OOU: The rot of a university - What we are doing to clear the rot - Kawonise

Prof. Olusoga, acting Vice Chancellor (OOU)Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU) started on a very good note as Ogun State University (OSU) in 1983. Though it had infrastructure challenge as it had to make do with makeshift facilities, nobody could say its products were pushovers. The products could hold their own among the nation's best. The school produced medical students who were top of the shelf just as many of its first generation Law graduates as well as those from other faculties shone like a million stars. They dusted students from older schools.  N.B Visit www.campusflava.com for updates and information related to other schools.   They also outwitted their contemporaries from state universities. That was a long time ago. There has been a descent from the sublime to the ridiculous in the university. Gone is the glorious OOU. What you have now is a university that is miles away from the tenets of a university. OOU has become a university of anything goes. Both the students and the lecturers are disparaged by their colleagues; they have become butts of party jokes. Industry and diligence have lost their essence in the university; to score a high mark, all you need do is to play along with the lecturer either by lining up his pockets with money, change the tyres of his car or open up your thighs if you are a lady. The evil geniuses in the university have termed it mark boosting. For anyone who knows how to play the game, moving a score from 35 percent to 75 per cent is as easy as it is for a hot knife to cut through butter. At OOU, marks get boosted not by hard work but by street wisdom. It has been said that in the university, those who do not attend lectures have a way of outscoring those who do.

Another feature of the decadence that has become synonymous with the university is admission racketeering. Not too many of the students that eventually get admission offer into the university get that purely on merit; at least 50 per cent of the students get into the university through the back doors. Admission racketeering is said to be so rampant in the university that even very junior non-academic staff members usually promise candidates admission and deliver on the promise.

This has degenerated to the extent that nobody could give a specific figure of student enrolment in the university. Admission is at the whims and caprices of the people concerned without any recourse to laid down procedure. This also has led to an overstretch of the facilities in the university.

Then the university is notorious for delaying examination scripts grading. Graduates of three years and more could not be mobilised for the National Youth Service Corps, further their education or seek employment simply because the lecturers have refused to grade their scripts. This has gone on for many years without those in authority being able to do anything to remedy the situation.

Sunday Tribune gathered that at a point Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) had to cut electricity supply to the main campus because of a debt of about N2million. However, instead of the university management paying the debt, it resorted to using generators and ended up spending about N3million monthly on the purchase of diesel.

Similarly, there is no water supply. In the same vein, staff members were owed series of entitlements. The management owed the unions as deductions from staff salaries were not remitted to the unions. Its accounts in various banks were extremely overdrawn to the point that the banks were threatening to stop further granting of facilities.

Worse still, some of the lecturers were accused of making false claims to academic credentials. According to the findings of the Sunday Tribune, contrary to the condition of service which made it mandatory for lecturers employed with master degrees to complete their PhD programmes within seven years of their employment, there are lecturers who have been teaching for upward of 20 years in the university with just the master degree.

The whole situation in the university had already started affecting the perception of the products of the university by the industry with the effect that many of them are spurned by employers. The matter had gotten to a head and there must be a denouement. That was at the point that the visitor to the university, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, moved in. He set up a 12-man visitation panel chaired by Professor Oyewusi Ibidapo-Obe, former Vice Chancellor, University of Lagos to check the records of the university in respect of financial management, curriculum and staff development, research programmes and the general adequacy of the conditions of learning, and make recommendations necessary to move the institution forward, to effectively achieve its objectives.
Part of its terms of reference, among others, include:

• to examine the state of the infrastructure, its level of decay, its use, its maintenance and how this has affected the quality of academic activities in the university;

• establish the quantum of staff and students welfare programmes going by the prevailing situation in Nigeria and the vision of the founding fathers;

• assess the staff needs/establishment of the university in relation to the various programmes currently run by it with emphasis placed on quality and quantity of such needs in adherence to carrying capacity principle;

• study the academic programmes in the university with a view to determining its relevance and usefulness to the state; examine broadly the students' activities from the point of entry to graduation. This will include admissions, registrations, attendance in class, examinations, results, transcripts and certificate issuance, mobilisation for the NYSC and convocation ceremonies;

• find out the various challenges of the staff and students' unions and associations in the university and how such could be managed successfully; and

• find out how the university has been able to generate revenue in the last 10 years and how such has been managed. This must be done with a view to establishing the challenges of the university management in financial matters, paying attention to transparency as against opaqueness, and taxable issue, and on the basis of the foregoing, make recommendations that would lead to the proper functioning of the university.

The panel came up with its recommendations within the stipulated time. Part of the recommendations was that the Vice-Chancellor of the university, Professor Odutola Osilesi and three other management staff; the two deputy vice-chancellors, Professors Olukayode Ajayi and O.Otolorin, and the Acting Registrar, Mr O. Osinulu be sent on compulsory leave.

The panel also recommended that the state government should address issues such as appointments that did not follow due process; lecturers appointed or promoted to senior positions without adequate number of publications, lecturers without doctorate degrees who have spent 10 years after their master degrees and without evidence of appreciable progress to complete their doctorate degree programmes would have their appointments reviewed. It also asked the government to stop appointments into professional positions without the necessary academic assessment while lecturers with questionable doctorate degrees and those who made false declarations of substantive positions at the point of interview would have their appointments determined. But the panel singled out the Bursar, Mr. A.M.A. Tonade, for commendation.

Following the recommendations of the panel, the state government put in place a new governing council, headed by Otunba Alex Onabanjo, as chairman. The council, at its first meeting, implemented the government's white paper by asking the principal officers with the exception of the bursar and the librarian to proceed on their accumulated leave and appointed Professor Olusoga Sofola. The council later disengaged the vice chancellor and paid him six months salary in lieu of notice. Since then the council has been at work trying to restore the university.

Sina Kawonise

I am aware that for about two years, there was no governing council for the univer- sity. But what kind of system was in place that allowed the rot in the university to go on unchecked for that long?
The problem had to do with leadership, putting the wrong people in positions. In Ogun State, there is this zoning formula. If the last VC came from, say, Ijebu, the next one must come from another part of the state. That narrowed down the scope of search for the right person. For instance, the last VC composed what he called the management team. Now, the management team of a university is composed of the principal officers. These are the VC, the DVC, the registrar, the bursar and the librarian. But this man enlarged the management team; he brought in the director of works and others. It became so unwieldy that sometimes they had management meeting of about 25 people. Some people knew that this was illegal. A few of these professors pointed out the illegality but the VC overruled them.

But before him, there was Professor Soyode, a first class and reputable academic. But the man had a weakness; he did not know how to decline a request. A lot of people got employed that were actually not needed, especially the non-teaching staff. They were just employing people. What was the implication of that? As at April 2007, the wage bill of the university was N97million. By the time we were inaugurated in April 2009, the salary had gone to N240 million. What happened? Yes, there was a salary review within that period but that wouldn't have increased the wage bill by more than 35 per cent.

That takes us to another problem the university had. A wage bill of N240million, how is it funded? The visitor to the university said there was no way the university could continue the way it was going and ask the management to control the way it was employing new staff. So, the government decided to give the university N148million every month. Meanwhile, Ogun State government runs 13 institutions. The total amount of money that the state government pays to these 13 institutions is N550million monthly. Out of this, OOU alone takes N148 million. Yet, ASUU (Academic Staff Union of Universities), OOU chapter always accuses the government of not funding that institution. Now, let's look at the issue of IGR. In a university owned by a state government, the IGR actually belongs to the government and should go to the treasury, that is the normal financial practice. But the government said instead of the money going into the treasury, the university should use it to augment what the government gives. The implication is that by the time the IGR is added to what the government gives, it amounts to over N200million. But in spite of that, the university still had to borrow every month to augment salary payment. By the time we got there, when we looked at the books, we first found a debt of N1.3million. We later found out, upon proper scrutiny, that it was N1.9 billion. Certainly, if we had not come in when we did, that university would have caved in under its own weight because it became unsustainable. The banks that were giving them loans were ready to stop that because they were not servicing those loans. The implication of that was that for about two years there was no physical development. By the time we got there, there was no water on the campus. The university was owing PHCN N2.7million. PHCN had cut off power supply to the university. We found out that instead of paying PHCN, they were buying diesel to the tune of N3million every month. These are some of the things we found on the ground and we said "No, you cannot run a university like this."

There is this question about the membership of the council that some of the members are not fit to be in the council. What is your reaction to this?That is a very surprising question because when you look at the people appointed into council, you will find out that they are distinguished Nigerians. Take our chairman, Otunba Alex Onanbanjo, for instance, he is a man who has really made his mark in the business world. He is an oil magnate, he is there in the banking industry. He is among the SW8 that bought controlling shares in Wema Bank. We have Mr. Fola Adeola, pioneer Managing Director of GT Bank, one of the best banks in the country. Just about two weeks ago, Fola Adeola signed a contract for his own company that is supposed to lay a communication backbone. The contract is worth about $240million. We have Professor Bello, who made a first class in his first degree and has risen to become a professor and a fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Engineering. We have Venerable Oyebolu, a 79-year old professional who was once a president of Nigerian Institute of Engineers. I will tell you that I am the most insignificant member of that council, not just in terms of age but also in terms of achievements and attainment. We have Honourable Odusanya, a former member of the National Assembly and Chief Otesanya, a very successful publisher. We also have Dr. Bashiru Akinyemi, a lawyer. He has a PhD in Law.

The visitor deliberately brought in people with experience in the business world into the council so that they will be able to run the university in a way that there will be value for money. If anybody is raising any question about the membership of the council that means such person does not know the pedigree of those of us in that council.

But there is also the question of non-inclusion of OOU members of staff in the council.Yes, but that is beyond the powers of the council. Now, the composition of the council is this: nine external members are appointed by the government, it is out of the nine that we have the chairman, Otunba Alex Onabanjo. Apart from the nine we have the statutory members, the VC, the DVC, the registrar as secretary, then we have two members of senate elected by the senate itself, two members of congregation and one representing convocation. On the day of our inauguration, we asked the former VC where the two members of senate were and he said the position had become vacant and that the senate had not elected new ones and that they would be elected as soon as possible. The convocation was represented by Mr. Olusanya, Rector, Adegbenro Polytechnic. He is the chairman of Alumni Association and statutorily, alumni chairman represents the convocation. Out of an 18 member council, 14 attended the inaugural meeting. The example I want to give is this. Ogun State House of Assembly has 26 members. Let's say that at the end of the 2007 elections, the election of two or three members were not conclusive, would that stop the inauguration and the functioning of the house? The house would go ahead. We also have to go ahead. We cannot say because congregation and senate have not brought their own representatives we will not govern our university. What the law says is about quorum. Once we have one-third you form the quorum. At the inaugural meeting we had 14, which was more than enough to form the quorum.

What is the council doing to clear the rot in the university?A lot. First, we are looking at the staff strength. There is this NUC (National Universities Commission) guideline on staff mix that if you have a particular number of academic staff you should have a given number of non-teaching staff. For instance, we have 810 academic staff which we are maintaining. Even those who have to go because of non productivity with respect to their PhDs, not writing papers etc will have to be replaced. If we have 810 academic staff, by the guideline of the NUC, we should not have more than 969 non-teaching staff. But when we got there we met 1715 non teaching staff, that is a veritable leakage in the system. It is very regrettable. Nobody takes delight in disengaging people who have been in a system one way or the other but somehow we have to shed weight because it has become unsustainable. Every month end is always a headache for us looking for how to raise money to pay the salary. We cannot even do any other thing apart from paying salaries. We cannot buy diesel for our generators, we cannot support our academic staff to even develop themselves. Even the university is owing staff unions. We cannot continue that way. We have spoken with the unions and they have seen reasons with us. What they are only saying now is that those we have to disengage we have to ensure that their severance allowance is paid immediately.

We have prevailed on the visitor and he has graciously approved N100million for us to do certain things. So, we are working on providing water on the campus. We are also working on electricity. We need transformers on that campus because when PHCN even supplies electricity, the network on the campus does not allow for full current. So, we want to get more transformers. So, the N100million is for water and electricity. Whatever is left will be used as a revolving fund to pay staff that will be disengaged.

Apart from that, the governor has also directed OGROMA to construct the roads on all the campuses of the university. We are also in the process of reviewing the financial processes. Very soon we are going to embark on a head count to see if we have ghost workers among those who are claiming salaries every month. We want to see what actually is the staff strength of this university.

Again, we have secured the approval of the ETF (Education Trust Fund) for a N110million building which we are splitting into two classrooms; one at the permanent site in Ago Iwoye and the other one in Ikenne.

The chairman of council has just donated an e-library where students can access not less than 7 million books online. Quite a number of members of council are bringing in their friends to do one thing or the other for the university because these are very influential people. Apart from that, we found out that we have not less than 10 banks on campus, they are making money from the university and the students without putting anything back into the system. The council is planning a meeting with the management of the banks to discuss with them how they can be of assistance to the school.

The Acting Vice Chancellor, Professor Sofola, has also been able to get an aid from the ETF to the tune of N40million to support our academic staff who want to do their PhD locally and abroad. We know that the reform will take us sometime but we are determined to see it through.

                                                       By  Sulaimon Olanrewaju