‘The future of the university system in Nigeria lies within the private universities’

Micheal Ajisafe, vice-chancellor, Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD) in this exclusive interview with Razaq Ayinla shares the vision of the school to build human capital across all spheres to compete globally. Excerpt

What is the story behind Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD) and what stands the university out among other universities in Nigeria?

We started this university on the 1st of January, 2010 and within the space of three and half years, we have accredited all our courses, including medicine which we have done recently; and the medical centre in Ido-Ekiti, Ekiti state has been upgraded to a teaching hospital.

How many universities in Nigeria have accreditation in medicine within three and half years of existence? You will agree with me that so many universities have been in existence for about four decades, up till now are still battling with accreditation of key courses.

We have gotten accreditation for all our science courses, social and management sciences. Law is reputed to be the best we have in the entire West Africa as confirmed by the Executive Secretary of National Universities Commission (NUC) Julius Okojie. If we are the best college, then it means we have beaten every other universities and that makes us so unique.

At inception, we started with 240 students, we have now almost 7,000 students here and since our inception, there has never been any strike, any closure or student rustication. There are some institutions in Nigeria now that are closed down. We never experience that kind of misfortune.

We graduated our first set of students after three and half years. We have graduated the second set last October and by January, we are going to have our matriculation, all our things are always done to time. Not only that, I told you we have a lot of things in three and half years. Looking at the personnel, we have the best brains you can get anywhere; people who have graduated in some of the best universities in the world are here. Some of them are retired but not tired and they are doing fantastic jobs because of their wealth and years of experience in academic knowledge that they are able to build into the children all for betterment of their future.

That is why the first set we graduated had 18 first class students and all the 18 were given automatic employment letters to come back. Some of them have arrived now, even though, we have some that have gone overseas. After the one mandatory service, the university said come back and they are here now as graduate assistants pursuing their masters degree programmes. How many universities have ever done this? It makes us very unique indeed.

Going by all these feats, who or what do you attribute the success achieved so far by ABUAD to?

We should attribute it to the founder’s effort. Afe Babalola is one of the greatest men in the universe. Can you imagine a private individual putting up all those structures, selling his personal belongings without taking a kobo from any State or Federal government and if I tell you that we are over 500 members of staff earning salaries here every month with over 7,000 students.

This man has the money to buy private jets for himself and his family which will take him throughout the world, but he said No, preferring to give quality education to humanity. He believes in getting the best anywhere: best staff, best equipment and facilities, best students, best everything. I can confidently say that I have not seen such a person. Of course, when UNESCO came here, they regarded him as not only a Nigerian, an African, but also a global citizen.

All the visitors that have come to this campus have said one good thing or the other about him and I am highly impressed about that.

We have the greatest farm in Africa – piggery; poultry, fowls, snails, mushroom, moringa factory; moringa cream, moringa oil name it.

How has extension services and entrepreneurship helped the university to grow?

Afe Babalola is one of the greatest farmers in this country; he grew up on the farm, he loves farming and he is practising it. Now, we have been approved for a Degree in Agriculture. We have a College of Agriculture which NUC has approved. So, you should not be surprised that we have such an expanse of land for farming. We have a tourist centre where you can cool down and take pepper soup, fresh fish among other things.

The centre is built in Western style. The founder himself has it in mind that we should have the biggest farm. The farm here and that of Ajebandele also in Ekiti, both put together, I don’t see any State government in this country that can boast of that kind of the farm.

Akinwunmi Adeshina, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development came here and was impressed that he promised to come back with his wife at a later time. As far as we are concerned, we want to tell Nigerians that a university like this can assist in enlightening the generality of the people how you can do your farming, what you can plant and what we are doing is to show our graduates that when they graduate, there are certain things, they can do on their own without looking for jobs.

On Entrepreneurship drive, a visit to the Talent Discovery Centre of Afe Babalola University, will show you about 29 skills you can learn in that centre, including Photography, Singing, Dancing, Choreography, Basket Ball, Volley Ball, Tennis, Handball, Universal Gym, Indoor Games, Swimming among others. So, when a child graduates with B.Sc, apart from his degree, he has one or two other skills that he can work with, without going to beg for jobs anywhere.

This is what we are trying to show Nigerians and it is happening here. We also, have farm, the students were given some farm land to cultivate and benefit from and they are happy, we are very happy and Afe Babalola occasionally goes to their farms to see things for himself.

In Afe Babalola University, we are trying to build a beautiful future for our students. People do come here to understudy our farms and school. Even, NUC does send universities here to understudy us, NUC always says that if you want to know how universities are established and run go to Afe Babalola University in Ado-Ekiti.

At least not less than six universities have been here. We are the first university in the country to get accreditation for all our courses at once, only one remaining is engineering which is coming up in January; we are even more than ready for that. We have got equipment worth over N2 billion and some of those who came to audit our equipment said they had never seen such equipment before, all these are Engineers; Professors of Engineering.

There have been debates recently that Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) should be extended to Private Universities, what is your take on this?

When I hosted the meeting of Committee of Association of the Vice-Chancellors of Private Universities in June this year, the 19th edition, one of our resolutions was that our Pro-Chancellors and Chairmen of Councils should see the Federal Government and let them know that the future of the university system in Nigeria lies within the Private universities and because the Private universities are the one now doing the correct thing, NUC has said it severally, therefore, they should consider Private universities in TETFund, it is not fair to ostracise Private universities because they are doing exactly what is expected to be done to make life of any university more successful. For TETFund, we are on it, we are still on it. They should give part of this to Private universities, it is not fair, and we are very happy that the Executive Secretary of NUC, Julius Okojie buys the idea; he is a strong advocate of Private universities enjoying from TETFund, he has mentioned it in papers and verbally and I am sure that sooner than later, this will come to pass. I can tell you that Private universities are not enjoying any government support, both Federal and State governments, all Private universities rely on is what individual founder can raise and the internally-generated revenue. Here, it is a single man. Here, what we have spent on engineering alone is enough to establish another university. We are having seven courses in Engineering, two of the programmes take over N2 billion for equipment brought from abroad.

Can this huge investment here in Afe Babalola University not have impact on tuition fees or how comparative is the university tuition fees to other universities in the country?

Our tuition fee is one of the lowest in the country. We have in Nigeria, Secondary Schools that pay more than a million Naira.

In Afe Babalola University, though tuition fees are varied, because you can’t expect somebody who is studying Medicine to pay the same tuition with other studying Social and Management Sciences or Engineering, we are very careful not make our tuition high to discourage brilliant, but indigent students to come to our university. We have gone round to assess what tuition fees are in other universities. Afe Babalola University is non-profit making institution that is why Aare Afe Babalola funds it solely, nobody has shares even his children or family. Our fees are reasonable and then salaries of staff are made personal to them. We earn more than most other institutions, the harder you work, the more you are paid. Afe Babalola loves you making extra efforts. He usually sponsors members of staff for Masters and PhDs.

A larger percentage of academic engage by this university are retired professors, can you recommend for government and other private universities to re-use these retired professors as lecturers for the young ones for real molding in learning and character?

Some of our lecturers here are retired VCs, Deans and Professors. For instance, the Provost of Engineering is former Provost who established in the Engineering in Ekiti State University. General Studies Unit is headed by former Vice-Chancellor of Babcock University, the head of Political Science was a Dean of School of Management Sciences in Adekunle Ajasin University in Ondo state and the Professor B.A Osho, our researcher from University of Ibadan, who is an internationally-known researcher, award-winning professor, then myself, I was in the University of Benin for 19 years, I was Director of National Institute for Sports for 5 years before I was seconded to go and help Qatar where I worked for 12 years before coming back home, as soon as I arrived, Afe Babalola just snatched me.

So, you can see that the advantages are more when you consider the wealth of experience of these retired people, trying to mould the character of these children and give them right things.

That has helped a lot here. Some universities that have come here are now following suit to use the retired but not tired staff, professors to help establish one or two courses. I still go as Visiting Professor to some universities. Honestly speaking, I buy the idea of using some of these old professors as lecturers for young ones, they will really stay with students, and the younger lecturers are too hasty with everything.

Considering your achievement in few years of establishment, where do you see Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD) in the next 10 years?

Before the next 10 years, the university will be among the 100 leading universities in the whole universe that is what we are working towards. I don’t think any university in Africa yet that is within 100 leading universities in the world, we probably will be the number one, I am very serious and we are seriously working towards that, we are only four years and you can see that we are doing well. We have signed MOUs with highly rated institutions, the current one is Federal Medical Centre, Ido-Ekiti, approved by President Goodluck Jonathan and upgraded to Teaching Hospital. In the next three years, I can see us climb the ladder across Africa and throughout the world.

Razaq Ayinla