.Lead City varsity appoints Owolabi as Deputy Registrar
Some prominent Nigerians, including the founder of Afe Babalola University Ado Ekiti (ABUAD), Afe Babalola (SAN); former Senate Leader in the 9th Assembly, Sen. Mohammed Gobir and former governor of Zamfara State, Aliyu Shinkafi, have described the state of affairs in many Nigerian universities as lamentable.
They identified proliferation, underfunding and inconsistency in policies as the major causes of the noticeable rots in the universities, especially the ones owned by the government, calling on all relevant authorities to make education a priority.
Meanwhile, the Lead City University has promoted its erstwhile Director of Corporate Communications and Students Services, Dr. Ayobami Owolabi, to the post of Deputy Registrar, Corporate Communications and Students Services of the University, effective January 2, 2024
The three eminent Nigerians spoke yesterday during a familiarisation visit by Gobir, Shinkafi and other top Nigerians to ABUAD.
In his remarks, Babalola described recent media reports that over 107 private universities in Nigeria were involved in certificate racketeering as well as plans by federal lawmakers to pass laws establishing additional 47 new ones as both disturbing and unacceptable.
He blamed the ugly development of certificate racketeering on the indiscriminate issuance of operational licence to unmerited people.
“For those who do not understand why the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is always on strike, please read my book. They gave over 62 reasons 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.
“Go to the Engineering Department in this university for instance. Even the teachers confessed that they had not seen the type of equipment I bought there. The same thing in Medicine and Pharmacy; the teachers said they had 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 quality education, you can achieve it. We are playing with quality education in this country, and this is worrisome.
“Let us try to update, improve what we have in public universities. Nothing can be more unpleasant than a situation where it is reported that 107 private universities face probe for degree racketeering. That will never happen in ABUAD. I knew what I went through to get my licence 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.
“The laws are there. My belief is 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 the matter up with the Minister of Education, saying, “I am going to write him a letter”.
Also in his remarks, Shinkafi 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 lack of proper funding of 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, Gobir said: “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 round 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 transplant. The issue of acute kidney transfer is the reason many people go to India, Germany, Dubai. If people have the experience of what is happening here, there will be no need to travel to those places, and that 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.
Announcing Owolabi’s new appointment, Lead City University said it was in recognition of his administrative acumen.
Owolabi holds the following academic qualifications: B.A (Hons) English, Ogun State University (1991), Professional Certificate in Public Relations, NIPR (1995), PGD Marketing Management, Nigeria Institute of Journalism (1996), Master in Communication Arts, University of Ibadan (2003), Master in Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Ibadan (2005), PhD Integrated Marketing Communications, LCU (2010).
