We take pride in students’ wellbeing – Prof Mainoma
Vice Chancellor of Nasarawa State University Keffi, Professor Muhammad Akaro Mainoma, in this interview explains the reasons behind the recent combined convocation ceremony and other issues in the institution.
Convocation is a defining moment in the life of every student, why do you defer yours?
The last convocation was done in 2008 because that of 2009 was a special one which was done to honour some notable people. We have been having difficulties in terms of getting students records straight. It was not until a year ago that we were able to put the records together.
The approving authority for students’ results is the university senate which wasn’t meeting regularly. Somebody stayed here for three years and there were only three senate meetings; you know there is a problem. With consistency of senate meetings, we were able to get all the results out and about 27,000 graduands took part in the convocation.
There were complaints that most of the contract employees were incompetent, how did you hire them?
The recruitment is based on needs and the state House of Assembly was even saying there was no basis for contract staff. In an academic environment, you cannot do without contract employees because some employees would have retired but they still have the knowledge to share, so if you find those people recommended from the departments, then you need to get them on board. I don’t get in touch with these people; it is the faculty or department that will recommend them based on experience. I read accountancy and there is no contract staff in that department; I can’t assess staff in chemistry department.
How did you address the labour unrest in the university?
By the time I took appointment in February 2014, the university had just resumed from a six-week strike by the academic staff - between May and December 2013 and so most of the things needed to run the system were missing coupled with the inconsistency in senate meetings.
The university had no governing council for two years until February 2014 and people were not conversant with the operation of a university. There was also the problem of redundancy because having stayed at home for a long period, there was the inertia to move the way they are supposed to. Now we can say the university is stable because almost all the organs are operational.
What we did was just to get commitments from the people first by defining the goal of the university and identified those willing to contribute to the achievement of these goals and everybody was convinced. My major constituency is the senate and in every senate meeting I share a message, a subject concerning the university.
Are there any vital projects you put in place?
There is improvement in terms of physical structures. Many roads were constructed and we got special interventions from the TETFund. There were also projects done on needs assessments. But my major achievement was making people to return to the vision of the university.
The level of teaching now is greater than what was done in the past. We created directorates of quality assurance and research as well as centers and institutes and so people have something to look on to. The quality assurance unit looks at the timetable and checks the course content to know what the lecturers are supposed to do without the lecturers knowing. Where we have major deviation, we call the attention of the lecturers.
Do you get undue interference from the state government?
No, the only time we had problem with the lawmakers was when we finished admission and they came out with a list of candidates for admission. And we explained to them that, that was not proper and they understood. I was ready to quit the job over the matter.
However, our major problem is inadequate funds to achieve our vision and the state too, is facing financial challenges. We have so many programmes for accreditation and others coming on, for instance there is a lot of pressure to do medicine and engineering but we don’t have the funds.
Government hasn’t got enough money to give us but had allowed us to do marginal increase of school fees. We have done staff promotions which increased salaries by N20 million. We need to generate more revenue. We have created a micro finance bank.
For students, we take pride in keeping students’ accommodation and classrooms in good shape. We also provide boreholes in nearby communities for off campus students and ensure that electricity is stable on campus. Government has built a male hostel for 200 students and two others for 400 female students.
We have also employed natives of the state as lectures while the main consultants are also from this state. And all these appointments were done on merit.
Have you been able fill the admission quota of the university?
The university policy that says 80 per cent of students must be from the state, was never obeyed but for the first time we were able to hit the 80:20 ratio.
What legacy would you want to leave?
I want to leave a university that flourishes better than how I met it, without internal squabbles.