The former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar (rtd), is to head 13-man Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University (IBBU), Lapai, Niger State, Endowment Fund Board of Trustees.
Inaugurating the committee shortly after the weekly Executive Council meeting at the council chamber, Government House Minna, yesterday, the state governor, Abubakar Bello, urged the board members to explore all avenues to turn the state owned university into an education centre of excellance, noting that the board members were carefully selected based on their track records.
He also reminded them that their term of reference is to provide advice that will lead to growth and development of the university.
Bello added that the board should operate within the ethics of the university or as applicable to laws of the state.
Bello said: “The board shall serve as advisory to visitors on endowment matters of the university, and intervene with the governing council concerning the management of the institution, look at other areas that will promote and develop the university.”
The governor, however, enjoined the 25 councils of the state to support the institution.
While acknowledging the present financial difficulty of the institution, Abubakar advised the state government to make funds available to the committee to enable it achieve success.
The elder statesman had earlier promised that the committee would do its best to reposition the institution.
Also, the Vice Chancellor of University of Ilorin, Prof. Wahab Egbewole, has lauded the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) for allocating the sum of N500 million as hostel intervention to alleviate accommodation problems of students in the institution.
Egbewole, who assumed office as the 11th vice chancellor of the university few months ago, told journalists, in Ilorin, that the fund would make present and future generations of students experience confortable academic environment for learning.
He said he would work with his team to fix decayed infrastructure, dying university culture, abandoned academic traditions, intergenerational disconnect among staff members, as well as feeling of disenchantment from long and punitive strike in Nigerian public universities.
