THE University of Ibadan is known to be the first university in Nigeria. Would you rate it as still being the best or one of the best?
I am particularly amazed at the question because of a number of reasons. Even among Vice Chancellors, I don’t think there is any doubt or dispute as to the best university in the country. Just as there is no doubt as to the first, the first is an accident of history, but the best is a product of what I will call a collective effort, conscious determination to retain the position. And one must praise the courage determination and contributions, the collective effort of all those that had worked and are still working in the institution. When you look at the human resources available in UI, no other institution in this country can match it, the number of professors, Associate professors and readers; senior lecturers in the academics, teaching and non-teaching staff, technical staff, we are simply unparalleled. The number of teachers with Ph.D, the number of teachers in our college of medicine and Vet with fellowships, UI has been wonderful. Recently, we were even adjudged the best research university in the country and the fifth in Africa.
So, when you are looking at those things that really make a university, UI is it. And as at the last time, we have produced over 40 per cent of Vice-Chancellors in Nigeria. It is either the VC trained in Ibadan or was trained by someone who trained in Ibadan.
During the tenure of the last VC, people had thought because he was in engineering, he went all over building structures and constructing roads, but you came in and seems to have continued in that trend despite the fact that you are from the medical background.
I think that is also vintage University of Ibadan. The kind of training, the background, I think drives us. Let me also tell you that whatever we do in UI is not a one-man show, but a collective effort. I had a three month gap between appointment and assumption, during when we developed a strategic plan, and in the recent time that would be the first time a VC would develop a strategic plan for his tenure. It was discussed University-wide, approved by Senate and Council, and dutifully, we have continued to implement that plan. I think we must also recognise that the physician is a builder. By our training and background, there is no other builder, no other strategist than a physician.
Can you tell us some of the additions, since you came in?
The first thing is the continuation of the project we inherited because we do not believe in an abandoned project. We also want to teach this country a lesson, that when you have a new leadership, you do not have to discard whatever was inherited. So, we continued what we inherited, completed them and started ours. We concentrated on three main areas which are energy, food and health. When you look at what we are doing, they are all keyed into those three areas but we are all moving in one direction; that is promotion of academic excellence, and I think that is the ultimate goal and that is why we set up the quality assurance unit for both research and teaching. Whatever we do in health, education, agric, technology, they are all design to promote academic excellence. In terms of specific, we have resuscitated teaching and the research farm that was moribund for years. We moved the piggery section from almost dead, now we have over 400 pigs. We have resuscitated the Dairy Farm, and we now have exotic cows on the teaching and research farm. When you move to the farm section, we have started what I will call the multiplication of the super sweet corn.
The specie that we import in cans?
Oh yes! In UI now, we have super sweet corns and once we are able to move beyond multiplication, we already have a high demand, Tantalizers wants to partner with us and I’m sure if you more around, you get some. We’ve established sales outlet for vegetable products and one for animal. But what is of particular strategy is the development of the RET corridor project which we have embarked on. The R stands for Research, E is for Economic and T for Tourism, because there is a corridor in UI that stretches from Barth road to Oba dam. On one end of it, we are doing the channelisation, where the canal is being done. At the other end of it, we are developing a Department of Agriculture and Fishery Management by the river.
We are going to have not less than 20 fish ponds. We want to multiply fingerlings and produce fingerlings and fish for Nigeria. And one of the things we want to do that would enable us have a multiplying effect is to breed fingerlings at subsidised price to the community. We want to make sure that in the next five years, we make a positive impact on energy, particularly protein. We want to saturate Nigeria with energy foods. We are concentrating on beef; fish and eggs.
Last year, you had a challenge during the August 26 flood.
We have taken care of that, that’s why we are doing the channelisation. we are having fish ponds on both sides, one will be the commercial section and there would also be a teaching and research section, where our students can learn. When we move from there, we move to the Zoo Garden. We are upgrading the Zoo, the first major renovation we’ve had since it was established by Bob Goldie. And then, we will turn around the Oba Dam to a tourist centre. Those are our major projects, but there are few others. We now have a sawmill, we are developing a fire station in UI, on the College of Medicine side, we are elevating the library projects to two floors. We are building an institution for Maternal and Child Health for the nation. In order to make an impact on the poor maternal situation in
Nigeria, we are setting up an Institute for Infectious Diseases in Africa, which will be the hub. We are also setting up a Cancer Research Institute. We are moving over to this side, putting life into the Pan-African University. We are admitting the first set of students and about 44 of them, and we hope that by January, it will take off. So overall, we will continue with the development, apart from making sure that we renovate the lecture theatres. We are fortunate to have endowment by the Chairman of Council, 350-seater auditorium. We are giving the physical planning to the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. They are building for the first time in 30 years though its at Ajibode. We are moving the Distance Learning Centre to Ajibode. We are going to set up the business school, which has taken off and it also will be at Ajibode. In addition to that within the complex, we are also going to have a Postgraduate Research Library.
You have talked of a lot about infrastructure, how have you been managing human resource in the institution?
I’ve told you that UI is not short of human resource, in fact, we are the most endowed in terms of human resource. But then, we are also not losing sight that as an old institution, we have a lot of weight to shed, in terms of senior people would leave one way or the other. That is why we initiated the automatic scholarship programme for First-Class products. All our First Class products will automatically receive a postgraduate scholarship, to encourage them to stay back so that we can then build the next cadre of people who will take over from the senior ones. We are also not stopping at that, we have developing a post-door fellowship programme. It’s are old programme in the university but died because there was no money to fund it.
How does it work?
The post-door would enable those with Ph.D to do research for about six months to one year, when they finish. They are going to be doing nothing but research.
Developed universities all over the world have that layer that enables people to settle down and do cutting edge research. You would not burden them with teaching and so on, all they do is research. We are bringing that back. And that will, in fact, increase the quality of work that we do as an institution. We are also training people doing exchange programmes. As at the last time, we have over 150 MoUs. So, we are also doing faculty and staff exchange with many universities so that we do not just encourage in-breeding. Last year, we encourage each faculty to invite an international scholar to work with them within a period of six month to a year, next year, we will extend it to department. So that if there is an international scholar, bring that facilitator and let him or her work in Ibadan. And by so doing, we cross fertilise ideas.
How has it been with the unions?
This is like asking how I have been managing myself because I am a unionist. I am one of them, we speak the same language and I think it is one luck I have, that we understand one another. And to me, there is good bonding. It does not imply we don’t have our moments of disagreement but we all recognise that even after a war, people still have to sit and talk, so, why not talk rather than go to war. So, we have been talking and we will keep on talking.
People were excited to see an Isaac in the mosque when you attended the mosque service during the last convocation ceremonies?
Anybody who wears UI, must not really have an official religion. And so, I must draw a line between my role as a Vice Chancellor and personal affiliation. My roles as the VC are to blend with everybody. Even if you have no religion, I have to interact with you. But then, I am a Christian and I don’t pretend being one.
You have a very large body of Alumni. Is it every time you agree with the members of Alumni body on what to do and how to do it?
Certainly No! I also think we have not tapped into the alumni port maximally, but we are trying. At the last count, we had over 180,000 in the alumni database but not all of them will support but we are fortunate to have many of them who do. People like Ohiweire, Onosode; Omolayole,, Olola There are quite a number of them.
And at the last convocation, Mr Itsueli was here with his wife, as the special guest, and a number of them. And we are also talking to quite a number of other ones.
I think we are fortunate. When we do well, they are happy, and that is the incentive that encourages them to think of what can they do for this institution.
During the last convocation ceremonies, you specially honoured some eminent foundation students?
Actually, that was not the original plan, but the outcome reflected the collective vision of an institution that believes in recognising the roots. We voted and picked the top four. And when we looked at the top four, they happened to be all foundation students. People even nominated about 10 people or thereabout.
But what was supposed to be the motive for this honour?
Over the years, the university made it a point of duty to recognise those who deserve to be honoured and we have done that over time but not necessarily every year. I could remember a time, when for four years, we had nobody to be honoured. Because the institution has a strict regulation. We do not honour those who are in service. We want them to have completed service so that we can fully reflect on what they have done over time. We also don’t recognise young people, because they have not attained their maximum potentials. We also do not recognise people of questionable character because we don’t want to be drawn into any controversy. We will look at what you have done, how much you have impacted on other human beings. We like to know if you are a role model. Can we showcase you as an individual? We look at this in totality and then we score. We gave it to the top four and those top four happened again by some coincidence to be four foundation students who got admission into UI in 1948, and are still alive.
Who inspired you into academics?
Very interesting. I did not set out to be in academia, but I have some role models; people like Professor Adetokunbo Lucas; Professors Olore, Akande, Professor Akinkugbe and they have all contributed a lot. One of them, to me, became a turning point, and that was my first two weeks in Royal Hammersmith Hospital. We had this patient, a pregnant woman who was passing blood in her urine. They did all kinds of test at the hospital but could not detect what was wrong. I happened to recognise that Professor Akinkugbe wrote a paper about the challenges which blacks abnormal haemoglobin could face. And one of their presentations was passing blood in urine. I then went back to the library to read it up, and the next morning I said “the patient who came yesterday probably had this problem. Can we probably check the haemoglobin status?” They did not believe me because they said ‘the fellow from Nigeria suggested this’. I was amazed but behold when that individual was investigated, she had an abnormal haemoglobin. And of course, i worked under a first class Clinician.
What is your relationship with the students?
With the student union, excellent because I see them as my children but not that the relationship does not have hiccups. Recently, they even crossed the line and I got angry but we settled it. They threatened to go on strike over electricity and I told them they cannot do that without informing the authority first. But by and large, the relationship is cordial.
Recently, a coalition of labour groups threaten to go on strike, have you started talking?
Although we have started talking, it is beyond us. Government signed an agreement with the unions three years ago and have not fully honoured it which I think it’s unfortunate. I suspect that there are some realisations that the implementation might be tougher than expected. And I also thought that what government ought to have done was to have called them back and talk. But having waited for three years, to me, it is an error of judgement. Secondly by the content of the agreement which government signed with them, government also indicated that they would they would renegotiate the agreement when the old has not even been implemented and its due for renegotiation. So, there is an error. I think government must also have an in-built mechanism to educate themselves about principle of collective bargaining and negotiation. They also have a lot to learn
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