The Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the University of Abuja (UniAbuja) Governing Council, Mohammed Modibbo, said on Saturday that the institution had commenced a 24-hour security patrol to ensure the safety of staff members and students.
Modibbo disclosed this at a retreat organised by the Governing Council for Principal Officers, Deans, Directors and university-based unions in Abuja.
He said the institution had also engaged the services of hunters and vigilantes to boost its security following a recent incident of abduction of some staff members and family members by gunmen.
Modibbo said: “We have now mounted continuous 24-hour security patrol, not only on the campus and residential areas but also within perimeters of the university.
“We also employed additional hunters and vigilantes to be patrolling in areas that are not fenced.”
He said the Governing Council was also working out a plan to ensure decent accommodation for staff members through the involvement of investors and other relevant bodies.
Speaking on the theme of the retreat: “Navigating Myriad of Challenges in Managing universities in today’s world,” Modibbo advocated innovative ways of enhancing additional funding for the institutions.
He said UniAbuja was making efforts to also partner several international organisations and foreign universities on alternative funding for the university.
Modibbo said: “The University of Abuja is making efforts to partner with (sic) a lot of international organisations, a lot of foreign countries and overseas universities.
“Almost every week, we have one ambassador or the other visiting the university. They have selected the University of Abuja to pilot some of the collaborations they want to do with not only Nigerian universities but also the Nigerian government.
“For instance, the Netherland government wants to establish a dairy research centre and we will find it useful for faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Faculty of Agriculture where they will establish and promote research into veterinary challenges, into milk production, research into agriculture from China, from the Netherlands so that they will now use our students.
“We get grants from these countries to establish these centres and also train students so that our graduates will be skilled, inclined, and entrepreneurs so that they become self-reliant, self-employed rather than relying on the government. So we are taking a lot of support from the international organisation.”
On sexual harassment in the university system, Modibbo emphasised that those found culpable would henceforth be sanctioned accordingly.
He disclosed that over 10 cases of such had been transferred to the university’s disciplinary committee and persons found guilty would be brought to book.
“Once somebody breaches the rules and regulations, they must be sanctioned no matter how highly placed. Whether it is sexual harassment, examination malpractices or extortion from students in one way or the other.
“We have so many cases now being investigated and we have referred over 10 cases of staff mrmbers’ indiscipline, including professors to the university disciplinary committee.
“There are procedures that have to, first of all, be established, investigated, reported to the council and the council passed to the disciplinary committee.
“I can assure you that in the next couple of months, you will begin to see changes in the way we approach things in the university,” he said.
Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Sonny Echono, who declared the retreat open, said universities must be proactive to address their challenges, particularly in the area of sustainable funding.
Echono challenged participants at the event not to always depend on the government budget to run the university but look inward for alternative funding to keep the university going.
He further said that in the face of dwindling funding, unproductive courses not meant to be offered in the universities system needed to be removed.
Echono said: “On University sustainable funding, I am of a very strong view that as long as we depend on the government budget to run our university, our expectations from the budget will continue to remain a problem.
“I would prefer we go to the old tradition of bottom-up based approach on the actual need and that funding will be such that is determined by cost.
“You go to the system where you determine what it takes a year for a student in a particular course of study and what it takes to produce a student over the course and every stakeholder should partake in it.
“We should adopt a grant system that will enable the university to practise what it preaches about autonomy and it will enable the governing council to operate on the strength of their balance sheet. That way, you can eliminate some very unproductive programmes from the university.
“You don’t need to have every university in this country offering courses in a certain course area where you now have more lecturers than students across our university and at the end of the day add up to the wage bill.”
Vice-Chancellor of the University, Prof Abdul-Rasheed Na’Allah, commended the governing council for the retreat.
While listing the various steps taken by the UniAbuja in recent time to position it as a world-class university, the Vice-Chancellor, however, expressed concerns over the negative practices that held sway in the University before his assumption of office and the seeming resistance being put up by some staff members in the quest to address the anomalies.
According to Na’Allah, some of the previous challenges included the absence of proper students record, sexual harassment, handling of senior academic staff members’ courses by part-time lecturers, religious and ethnic agenda, among others. (The Nation)
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