deputy Director Office of Linkages and Sponsored Research. I was also a two-time member of the university’s Governing Council, which is the highest ruling organ. So, you could see that, as they say, I’ve paid my dues.

The last two years have been very engaging. In Ife, we have about 35,000 students and a workforce of about 5,000. You can imagine how much we pay in wages monthly. Anyone who is not hard-working cannot be VC of OAU.

The last two years, I can say, by and large, we are on track. And the evidence is everywhere on the campus. What we are trying to do is to ensure that OAU is a 21st Century university.

What is the evidence of this progress you are hinting at?

When we came on board, there were many abandoned projects. Many of them were at the foundation level, but now, virtually all is nearing completion. There is the Institute of Ecology donated by Barrister Jimoh Ibrahim; there is also the EDM (Environmental Design and Management) Building, which was abandoned since 1982. We are on top of the situation. There are many other infrastructural projects we’ve undertaken.

More importantly, we are hosting the NUGA (National University Games) in year June and we are working feverishly. There is a big, Olympic-size swimming pool that is almost completed. I thank the federal government for giving us the grant for this.

Besides infrastructure is the more important part – academics. When my team came on board, people were not going on seminars, trainings or conferences abroad. I believe the development of the intellectual capacity is even more important than the infrastructure. One of the things we’ve done is to pump money into that area. Lecturers now go abroad, even administrators, for various trainings. We believe that for Ife to compete effectively with other universities of the world, it must know what is happening beyond these shores. It’s paying off. That has translated into a new work ethic. Before, people were disillusioned and lackadaisical in their attitude to job.

The processing of students’ results has also improved greatly. Unlike a few years ago, when students struggled for weeks to get their results, lecturers now upload results online for students to view their results in good time and in the comfort of their rooms.

Also crucial is the area of research. I believe that a university is not a university until it is able to fully capture the research area. Thankfully, I have a Deputy VC, Academics, who is on top of that agenda.

Regarding research, Ife is the only university that won the cloud computing and telepresence grant worth about $3.5m from the World Bank. The project was driven by our Deputy VC, Academics. The World Bank is now installing the cloud computing and telepresence facility in the university. The facility ensures that you can use IT in real time to do many things at the same time. You can be performing your experiment here now, while your director of research or professor is in Harvard or Cambridge and be observing the process.

Also, we’ve been able to scale up our Internet bandwith from 39mbps to about 492mbps within the short period of our coming on board. This is what we had initially planned to achieve in five years. We are going even beyond our set targets, but we are not going to rest on our laurels.

Despite the progress you have made, there are still pressing issues that need to be addressed – infrastructure, for instance. How do you hope to solve congestion in some of your lecture halls and the water shortage on campus?

I make bold to say that Ife, in terms of infrastructure, is the best university in Nigeria. The issue of students outnumbering the carrying capacity of lecture theatres is not unusual in any university in Nigeria.

The problem is: the federal government requires us to admit a certain number of students, without adequate provision of the needed infrastructure. So, it’s not of our own making. Now in Ife, we are scaling down the number of our student intake. We are scaling down from the 6000 plus that we met when we took the reins to less than 5,000. And it’s unfortunate; I would have loved to take 10,000.

When you embark on a revolution, you don’t achieve it in one day. These things happened in the recent past, no doubt. But now we are feverishly constructing lecture theatres. As I said, the problem is externally-induced. The government is doing its best. It’s just that it is weighed down by many burdens.

Right now, in our halls of residence, we have about 12,000 students, which is just about a third of our population. The rest live off-campus. We are trying to reduce the number, so students can live in a conducive environment. But we are going to engage students on how to realise this and make it sustainable because students currently pay a paltry N2,050 per annum as rent.

To reduce the physical presence of students on campus, we are developing our centre for distance learning. With this concept, e-learning is now within your reach. There are universities in the UK that have about 80,000 to 100,000 students – you hardly see anyone on the school premises.

Our thinking is that in the next 40 to 50 years, the university, as you traditionally know it, would have become a museum or a cemetery. In other words, there would be no persons there, but there would be learning and the conduct of research through the Internet.

Funding is, no doubt, a key issue in the running of the university. How are you getting round the funding constraints?

Anyone that dreams of becoming a VC in any Nigerian public university would not only need the grace of God. He must be smart and be extremely creative in terms of generating funds independently.

I must admit the quantum of funds the federal government gives us has increased. But as it increases, our problems increase. Consequently, the ratio is asymmetrical. We have 128 universities in Nigeria today. Of these, 82 are owned by the federal government. Recently, they established another three, apart from the nine established last year. So, for any Vice Chancellor that wants to be successful, you have to link up with the private sector, with the alumni and the philanthropists. And for your investments, you must have a chairman or head that understands modern investment portfolio management.

We are into all of these. We have a big conglomerate – the OAU Investment Company. Under this, we have small holdings. We produce our own water, we bake bread, we have a petrol station and a hotel/conference centre. We continually try to improve upon these ventures so we can get some IGR, which we can use for some other things.

Our alumni has been of great help. One of them, Jimoh Ibrahim, gave us a N100m worth of structure – a new post-graduate building. We are deeply grateful to our alumni and donors, including Sir Aladekomo, Chairman of Chams, who gave us our water bottling plant. We request other alumni to join them in coming back to rebuild their alma mater.

The university turned 50 recently. There’s a notion out there that the school is no longer living up to its old glory – the same way graduates of many universities can no longer hold their own outside. What do you think?  

I don’t agree with that notion. Though I admit there are some gaps here and there. In my own time, while attending primary school, what we were taught was mere arithmetic and it was tough. Today, primary school pupils, in private schools, are taught computing. In some good secondary schools now, they talk about nano-technology and space computing. There was nothing like these during my own time.

I do not agree that the standard or the quality has fallen generally.  It’s a national question. It’s emblematic of the lack of vision and policy in some areas of our national life. Today, there is so much policy somersault in the education sector. Consequently, teachers are no more motivated. In the past, they were respected. But because of the contempt with which they are now treated, teachers no longer give their best. That has affected the quality of education, especially in the two core areas of Mathematics and English.  That’s why you hear an undergraduate uttering: “I goes to school yesterday.”

I admit the situation is nothing to cheer. The few that we see gives one great concern, but we should not generalise.

Ife, on its part, is trying in its own way to remedy the situation. We have what we call the Use of English for students. We realise that many of them are not proficient in the language.

But I do not agree that Ife students are no longer doing well outside. It will be unfair to compare the current crop of students with the old. The knowledge of the past cannot be compared with what we have now. Today we have rarefied knowledge in virtually every sphere.

The poor welfare of teachers is part of what gives rise to frequent strikes in universities. How have you managed labour relations in Ife?

I have been part of this system for long, so that has helped greatly in the amicable relationship that exists between the management and ASUU. I believe in the biblical injunction that a labourer deserves his wages. We try to be up and doing in taking care of the welfare of lecturers and other staff. We also dialogue with the unions and are open about the administration of our finances. We paste our income and expenditure on the Internet every month. We do that to guarantee transparency and avoid friction. And that’s why Ife is peaceful.

You say Ife enjoys relative peace labour wise, but whatever happened with the current face-off you are having with a section of the ASUU over alleged mismanagement of a certain N192m at the Institute of Agriculture Research and Training in Ibadan, a research institute of the university?

Let me first clarify that the Institute of Agricultural Research and Training, IAR&T, is not OAU. It is an institute and an affiliate. It is a child of three mothers. Financially it is responsible to the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Ministry of Finance; even administratively. But because IAR&T is a research institute, we concern ourselves with their promotion and the appointment of their director.

Around September last year, I got an anonymous petition alleging that the Director of the IAR&T, Professor B. A. Ogunbodede, embezzled N177 million. It was an anonymous petition and as a chief executive, I was concerned and alarmed. The first thing I did was to send it to the concerned director to comment and he gave his comment. Before long, several letters started flying from the IAR&T branch of ASUU, insisting the man was culpable. I set up a panel to investigate the claims. But as I was setting up my own panel, the Ministry of Agriculture responsible for disbursement of their finances, set up its own independent panel. So did the Ministry of Finance, which actually gives the funds. So there were three panels in all.

In the end, the panel set up by the Ministry of Finance came up with a report of its investigations. The letter was dated 15 November 2012 and endorsed by the Accountant-General of the Federation. The panel first criticised the petition on the grounds that it was written by a faceless person. But it confirmed that a certain N15 million was actually used for harvesting by the institute on the instructions of the director – and not embezzled as claimed by the faceless petitioners. The only issue was that the panel frowned at the fact that the director breached protocol in the “virement of the fund” before its use. The normal thing is for him to get permission, but because the director had an emergency in his hands – that is the urgency that the harvesting required – he disbursed the funds. The panel only said he “vired it to rescue the institute”, not that he stole it. That is for the Finance Ministry.

The Ministry of Agriculture, on its part, came up with a report of its investigations in a letter dated 18 January, 2013. The letter read in part: “The ministry set up a committee to investigate all allegations contained in the petition received. And after considering the report of the investigations, the Executive Director was not found to have engaged in fraudulent practices or abuse of office, as alleged by the unknown petitioners. However, the Executive Director should get clearance in future, when contemplating virement of funds to meet official obligations when the need arises.”

The panel I set up, made up of eminent people on this campus, also found no impropriety on the part of the director. Remember the issue was that the director stole N177m. The panels of the ministries of Finance and Agriculture established nothing like that happened – they said he used N15m for harvesting, though he didn’t follow due process.

My panel too found nothing as regards the alleged embezzlement of N177m. The details are contained in a white paper released by the university. The moment I found there was no concrete evidence to back up their claims, I then set up a monitoring committee, headed by the Dean of the School of Agriculture. I appointed him as the head to make the monitoring committee independent of the IAR&T and the director. And again in order to ensure strong probity, one of the recommendations of my panel was the director should no longer sign any cheques.

But some ASUU members still accused you of shielding the director. That you failed to implement some of the panel’s recommendations?

They said I’m shielding him? But I would be a foolish chief executive not to act if the man was actually indicted by the panels. Professor Akinola, the interim Chairman, ASUU, OAU branch, backed by one or two of his renegades, is the one sponsoring the propaganda, for reasons best known to him. He is acting alone, not on behalf of ASUU, OAU.

The ASUU,  OAU, as a body, was carried along in the investigations. And in their resolution of 1 February, 2013, they decided that: “The struggle in respect of the crisis in the IAR&T be taken over by the branch.” They resolved that. Secondly, the branch agreed to work with the monitoring committee set up for the institute by the university administration, via its white paper, but that the period of the submission of the report of the monitoring committee should not be more than two weeks.

What is your own position on the allegations?

My stand is that three different panels have said the director did not embezzle money, so I can’t act contrary to that. They want me to remove the man, but that would be an unjust thing to do because there would be no basis for it. He can go to court to enforce his rights and I would be asked to produce the documents that indicted him.