A Senior Lecturer at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and Public Health, Safety and Environmental Expert, Prof Rabiu Abdussalam Magaji, has spoken on the need for universities be independent of federal or state aid.
“We need to understand that universities are reservoirs of knowledge which are also supposed to be reservoirs of development, finance creation as well as solving the problem of humanity. But what we have in Nigeria is divergent from these,” he decried.
He further said Nigerian higher institutions should now look beyond getting money from the government but rather look at how they help the government get more money and as well create money for themselves.
“The example I can give you is my university, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria which has been in existence for more than 60 years with some faculties through these years. We have some of the units or centres in the university that are older than the university itself.
“For example, we have the Institute of Agriculture Research that has celebrated 100 years of existence. As far as I am concerned, the Institute has not created value because by now, it is supposed to be a research trust of the Institution. By now, the university is supposed to have been self-sufficient in agriculture.
“We have another place called National Animal Production and Research Institute (NAPRI) in ABU. But up to date, people who are into poultry in Zaria and Kaduna are still buying their birds from Ogun and other far States.
“Another example I would like to give is this; today, it is not normal that ABU is not the one producing at least 60 percent of medical drugs and foods that we consume in Kaduna State, especially with the vast land we have in the faculty of agriculture.
“If you also go to communities, you will see individuals producing soaps while we have a department in the university that is supposed to be doing that.
“The essence is that our university can do better by the time they incorporate entrepreneurship into the knowledge they give out. With all these, we will not have a reason to go on strike.
“But when the lecturers are depending only on salary and they embark on strike and the government is not paying, those lecturers are expected to be in problem. That is why you will see some of them going bankrupt, selling their cars and other personal belongings including slippers during the last strike.
“So, it is beyond the thinking that Government should provide everything for us. We should rather use our initiative to create money for the universities whereby the institutions can believe in themselves, and create a lot of consultancy services for their host communities,” he said
