Eugene Agha
14 August 2007
Lagos — The journey, which would have commenced earlier, started a little late, no thanks to some unforeseen circumstances which the team of journalists on a fact finding mission to the University of Nigeria, Nsikka, and (UNN) surmounted, before they took off on their journey.
At the beginning it was crystal clear that the journey was going to be rough. This was entirely due to the bad state of the nation's roads.
At last, the team of five journalists from different media organisations in Lagos arrived the ancient town of Nsukka , host community of the great campus of the institution around 6pm. And were whisked, almost immediately, into their various rooms in the university.
Not too tired, some of them took out time to go and explore the school. One of the first things which caught the attention of the journalists was the newly constructed gigantic library, which they discovered to their admiration, will be the largest library in the whole of Africa when it will finally be completed.
The lawns were properly laid while students went about their academic activities without any stress. Thinking aloud, one of the reporters said the peace enjoyed by the students and lecturers alike can never be experienced in any other university campuses across the federation. At the liberty square junction, one of the reporters pointed excitedly at some lecture halls which were being constructed. Initially, they thought that the projects were being undertaken by the federal government, but were shocked when they discovered that the construction of about 14 new lecture halls was being handled by the school authority. "Look they also produce their own drinking water and fruit juice" one of them said.
The next day, the Head of UNN Alumni Relations, Mr. Gozie Arazu, took the journalists on a tour of the facilities. The tour began at about 8.30am from the Continuing Education Centre (CEC) built by Klod foundation, School of General Studies , the first in Africa , University Admin Block whose reconstruction was abandoned, the biggest library in the university system in the country, lecture theatre halls, various on-going projects as well as the abandoned ones spanning over 20 years.
According to Arazu, a lot of revival was taking place in the university through the effort of the VC who has taken up the challenge to complete the various abandoned projects. He revealed that staff of UNN were contributing 10 per cent of their salaries to the (UNRED) foundation.
The Vice Chancellor in an interactive session with journalists shed light on various issues, including the last strike which lecturers embarked on at the instance of the Academic Staff Union of University (ASUU), the recent drive by the school authority to free it from totally being financially dependent on the federal government.
While unfolding some of the achievements of his administration, he said the university has plans to raise about N14 billion through its Research and Economic Development (UNRED). He explained that the fund, when raised, will enable the university authority provide some facilities and the establishment of industries through partnership.
Nebo who described the future of the institution as bright, added that it will also enable the country to produce qualified manpower and research work for the private sector.
With sparkles in his eyes, Nebo revealed that all were targeted at providing good quality leadership, better academic services to students, improved facilities, better research works to enable it rank as the best university in Africa .
He further explained that the civil war had its effect on the university as most of its facilities were destroyed during the war
"The bakery of the university that was rested over two decades ago has been revamped, we have a new bakery now and we are beginning to produce confectionaries again. Today, we have a poultry that has about 25000 chickens so you can see that we are not waiting for the Federal Government for all our resources, that is why we want the corporate Nigeria to come partner with us", he added.
On the issue of relocating some of the university facilities and department out of Nsukka campus, he said that it was important to give some information that advised the relocation of some of the facilities that people felt were affected.
"First the National Institute for Nigerian Languages was scrapped, later when the government started doing a rethink, the government decided to see if it could handover the institution to a university to run and by the Grace of God, UNN was selected among others to run the scrapped institute for Nigeria Languages ", he said.
Now that the University has taken over the institute, he explained that the university authority intends to move its language department to the place, adding that he strongly believed that there was no better place for the department of Nigeria Language to be than an institute with all kinds of infrastructure built by the federal government of Nigeria. On the much talked about economics department, Professor Nebo said it will not be moved completely out of Nsukka. While part of it will remain in Nsukka, others like post graduate in economics will be in Enugu .
He also said that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has come up with a plan which they called Strategic Financial System 2020 to make Nigeria one of the top 20 economies in the world by the year 2020.
According to , "the Governor of Central Bank, Prof. Charles Soludo wants the bank to build Human Capacity.
So the Federal Government decided to select three universities in Nigeria, where the Department of Economics, Accountancy, and Banking and Finance will be strengthened with the provision of facilities, which will make this department to become world class. The only way to do this is to locate these institutions in a strategic place where people can have access to deliver their lectures ." he added.
Consequent upon this, the university of Nigeria, University of Ibadan , and Ahmadu Bello University would get facilities worth a billion naira. "It will be very foolish of any VC to reject such an offer", he added amidst laughter."
While dismissing allegations which made the round that, at one time or the other, he tried to muscle ASUU, Nebo said he wished that the media organisations had heard from the university authority before writing damaging and false information concerning what was on ground at the University .
According to him, the media should interview people not just a few activists. "ASUU declared strike, we had meetings and pleaded with every body to utilize his or her conscience and the entire university community said they did not want to go on strike but I think I said that those who wanted to go on strike were free to embark on strike but should not impinge on the conscience of those who know that they were in examination. When ASUU activists went from hall to hall sacking people disrupting examination, I had to close down the university for a short while and asked the students to go on Easter break", he stated.
In apparent displeasure with the ASUU strike and no-work-no-pay policy of the Federal Government, which the university implemented, Nebo said that the reports coming from the union activists were false and damaging.
"When ASUU activists went from hall to hall sacking students taking exams during the first semester ìI invited the entire academic community for a meeting with me and ASUU activists, spent days and write ups telling them not to come, yet more than 1000 lecturers came to that meeting and overwhelmingly wanted to go back to work.
So the unions are free to go on strike and the VC said nobody would be victimized but those on strike should not force others who were working not to do their work. Besides, only 70 of over 1200 lecturers went on strike. For those who refused to work, why should they be paid for walking out on their students who were taking examination", he asked.
On the issue of misuse of university funds as allegedly stated by the former Minister of Education, Nebo stated that the minister did not quite state all the facts the way they were. And that he did not think there was any university in Nigeria that has justified whatever resources given, including Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) as the University of Nigeria has done."
On cultism, the vice chancellor beat his chest that it was not in existence in the university since he took over its leadership unlike when gangsterism, cultism and armed robbery were daily events on campus; car snatching was a weekly event. The VC said that one of the first things he did was to declare zero tolerance for cultism and that he decided that he will never wine or dine with cultists.
ìSo, the declaration of zero tolerance for cultism meant that I had to go to war, beef up the security system; establish a network for information gathering and intelligence. And we were able to find out where they meet and when they meet and what they do. And once you are caught as a cultist, you are tried and rusticated. He stated.
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