‘200 universities not enough for Nigeria’

The over 200 universities in Nigeria cannot be enough for the high demand for tertiary education and the huge population of the country, especially considering the population in the next 20 years.

The Founder of a new private university – Maduka Onyishi University, Ekwegbe, Nsukka in Igbo-Etiti Local Government Area of Enugu State, Chief Sam Maduka Onyishi, disclosed this during an interview with journalists in his Enugu office.

Onyishi, who is also the Chairman/Founder of the road transport firm, Peace Mass Transit, explained that with the country’s increasing population and high demand for it, coupled with the obvious constraints students experience in gaining admission into public tertiary institutions, the need for more universities that would offer quality education to the students, cannot be over emphasized.

Daily Trust recalls that the current population of Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria is 214,783,314 as of Monday, March 14, 2022, based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data. Nigeria 2020 population is estimated at 206,139,589 people at mid-year according to United Nations data, adding that Nigeria’s population is equivalent to 2.64 per cent of the total world population. The population has demand for education at the tertiary level.

Onyishi said his university would make its graduate become employers of labour rather than being job seekers.

“People should be able to go to school and come out of school; if you get employed somewhere, it’s good but even if you don’t get a job, you should be able to employ yourself. I believe in education for self reliance. That’s the reason for the motto of our school “Knowledge, Self-Reliance and Service.”

Explaining further the entrepreneurial concept of the new university, Onyishi said: “I am laying a foundation for that because it’s an entrepreneurial university; the plan is that any graduate of our university should be able to run his or her own business, the course the graduate read, notwithstanding.

“ So if you are reading History in our university, you should read history and leave the school and be able to employ yourself. If you are reading Health Sciences or Law, you should be able to read all those courses and be able to employ yourself.

“We are going to teach you all these courses in a manner that by the time you come out of the university, you should be a lawyer that can employ yourself. You should be a lawyer for wealth creation or History for self employment or self reliance.”

With ongoing building of massive infrastructure on the over 300 hectares acquired by the university, although he is still acquiring more lands, Onyishi said the Secondary School–Maduka College will commence in September while the Maduka University proper will start its academic activities in December, 2022. “I hope to engage experienced teachers and I have gotten enough infrastructures to take off,” he said.

Onyishi said the Maduka University boasts of regular gas-powered electricity within the school, administrative office, students hostels, lecturers quarters, ICT hub, faculty of law, while the secondary school has what it takes to run a model private secondary school with focus on quality and affordable education.