Dr Tunji Abayomi, a lawyer and immediate past Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko, Ondo State, speaks on university funding, governance, staffing challenges and the need to reposition Nigeria’s tertiary institutions, in this interview with PETER DADA
What must Nigeria do to make its universities globally competitive?
Funding is the problem. Most developed nations believe education and knowledge are the foundation of development. They believe education, first of all. They believe knowledge is the foundation of development and that, to get knowledge, you have to have education. For example, Harvard University has billions in endowment funds, and because it has billions in endowment, it’s able to fund research into the utmost part of human conception. As far as they are concerned over there, they believe the mind is a terrible thing to waste, and in order to get the best out of the mind, you have to get the resources. But that is not the situation in developing nations.
As a matter of fact, the problem of development will be considerably reduced if universities are funded very well, as they will come up with ideas, and ideas matter. Universities should be a citadel of ideas. I believe that any government should have someone, whether you call it a special advisor or a commissioner, specifically focusing on university education. And these universities should be well-funded. For example, how do you advance agriculture without research? How do you advance health without research? In fact, every sector’s advancement of knowledge begins in the university system. So, the Nigerian government and state governments need to devote more funds to education. You have a situation where governments, particularly state governments, are anxious to establish universities, but they are not anxious to properly fund them.
Beyond increasing funding, what should governments do differently to improve university education?
Education is an expensive business. The principal challenge is that of prioritisation. Prioritisation of the diversity of education generally, and in particular university education, is needed. With the support of stakeholders, we’ll create a new understanding, especially now that states are getting more money, that they should spend more money on education, promote development, and research.
As governing council chairman, what did you do to address AAUA’s funding challenges?
There are lots of things we have done to make sure the university continues running. The first is that we made it a priority to do whatever we can through our own efforts. For example, the Senate building of the institution was constructed a few years ago. It is one of the most beautiful Senate buildings in the nation. However, about three years ago, there was a major problem: the ceiling was leaking. That was before the late Governor Rotimi Akeredolu died. Unfortunately, the governor had something else in mind than what we wanted. So he left us alone. So, the council decided that we had to do whatever we could to fix the Senate building, and we did it. Today, the Senate building is not leaking despite the fact that we needed so much money. We just had to make sacrifices to fix it. Second, there is a hostel that this council contributed money to build. It’s not just the council alone. The council initiated the idea of contributing money to build a legacy hostel for students. We contributed a sitting allowance to build it. These are several efforts that we did on our own. Now, in terms of efforts, we had a lot of discussions with the government. The problem is that everything depends on the government.
If you have a university that you cannot take for granted, then you provide a capital budget, capital funds for capital development. But in a situation where you are getting nothing from the government for capital development, how do you think we will be able to survive? We should be able to construct our own roads. If we get capital support, capital fund support, we should be able to build our own buildings.
This university has not received money for capital projects for several years. We want to develop the environment and make it beautiful. We are located in a fantastic environment; we even want to develop tourism. We want to establish power, both for the university and the local community, and make money. But how do you do all of these without capital funding?
So, is the Ondo State Government adequately funding AAUA?
Yes, funding remains a major problem. We are struggling to stay alive. But we don’t want to be choked to the point that the university won’t be able to breathe again.
How much can AAUA realistically generate internally to reduce its dependence on government funding?
The school is doing a lot. The university is doing a lot. In fact, I recently got briefings this morning from the Vice-Chancellor, and we were very impressed. He has on his front burner a plan of action to generate funds from faculties like agriculture. We also have ICT. We have laboratory technology. The university is making an effort, and we are satisfied that management is very committed to generating revenue internally; otherwise, we would not be able to pay salaries. If you look at other state universities, they have a lot more money for subvention. We believe that our government should improve subvention. Our subvention is too small. This university needs nothing less than N12bn annually. In other words, the government should be able to give at least N6bn to this university annually, while the university generates about half of that.
How is AAUA tackling its shortage of academic staff and the japa syndrome?
That is one of the areas of focus of the new VC. In fact, one of his commitments is to ensure academic advancement. There are several faculties that we still need to support. We also have to deal with the japa syndrome, which is due to poor payment of academic staff. We must also recognise that, if you are going to get your academic staff, you have to have the money. These are not administrative staff that, for example, you pay N150,000 or N200,000. You have to have the structure, infrastructure, office, classrooms, and many others. I believe that the Vice-Chancellor is taking this very seriously. But if we get more money, capital support, capital fund support, we’ll be able to resolve all these challenges.
After eight years as Pro-Chancellor, what do you think the council got right and where did it fall short?
I would like to thank the members of my council for their support and cooperation throughout our tenure. The work has been taxing, but it has been made very easy by very distinguished personalities on the council. We had a council of distinguished people in different fields, including physicians, Nollywood, professors, former registrar of two universities, engineers, financial guru, architect, scholars, and professionals from different walks of life. In spite of the diversity, we have been able to work together and efficiently deal with issues. I’m always interested in achieving the best, and that is what we have achieved. So, it has been an honour for me to be a pro-chancellor and to lead this council during the eight-year tenure in which we have worked to build and rebuild Adekunle Ajasin University.