Yar’Adua accuses lecturers of corruption
By Tunde Odesola
Published: Sunday, 21 Dec 2008
President UmaruYar‘Adua has criticised the scourge of corruption permeating the country‘s education system.

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President.

He alleged that some lecturers engaged in illicit affairs with their female students.

Yar‘Adua, who spoke at the 36th convocation ceremony of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, on Saturday, alleged that some lecturers collect money ranging from N250,000 to N500,000 from students in return for unmerited grades.

Represented by permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Dr. Goke Adegoroye, Yar‘Adua reiterated his administration‘s commitment to providing the necessary support to the academic community to enable it to play its statutory roles.

He said decaying facilities in the country‘s higher institutions had become a source of worry to his administration.

The president promised that his administration would soon embark on moves to check the decay.

Maintaining that the country‘s university system required considerable autonomy, the president stressed that government would not shirk its responsibility to education.

The President of Republic of Benin, Dr Boni Yayi, was awarded an honorary doctorate degree in science while the Emir of Katsina, Alhaji Abdulmumini Kabir Usman, was installed the institution’s new chancellor. He also bagged an honorary doctorate award.

Yar‘Adua said he had directed the minister of education to ensure that the NUC and the security agencies fish out the bad eggs in the universities.

He said, ”The Federal Ministry of Education and the National University Commission are daily inundated by reports of various vices being perpetrated by those to whom the nation, not only looks up to for answers to its ills, but have entrusted with the responsibility of moulding the knowlege and character base of our children for the future development of our nation.

”These reports have graduated from the usual sexual harassment and sexual temptation to the bizzare. For example, certain universities recruiting and forwarding the names of hawkers and touts to the National Youth Service Corps for national service, while scores of genuine students who have completed their programme of studies are denied places and have to wait, sometime up to two years after graduation before securing a space.

”Some lecturers supervising students projects demand between N250,000 and over N500,000 from their students before their final year projects and thesis can be accepted. There are reports of swapping of grades and awarding of grades and even whole degrees to students that do not appear in an examination hall.

“Are we being honest to ourselves and to our nation? What character could such group of lecturers impact on our students? When will the certificates and degrees that universities award on the basis of having been found worthy in learning and character begin to live up to the highest level of the content of its intentions?” he asked.

He, therefore, called on all and sundry to rise to the challenge of correcting the ills in the society, adding that it is in the light of this that his government embarked on the seven-point agenda.

The Beninoise President in his remarks advocated regional integration that would lead Africa to accelerated development adding that Nigeria had assisted his country in various field, saying jokingly ”Benin Republic is the 37th State of Nigeria.”

He extolled the virtues of Chief Obefami Awolowo, whom the university was named after, expressing his happiness for being honoured in the university named after the late sage, describing Awo as a worthy son of Africa.

What a lame speech!Youths have no jobs,public infrastructure derelict and moribound,crime rate soaring,the naira plunging and yet he says all this hogwash.His handlers and speech writers are all STUPID.How much did he budget for education for 2009?How much is Aso Rock going to sppend on fod and drinks?Mad man, Th same nonsense he said at the 60th Convocation of the Nation's first University.Calling lecturers lazy and indolent.What of him?What and where has be done to improve the common lot of our people.Hypomanic entity,

The nonsense said at UI
Ibadan — President Umaru Yar Adua has challenged the University of Ibadan to brace up for greater challenges ahead despite her claim to great contributions to educational growth in the country.

He made this remark on Monday while visiting the University on the occasion of the 2008 Graduation and 60th Foundation Day ceremonies of the institution,

The President was represented by Hajiat Aishat Jibril Dunku, Minister for Education.

The President said: "The University's academic status in terms of global ranking is still not encouraging, though it is still the best in Nigeria based on the recent rankings carried out by the National Universities Commission (NUC).

"It is disheartening to note that the premier universities is not ranked among the first 20 universities in the world," the President noted.

He added that the University has been challenged and encouraged to "shake off the toga of local champion and put on the toga of continental and global champion".

The Chancellor of the University, Alhaji Ado Bayero, expressed happiness that relative peace now reigned at the ivory tower which enabled her to have a normal academic calendar last session after several years of disrupted academic calendar.

He pleaded with the students and management of the school to sustain the peaceful environment.

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The Chancellor noted that education "is key to the realization of our development goals. We have no alternative but to pay due attention to education at all levels."

The Vice Chancellor of the University ,Prof. Olufemi Bamiro, commended members of the Interim Students' Union Government for their maturity and assured them that full democratic government would soon be put in place.

Some prominent Nigerians including Chief Gamaliel Onosode,and Prof. Iya Abubakar, among others, were conferred with honorary doctorate degree in science and literature.
From allafrica.com

The UI Lecturers' Response
UI at 60: Dons tackle Yar’Adua
By SEGUN OLUGBILE
Published: Tuesday, 9 Dec 2008
Professors at the premier university blame government for most of the institution’s woes as they react to President Umaru Yar’Adua’s suggestion that the university should shed the toga of being a local champion for a global garb, SEGUN OLUGBILE reports.

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Alhaji Umar Musa Yar’Adua

It was President Umaru Yar‘Adua that stirred the hornet‘s nest at the University of Ibadan when he declared that the nation‘s premier institution was just a local champion that refused to play the research game at the global level. The President, who spoke through the Minister of State for Education, Hajia Aishatu Dukku-Jibril, during the convocation of the university penultimate week, expressed regret that in spite of its age, the nation‘s premier university was not rated as one of the best 200 universities in the world. He, therefore, challenged the dons at the institution to wake up from their research and academic slumber and put the name of the university on the world educational map.

But dons and students of the university are not taking the President’s criticism lightly. They believe the President has not only lost touch with reality but oblivious of happenings at the institution which started with 104 students in 1948.

The dons and students, who spoke with our correspondent at the university on Friday, said the institution apart from contributing over 75 per cent of human resources to the nation’s workforce since independence, it has also contributed to the educational, socio-economic, political, scientific, technological development and the health sector of the nation.

”The President‘s comment is unfortunate, I think it came as a result of ignorance. However, I find it easy to forgive him because I‘m sure someone wrote that speech for him. But on a second thought, I think it is not right for leaders not to cross-check facts in speeches written for them before they go to town with such,” one of the dons, a professor of veterinary medicine, Bankole Oke, said.

Oke, who spoke with our correspondent after the closing ceremony of the exhibition organised to celebrate UI at 60 on Friday, said it was not easy to exonerate the President because his comments were unfair, not just on UI, but on the nation‘s university system.

He alleged that government, which owns the university, had not been fair to the institution in terms of funding and provision of facilities that could enhance teaching, learning and research.

”Look, there has never been a year that government releases the exact amount presented to it in our annual budget. The funds often released are never enough for overhead cost, let alone capital projects. Electricity supply is epileptic and in fact some of us (dons, researchers and scientists) have to go abroad to conduct research,” he said.

Oke, who is also the coordinator of the exhibition, said university rankings were now being done based on the web presence of universities.

”Ranking is no longer done based on publications in journals. It is only people in the same area of specialisation that read the publications in specialised journals; those who rank universities now go to the Internet to assess the richness of a university site based on research breakthroughs and publications uploaded on such a site.

”If you are not there, you will be poorly ranked. But unfortunately for Nigerian universities, the epileptic power generation in the country and inadequate funds have limited their capacities to enjoy visible and robust presence on the Internet,” he said.

So, rather than blaming the university for the lull in research activities, he said, the government should carry the blame.

Corroborating his colleague, a professor of soil science, John Ajayi, disclosed that inadequate power supply was the bane of the nation‘s academic development.

Ajayi, who has been in the university for 32 years, said decaying infrastructure, obsolete equipment, inadequate funding, ill-motivated staff, increased population and lack of political will on the part of government to introduce tuition were responsible for the trend.

He said, ”I‘ve been in this university for 32 years. I can say that this is the worst year I have experienced in terms of power generation. For instance, the Faculty of Science did not have electricity supply for close to three months this year. Even for this three-day programme, we have to use generator all through and we all know that without energy supply, little or nothing can be done scientifically. So, government should live up to its responsibility.”

But in spite of this, the former chairman, Academic Staff Union of Universities, UI Chapter, Dr. Ademola Da Sylva, said the university had not been folding its arms doing nothing. Da Sylva observed that the inability of the university to publicise most of its research findings was responsible for the president‘s position.

”This, in fact, informed the decision of the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Olufemi Bamiro, to put this exhibition together,” he said.

At the exhibition, over 70 works, including inventions, innovations, useful information in terms of reports, monographs, patents and machineries, were showcased by all the seven faculties in the university.

Part of the breakthroughs exhibited by the Faculty of Technology, which came first in the exhibition, included fabricated technology for the processing and utilisation of agro-industrial waste and crop residues for wildlife husbandry, autoclave, juice extractor, fabricated waste paper processing machinery, fabricated maize sheller, waste paper recycling machine and an electric-powered water fountain cum-aquarium invented by a 400 Level student of Electrical Electronics, Mr. Yusuf Ibrahim.

Also, a bio-gas renewable energy machine designed by Dr. Godson Anan of the Department of Environmental Health Science was exhibited.

According to Anan, the machine will help in reducing the nuisance of waste. Other machines displayed included rice dehauler, cabinet dryer, cassava grater, chipping machine and wood and agricultural sawdust briquetting machines.

Also old works and scripts of some prominent alumni of the university including Prof. Chinua Achebe, Prof. Wole Soyinka, sculptor Badaru Gbadamosi, late writer Amos Tutuola and Kola Ogunmola were displayed.

But of all the works on display, some of the students, including the President, Food Technology Students‘ Association, Mr. Fadeyi Ezekiel, said the artifacts displayed by the Department of Archeology and Anthropology impressed them the most. ”They exposed me to our past. I‘m really impressed with the old pictures that tell the story of the university,” Ezekiel said.

Also, the Ogun State Governor, Otunba Gbenga Daniel and former Chairman of Unilever PLC, Dr. Michael Omolayole, said they were impressed with the level of creativity displayed by the dons. They advised the university authorities to publish the institution‘s research findings for the benefit of the nation.

According to them, doing so will stimulate the interest of private investors and multinational firms to collaborate with the university to generate additional income for the university.

Daniel noted that science and technology remained the pillars of civilisation hence the need for all nations to pursue policies and programmes that would boost it.

Omolayole, who was chairman at the opening ceremony, had lamented that many intellectual properties that could be adapted for commercial purposes by investors were wasting away in many universities across the country.

He said as a result of this, the general public was completely unaware of the great discoveries and creativity which were products of painstaking researches carried out by the dons.

”I also appreciate the link between universities ad industries. It is not by chance that intellectual property especially technology, is being exported from one country to another,” he said.

He, therefore, appealed to the authorities of the university to take a step further by making public some of the major scientific breakthroughs which could be marketed to local and foreign investors.

The Director-General, National Office for Technological Acquisition, Mr. Obioma Adiukwu-Brown, who expressed happiness at the high level of research works at UI said that his agency had been working to stimulate linkage between universities, research institutions and private entrepreneurs.

He also said NOTA was developing a robust intellectual property rights portfolio and was carrying out technical assistance and royalty negotiation between researchers and interesting firms.

In response, Bamiro, who said it was unfortunate that the president could not honour the invitation extended to him for the exhibition, said the institution would continue to explore ways of attracting development and commercialisation of the various research efforts of the institution. He added that some of the works had been patented.

He noted that the Faculty of Pharmacy had developed an Assay Reagent kit for drug analysis based on chemical derivatisation methodology.

The faculty had also discovered synthesis of potential non-toxic azo-dyes for textiles, cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries.

Apart from this, Bamiro added that the faculty had formulated quinine suppositories for treatment of malaria and pharmacokinetic drug and drug interaction profiling to active optimal pharmacotherapy.

Some of the major breakthroughs recorded in the Faculty of Sciences included the fabrication of a digital EMF/PH metre, colorimeter, uninterrupted power supply and production of test tube rack, specimen tubes, cell culture and cooling base top, among others. To make the university more visible on the Internet. Bamiro said that the senate had ordered all cadres of lecturers from assistant lecturership to professorship level to ensure that all their works were uploaded into the site of the institution while it had also secured a grant from MacArthur Foundation to expand academic and research programmes in the institution.

Some of the dons, including Oke and the local chairman of ASUU, Dr. Ademola Aremu, expressed unhappiness at the absence of President Yar‘ Adua at the exhibition.

According to them, all the inventions and fabrication on display would have been enough to convince the president about the good works being done at the university in spite of all the challenges.

Aremu said that apart from thousands of its products working in various sectors of the national economy, over 26 UI academics were currently serving as Vice-Chancellors in universities within and outside the country.

The lecturers, however, admitted that neither UI nor any university in the country could grow beyond the level of governance in the country.

One of them, who teaches in the Faculty of Education, Dr. Kehinde Kester, said, ”If they had ranked presidents or governments in the world, which position will he (Yar‘ Adua) or the Nigerian government be? I don‘t need to answer that question, all of us know.

”But singling out the university system for non-performance is an admission of failure on the part of the government, because a university system cannot be greater than the quality of funding it receives and the quality of leadership in a country.

”But with what you have seen here, you too can see that we are not just here doing nothing like those who seek power to enrich themselves.”
From www.punchontheweb.com