One major challenge facing the acting Vice-Chancellor, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, Prof. Saburi Adesanya, is how to change the negative societal perception of the institution. Since the professor of pharmacognosy was appointed VC in August, he has been contending with how to revampthe battered academic image of the institution with a view to repositioning it to an enviable university.
Before his appointment, the university was notorious for being in the news for the wrong reasons. If it was not at war with the National Universities Commission for over bloated student population,its management would be in trouble with unions over wage issues. Its students were knownfor cultism and hooliganism. If they were not waging war among themselves, they would be engaging members of the host community in violent clashes. One of these clashes led to the death of some people andthe burning of the palace of the town’s monarch.
Due to inadequate funding, the university could not pay its bill. It was also not able to honour contractual agreement. Consequently, the institution, established by the first executive governor of Ogun State, late Chief Olabisi Onabanjoin 1983, was at a time indebted to the tune of over N400m. Academic and administrative facilities and structures were grossly inadequate. Interferencefrom the state successive governments did not also help the institution. While all these were going on, students were bearing the brunt. Certificates were not issued as and when due and academic calendar was grossly disrupted.
It was against this background that Adesanya took over the administration of the institution. To shore up support for the university, he led a team of principal officers of the university to The PUNCH Place, the corporate headquarters of PUNCH titles last Thursday wherehe unfolded his agenda to reposition the institution. He also spoke on other issues affecting the university system.
Though he admitted that the university had image problems, Adesanya said he and his colleagues had started a reform process to tackle these challenges.
“Yes, the university has problems but I can tell you that most of these challenges are being tackled. However, our challenges are not peculiar to us or to the university system alone. They are what institutions like The PUNCH too had overcome. Our coming here is part of the solutions that we have designed. We believe that The PUNCH is our next door neighbour and it has all the power to help us rebuild our image.
“However, I can tell you that some of the problems including late release of students’ results and certificates have been eliminated. Except a student has problem with his or her clearance, we don’t hold on to their certificates again, we are rebranding.’’
He added that as part of the rebranding process, the university would move all the undergraduate programmes of the institution to the permanentsite and had successfully reduced the student population.
“The time where our students are innumerable was gone for good. Now, our student population is just between 18,000 and 20,000. All our part-time programmes are beingmoved to the temporary site. Our students no longer miss the National Youth Service Corps scheme. In fact, when they went for the mobilisation, some officials nearly turned them back thinking that they forged their documents. Things have changed.’’
On cultism, Adesanya said the non-residential status of the university was one of the reasons why the menace persisted. But he added that plans were on to change the status by building hostels for students.
“Cultism is an unfortunate development in the nation’s university system. But I can tell you that since we have weeded out bad elements among our students, things have changed. However, I can tell you that cultism thrives more in non-residential universities like ours. But since we have known this, we have embarked on a plan to bring our students to hostels on our campus. That is why we have decided to bring all our programmes to the permanent site and we are encouraging investors to come and build hostels for us on Build,Operate and Transfer model,” hesaid.
However, Adesanya did not just speak about OOU alone, he also shared his views on issues affecting the nation’s universitysystem. Asked to comment on the widely held belief that Nigerian graduates are unemployable, Adesanya said,” When people say that our graduates are not employable, what do they mean? Is it that they are academically poor to such an extent that they cannot function in position they are given to manage? If that is the case, I disagree with them because if you go around the country, there are companies who employ them.

“The problem is not about quality per se, it is about high rate of unemployment. So, if 20,000 graduates are looking for job in a company that needs only 10, standard will be raised and a dog will be given a bad name in order to hang it.
“I think the problem is that the Nigerian government has not created the environment that will engender job creation. Our people don’t also value ideas because when those young people come up with ideas, nobody is ready to support them, the same thing affects researchers too, nobody is readyto support research that will eventually lead to job creation. I don’t believe that our graduates are that bad otherwise some of them that have the opportunity to go abroad for postgraduate degrees would not have been doing well,” he said.
Adesanya argued further that a lot of people who believe that the graduates are not unemployable are ignorant of the mission of the university education.
According to him, higher education is aimed at opening up students to higher concepts and ideals so that beneficiaries could make informed decisions.
“The problem is that of ignorance and those who went to the university in the 60s, 70s and 80s, who some people believe are better groomed, would tell you that after securing employment, their employers also took them to training schools where they were taught about the nitty-gritty of their new jobs. Weren’tthey graduates? But the employers of today want a ready-made worker; it does not work like that. The employers oflabour of this present age should emulate the UAC, PZ and their likes who trained their workers rather than rubbishing our youths,” he said.
He added that though entrepreneurial study was good,it should be taught in junior secondary schools.
“Most inventors and job creatorsare not taught in class; Bill Gates did not even finish his degree, the same thing with late Steve Job. Most of the nation’s successful entrepreneurs did noteven go to school, what we should do is to encourage creativity and the unusual ideas of the youths.
“Our banks should be compelled to finance ideas not IPOs and contract. They should support research and government should remove all policies that make the nation unfriendly to investment and business. Government has no business in business, they should just provide infrastructure such as power, water, good roads, and friendly tariff and eliminate double taxation and you will seethe country move forward and our youths gainfully employed,” he said.

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