• ABU develops remedy for Tomato Ebola
• Ranking of varsities subjective, political

Vice-Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, Prof. Ibrahim Garba, says the Senate of universities in the country should be responsible for setting standards for admission into their institutions.

Garba stated this while answering questions at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)
Forum in Abuja.

The vice-chancellor faulted the situation where the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) and the Ministry of Education set standards for admission into the university.

“Universities have autonomy by law; each university should set its criteria for taking students.

“But of course JAMB and the ministry are saying that because it is our country, we must have a policy that regulates, so that we have a good balance but not on quality.

“A university senate is supposed to set standards for accepting students that it takes and train and graduate.

“They can only fulfill NUC’s standard requirements, but not admission quota.’’

He said the minister’s directive leading to the scrapping of post-Unified Matriculation Examination (post UTME) had created an impasse in universities, as they were yet to begin admissions.

According to him, universities cannot take the products of JAMB without further testing them.

The vice-chancellor said that universities, being the recipients of the candidates, should be able to select those they could train.

He said that in 2016, ABU had 49,000 applicants, who scored above 180 points while its admission capacity was 6,500.

He stated in view of this scenario, it is not possible for the university to admit students without conducting post-UTME to cut down the number.

Garba said that lining up candidates to screen their papers was cumbersome, outdated, and expensive and could create room for sentiments.

The Vice-Chancellor also said researchers in the institution have successfully developed a remedy for Tuta Absoluta, popularly called Tomato Ebola.

He said the university’s Institute of Agricultural Research (IAR), which carried out the research, had since submitted its findings to the Minister of Agriculture.

He added that due to the discovery, the spread of Tuta Absoluta had since been checked.

“Our Institute of Agricultural Research has already done quite a lot of work and has actually submitted a report to the minister.

“They studied the outbreak, found the remedy and it has already been arrested.

“We gave the report to the government a few weeks back to tell government that this is what it is and what should be done to forestall future happening or to contain it.’’

Garba said that Nigerian universities were not partnering industries on research because most industries in Nigeria were not functional.

He, however, blamed the problems confronting the industries on the government policy on importation of goods that could be produced in the country.

Garba also said that the ranking of universities worldwide is “subjective and political’’.

The vice-chancellor said that most times, the ranking was aimed at attracting patronage to some universities.