The suspension of MBBS programme is seen by many as a major blow on the ABU. What is the position of the medical course now?
The suspension of the MBBS degree programme by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, was in part, due to the inability of the University to provide adequate teaching infrastructure for the Clinical Students at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH), Shika.
Following the relocation of the Teaching Hospital from Tudun Wada, Zaria, and Kaduna to Shika in 2003, there were no classrooms/lecture theatres, laboratories or library for the clinical medical students. The divorce between the university and the teaching hospital was mainly the cause of that suspension. The teaching hospital in Shika started when the university and the teaching hospital were one, so, the project was for the university so that it would accommodate both the teaching and social services. But when the ABUTH becomes part of the federal ministry of health, the project continued without the academic component and unfortunately by the time they relocated, the only thing for us was the two students’ hostels. And even those ones were sufficiently vandalised. We kept on telling the medical council that we are doing this and that but it reached a time when they asked us to tell them what we are actually doing.
What the University did then was simply to provide a temporary laboratory, classroom and library by converting car parking lots at one of the hospital’s complex building designated for Professors. Provisions for these infrastructures are very crucial to lifting of the suspension by the Medical and Dental Council. We are therefore appealing to the Visitor for special intervention fund for the building and furnishing of the required infrastructures.
Again, admission of students was another issue. The Council’s specification is 120 maximum students to be admitted in a session but you know Nigeria, everybody wants to become a doctor and the Vice Chancellor wants to be nice to everybody, instead of taking 120, I think we over floated and the medical council was not happy. But we are making efforts. Now we are constructing a library, which is a key element in the reopening of the medical school and we are trying to make PTDF to put one or two structures so that they would allow us next year to take students.
One issue that has been hindering the progress of universities in Nigeria is the issue of cultism, is that a problem in ABU?
By and large, the level of cultism in ABU is at very low rate because we punish them once we caught them; we expel them from the school. We are still using local hunters to fight cultism. Even if there are cultists now, they don’t operate in the university because of the activities of the hunters who trace them to all their hideouts.
The issue of admission is always a controversial matter in ABU, there seems to be stability this year?
I schooled here and spent most of my working career in the University. Therefore, I have broad-based knowledge of what this university is. My focus is to use my experience and bring changes in this university and indeed the community.
It is a very simple thing because there are criteria, which the federal government laid down for all universities. I decided to make the ABU’s admission based on merit because when I was admitted into the university as a student, I was admitted based on merit. We followed the criteria where merit that cut across all parts of the country was given 45 percent. The catchment area got 35 percent and the education disadvantaged areas took 20 percent. This was the simple formula we employed and this is why ABU is the most liberal of all Nigerian universities. Why I did that was simply because even if it is my children that happen not to meet the requirement, I will not admit them because they don’t have any right over others. What is important is how my children compete favourably with others. We resisted any intimidation and influence.
It has been over a year now since you assumed duty as the VC of ABU, has that made any impact in the development of the university?
My first ambition when I assumed duty on 1st May, 2011 as the VC was to reposition the University to compete favourably with leading Universities in Africa and the world.
Accordingly, the Registry Department has been re-structured to ensure proper planning, implementation of decisions and policies, job analysis, training, and work ethics as well as monitoring and motivation of the work force. The Bursary is equally being retooled for paperless service delivery. Similarly, to ensure greater accountability and transparency, the long neglected budget culture has been re-introduced. Similarly, routine internal auditing of all the Faculties, Departments and Units has been institutionalized.
We have created incentives to all academic staff who published qualitative articles in renowned fair-reviewed international journals. In addition, we generously assist staff to attend international conferences and assist in postgraduate attachments in post doctoral studies in foreign universities. This element is very important because its absence is what brought down most Nigerian universities when it comes to world ranking.
Our aspiration to become a world-class centre of learning and research and respond to the needs of our immediate community, is dependent on how qualitative and visionary our academic and research activities are.
Our Postgraduate School is one of the oldest and most illustrious in Nigeria. To make it even more competitive, we decided to revitalize it and reposition it for more result-oriented postgraduate programmes and research.
To ensure conformity with quality and adherence to minimum academic standards and best practices, a Quality Assurance, Monitoring and Evaluation Unit is now in existence in ABU.
One aspect that ought to be mentioned is that we have a team of researchers in the department of architecture who competed on sustainable construction for the year 2011. The competition brought researchers from the departments of architecture of ABU, Nsukka and Ban University in Switzerland. The researchers from ABU and Nsukka went to the Ban University in Switzerland to conduct the research and they ended up producing very marketable panel boards for the construction industry. The three universities are now working together to maintain the products. To encourage that, we are now building an appropriate laboratory for that research so that it would be another source of revenue if we go into the real production.
At this age of technological development, it would be difficult for any university to make progress without ICT facilities?
We have now successfully installed the MacArthur Foundation supported lCT Optic fibre project. The optic fibre based campus network, stretches the distance of about 35 kilometers linking the Teaching Hospital at Shika, with Samaru and Kongo campuses of the university. With this ICT infrastructure in place, and the available human resources, Ahmadu Bello University is now positioned to become the nexus for the training of the needed human capital for the ICT industry and for research in IT solutions and software developments in Nigeria.
Apart from that, we are rehabilitating a total of eight lecture theatres. Due to the redesigning of the seating arrangements, the seating capacity of each lecture theatre will be increased by about 30%. All the remaining lecture theatres and classrooms in the university will receive a similar treatment to ensure a more conducive teaching environment. Laboratories in the Department of Chemistry have been rehabilitated and some essential laboratory equipment was also supplied to the Departments of Geography, Human Anatomy and Water Resources Engineering.
On the welfare of our students, we have started a comprehensive rehabilitation of students’ halls of residence to be spread over five year’s period. We are concerned on how some people play with the issue of the allocation of hostels’ spaces to students. But we are working hard to eliminate all the sharp practices being experienced through the online registration.
Next year ABU would celebrate its Golden Jubilee. W-hat do we expect?
Yes, it is true that by October next year ABU would be 50. The University would seize this unique opportunity to chart a new course to meet the ever increasing challenges of the 21st century, where production of human capital is the driving force for the knowledge-based economy and globalization.
As part of the celebration, we would introduce a highest honorary award of the university to be known as the Ahmadu Bello Golden Award to be conferred on some distinguished personalities who have made tremendous contributions towards the development of the university.
There would also be public lectures, conferences, exhibitions and sporting activities. The University will specially recognize and honour its Alumni, friends and philanthropists who immensely contributed to the growth and development of ABU.
