Following the retirement of the former Vice Chancellor of University of Agriculture, Makurdi, last year, the Deputy Vice Chancellor of the institution, Prof. Emmanuel Ogunwolu, took over the mantle as acting Vice Chancellor while announcement of a new VC was still being awaited from the institution’s visitor, President Olusegun Obasanjo.

In this interview with Daily Sun, the professor of Agronomy spoke on the efforts made so far in assisting students, who renounced cultism in the institution, come out of it completely. He also bares his mind on other related issues.

Renunciation of cult membership
The exercise was immediately followed by other activities to ensure that those students genuinely renounced and are keeping out of cultism, that they do not go back the old ways. The former Vice Chancellor took personal initiative to follow up on those students. Several other organisations partnering with the university continued with follow-up training. These organisations sponsored those students for training. They are also taking them to other institutions so that they can identify themselves as having belonged and having renounced.

Similarly, two years back, we organised campaigns regarding cultism on our campus here, and students who have renounced cultism from other institutions showed themselves and explained the evils of cultism. But the utmost thing is the commitment of the individual. The institution can do whatever it will do but it’s that individual member who must be committed to staying out. It’s like any of us when we sin and go back to say Lord Jesus forgive me, and tomorrow you go back to the same thing.

On ASUU strike
The issue of pension scheme deduction. The Federal Government policy on pension scheme requires 7.5 per cent deduction as payee contribution and 7.5 per cent deduction as government contribution. I’m told that the guidelines given to bursars was that the money would be deducted at source and that bursars in the various institutions are to reflect the deductions made. And that is what this university, I’m told, has been doing. But the Academic Staff Union seems to have contrary view, not just in this university but in many other universities, that what is being done is not reflection of the deduction at source but double deduction.

And on the basis of the directive of ASUU NEC, ASUU members are to proceed on some kind of what you can call limited strike action termed ‘ANC’. In other words, all they would do is teach, no meeting or other statutory responsibilities and so on. At the end of the semester, there would be exam but no marking. We had that kind of experience before. They have actually commenced the ANC but we are meeting with them and we are trying to understand each other. We held a meeting with ASUU recently. But what made the situation dicey is that even though this thing is common to other institutions, there are some institutions they claim are paying back.

So, in other words, in some institutions, there could have been double deductions while in others there might have been no deduction. We will solve this one after the facts are crystal clear.
This is something that started in 2004 and now we are in 2007. I have made consultation with other institutions and with the former VC of the university. I have repeatedly asked the bursar if he is sure of what he is doing and he has consistently answered that they had been following directives as given.

Post-JAMB screening
In our university specifically, we had attempted correlation between UME scores and post-screening test score. What necessitated the post-JAMB screening is when the integrity of the results got from post-JAMB is in doubt. That is all that brought that about. And it became such a phenomenon that the government agreed to it because there was very low correlation before the post-JAMB screening between JAMB score and the first year examination result. You have people who scored over 300 in JAMB getting a GPA of 0.5 in the first year examination. If you were that brilliant in JAMB, what you are doing in your 100 level is barely above what you did at the time you wrote the JAMB exam. That was what brought post-JAMB screening about.

On whether there has been improvement in quality, at the meeting we held at NUC, many Vice Chancellor said yes, they have noticed improvements. What it requires is that, in that post-JAMB screening, there is still need to watch against other kinds of vices that permeated the JAMB. If you don’t do that, the post-JAMB screening is going to be as useless as the JAMB. So, there is need to be cautious about it. Fortunately, Madam Minister, in the new Bill for education, is addressing some of these problems.

But the post-JAMB screening actually goes beyond just test score. You interact with students one to one. You do physical examinations because some of these students carry marks of the wars they have fought in their secondary schools because of rivalry, cultism and the like. When such trait is discovered during screening, the applicant is screened out. So, it’s not just test score result alone.

Fees for post-JAMB screening
Madam Minister did not say “stop charging” she said “stop arbitrary charging”. The charge fee was N1000 but what happened in the first round of exercise was a variation to as high as N5000. Eventually, government agreed to a charge of N1000, and I believe many universities are adhering.

Relevance of Federal Universities of Agric
Over and over, if you have been looking at situation report and economic plan and Vision 2010, people still emphasise that we need to move away from a monolithic-based economy to a diversified economy. And the leverage for Nigeria to move into era of individualisation has been premised on agriculture. There have been several pronouncements along that line. And one only needs to look back to the oil era. You go to the south-west you still have edifices visible to all derived from cocoa. Agriculture sustained western economy to the point that they were able to start the original university before Federal Government took over the then University of Ife.

The north thrived on cotton and groundnut, while the east was based on palm and palm products. What we are saying is, if we are dedicated and committed in terms of policy implementation and we remain focused, agriculture should provide earnings for leverage of the national economy. Our vision and mandate and the nature of training given here are such as to equate the products to be able to stand on their own upon graduation and become employers of labour. But one thing has become missing and that missing thing is now being put in place. What was missing in the past was entrepreneural skills, entrepreneurial proficiency.

The limited practice that the graduates have is what they have during the Industrial Training (IT) where they are now able to demonstrate practically what they have learnt. And we make effort here that they take several crops from planting to harvest to marketing.

Yes, many of them have graduated, but like the menace of economy and system, the job they are looking for is in the bank or the oil sector. Occasionally, we have reports and we know of a few of them that have gone into farming. The issue of rural areas where we expect our graduates to go back to practise what they have learnt is something that we really need to address. There must be access to communication, good road, electricity and water in the rural areas.

These are issues that have to be addressed in the rural areas where we expect them to go back to and take up meaningful farming operation. If we make those areas to lack very little, I am sure a lot of people will be interested in practising what they have learnt. NUC has introduced Entrepreneurial Skills and it’s going to be part of training for all universities. The expansion of facilities to rural areas will help most of these graduates to go back. So, university of agriculture is still relevant not just in the production aspect alone but in policy making and governance.

Problems and challenges as acting VC
Definitely, there have been problems but fortunately, we have rallied support to dampen the situation and solve problems. The initial problem is that of people not getting what was expected. The university Governing Council initiated the process of appointing a Vice Chancellor long before the tenure of the former VC expired and they followed every procedure step by step. We were to have six months adverts and that was placed early enough to meet that requirement. We were to receive application, set up a joint selection council, senate selection board and select search team committee. All of these procedures were duly followed.

The search committee went out to solicit application from those who are qualified but ordinarily would not volunteer to apply. The search team came back and submitted report. The volunteers applied and all the applications were passed to the Selection Board. The Selection Board drew up a set of criteria and did selection. Interview was conducted, council deliberated on the interview report and nominated three contestants to Mr. President. All those documents were submitted before the expiration of the tenure of the former Vice Chancellor.

What council was waiting for was the announcement of a successor. But at the very last council meeting when there had been no names of a successor, it was then decided that the Deputy Vice Chancellor should act as Vice Chancellor until the announcement of a successor. Again, the expectation was that we would soon hear the announcement.

One day turned to one week, and one week turned to one month and so on. By the time we moved away from counting days to counting weeks, the mind became troubled. That was the origin of what is happening. Some people were saying we are playing politics with it. They are insisting we must have a named Vice Chancellor. They cooked up a lot of stories but those things only exist in the imagination and minds of the people. I am not even among the selected three because there was a restriction of who qualifies to apply and I didn’t qualify. I was 60 in June 2006 and the requirement was that you should not be above 60 in September, so, I didn’t bother to apply. You see, the decision of who becomes the next VC of this institution rests with Mr. President. UAM is not the only institution affected. Abeokuta concluded their exercise before UAM, up till now, there is no announcement. Their procedure was faulted, luckily our own was not faulted. Federal University of Technology, Akure also has an acting Vice Chancellor.

They have also concluded their exercise and up till now, there is no appointment. Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, the tenure of the former VC there expired even before our own. Their Vice Chancellor there is acting. So, it’s not a peculiar situation at all. At the last meeting of council, the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council had opportunity to address the university community, explaining to them the action the council had taken and a follow-up action of the chairman of council to the Ministry of Education and National Universities Commission.

The other area where there seems to be problem was in community service. This university had always provided water for the surrounding villages at some joints where we had put the tap outside. But despite that, some villagers were still going inside sensitive areas of the university like the premises of the Central Store, premises of Works and Maintenance and we felt we should put a stop to that. The interpretation was that they were being denied water and we said that was not the case. We promised to make arrangements for more outlets where they can fetch water without necessarily entering the university’s premises.

So, the youths wanted to foment trouble but luckily for us, the chief of the surrounding communities came to my office, the situation was explained to him and he went back and talked to the youths and they have since understood.