The Vice Chancellor of Lagos State University (LASU), Prof. John Oladapo Obafunwa, in this interview, links the crisis in the institution to the reaction of some people to the reform agenda of his administration.
Obafunmi also joins issues with the LASU branch of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) over the hike in the fees paid by the university students. Excerpts:
LASU-savelasuWhat is different between the LASU of 2014 and the one you met on assumption as Vice-Chancellor? What are some of the reforms you have initiated so far?
I don’t intend to get into the business of apportioning blames or attributing any liabilities with regards to my predecessors. But, honestly, when I came in, I found a LASU that needed a lot of synergy. Of course, you know I came from the medical school.
A number of things were not being properly done. And over the past four years that I was there as Provost (of medical school), we were able to make significant changes. When you start to count medical schools in this country, by the time you count the first four or five, you will definitely count Lagos State University College of Medicine.
On getting to the main campus, I realized that some of things that we should take for granted were lacking. Let me give you some examples. On infrastructure, not much was happening on the main campus. But when you look at the period between November 2011 when I came in and 2014, you cannot but give credit to the state government and, of course, the legislative arm for the improvement we are seeing.
We have the new Senate Building which is a seven-storey structure going on. We are virtually through with Phase One. They have started Phase Two A. The last phase is Two B and we are hoping that under24 months, we will get to end of the road. There is the new central library that can sit about 800 to 1,000 students at a time, comprising four floors. It is under construction.
We have started the piling of blocks for the building of the new Faculty of Management Sciences. The state government just awarded the contract and they have started work to put up three buildings. Incidentally, it is to assist the striking academic staff in the area of housing.
The state government assisted us in refurbishing the three-in-one lecture halls adjoining the Faculty of Education. We are in the process of furnishing it. Also nearing completion is the twin-lecture theatre, a storey-building for the Faculty of Law. If everything goes well, we expect that by end of July, if we are lucky, they will finish the Faculty of Science complex.
All these things happened within the last two years. Apart from the building projects that are ongoing, we have the drainage issue. The state government also came to our rescue through the Ministry of Environment to award contracts and started putting up drainage system.
In fact, I was shocked when I was going through the plans of the university and noticed that areas that I thought were just plain grounds were actually drainage system that have been filled with sands and we are talking of drainage site that were about two metres wide and about one and a half metres deep.
They had to excavate all those things in addition to constructing new ones. And that will explain why we do not have the kind of flooding that used to occur in many parts of LASU. Last year, we did not experience any flooding and we are supposed to be moving on to the next stage.
You might come to LASU and see one or two potholes here and there, but I am not so bothered because there are many construction works going on and you have lots of heavy trucks plying the roads. But I believe that at the end of the construction exercise, we should be able to have all the roads done. So, you can imagine the amount of money that the state government has been pumping into our school.
No convocation
Also, before I came into the place, for about four, five years, they had no convocation. I came in 2011, but by 2012, we had our convocation. We had another one in February 2013. But for this ongoing crisis, we would have had another one and we are still going to have it. Also, for the first time in LASU, in 2012, we did not have our convocation outside the field, we had it in the new auditorium.
With the assistance of the state government, we were able to finish the new auditorium building, and that was where we had our convocation. Those are just part of things that have changed in terms of infrastructure in LASU and it is only fair that people will appreciate those good signs of the university.
LASU used to be plagued with students saying ‘I am in 400-level, but I have not seen the result of 400 level’ or you want to go for exams and instead of 100 people coming for the exams, you will find about 300 to 400 people coming.
I came from a medical school where examination results are released 72 hours after writing the examination, but It was a shock to me getting to the main campus and finding out that examination results were being delayed. I will agree that in the College of Medicine, we had a smaller population, but the orientation and mentality was quite different.
So, we had to review the whole process in the main campus and I can tell you that this has also become a thing of the past. By so doing, the teacher-students relationship in LASU has been minimized .And to come up with this, some people will like it , and some others will not like it, but, nonetheless, we will progress.
lasu-gateAccountability
Also, in the area of accountability, when this administration came in, I discovered that LASU was expending almost N13 million a month on imprest. Some people were not even waiting for their monthly salary, they depended solely on imprest.
We felt something had to be done and I started with the Office of the Vice-Chancellor where the imprest was slashed by 66 percent. At that time, there was only one Deputy Vice-Chancellor. Despite the fact that we slashed the imprest, we added another Deputy Vice-Chancellor.
If I could slash the imprest to the Vice-Chancellor’s Office by 66 per cent, I do not need to think twice before slashing the imprest of other departments to between 40 and 50 per cent. In taking that decision, we reduced imprest from about N13 million to about N5million a month. Will some people like that? No. Let me add that we have been able to do much for the school in the area of some courses that were not accredited.
Just when we thought some form of stability has returned to LASU, we are now confronted with agitations from students and lecturers? Could you give us some insight into what could be responsible for this?
I will try as much as possible to choose my words, but at the same time, I will be as frank as possible. You will notice that it is not unlikely that because of the reforms being carried out, some people will not be happy. But it is also interesting to note that when this administration came in 2011, we had an ASUU executive and there wasn’t any problem until that ASUU executive left and a new one took over.
Now all of a sudden, we have a problem. Could we be dealing with issues that go beyond what we are seeing? I don’t know. It is an open question. The first sign to the best of my knowledge has to do with the 21 points being raised by ASUU, which include the tenure of the VC, retirement age, the issue of ‘No vacancy, No promotion’, which was not coined by the administration, the issue of internet provision on campus, issue of environment.
Twice, we had rainstorms that damaged our facilities in the ICT unit. The first one, I got an estimate of N15million to effect repairs throughout the university. But by the time we finished, we spend a little over N3million and everything was rectified. The second time we had problem with ICT, the entire set of equipment was destroyed because of what turned out to be an earthling problem.
For the new auditorium where we had our first convocation indoor, I got an estimate that we were to complete it with about N29 million. By the time we were through, we did everything with less than N6 million. So, we had series of meetings and even the Chancellor, Sir Molade Okoya-Thomas, invited us. We held about four or five meetings. But it is like the same issues were being repeated.
At some point, the representatives of national ASUU came and we had discussions in the Senate Chamber, then about seven issues were raised. By the time the current trade dispute began, it had already been reduced to three. And I believe that, if from 20 we are now dealing with just three, it means we have been talking.
On the ‘No vacancy, no promotion’ issue, is it true that we have had no vacancy?
The answer is no. because I recall that about 112 people were promoted and appointed in 2011/2012. That is a fact. So, if there were no vacancies, would they have been promoted? I don’t want to be personal but I have to mention this. The current ASUU Chairman earned his promotion in 2011/2012. In 2012/2013, the exercise that we just completed, there were 256 vacancies declared.
Meanwhile, the various colleges and faculties presented only 105 lecturers for promotion. So, we have been promoting people.
ASUU also raised the issue of the hike in school fees saying it is the most expensive in public universities in Nigeria. What is your take on that?
The issue of school fees, strictly speaking, concerns students, parents and government. That should not be an issue for ASUU wanting to shut down the university. And I know that this administration is aware of the fact that government is looking into it.
Government is interacting with the students and the students have written a proposal to the government and a committee is looking into it. So, why not wait for that committee to finish its work? In a correspondent to ASUU, I said ‘if you feel strongly about this, why don’t you make your own submission to the government as to what you think should be the school fees? Let government consider it among other things’.
Do you have any idea if ASUU has done that?
ASUU never did that to the best of my knowledge. Nobody in government has told me that they have received any document from ASUU towards that effects. It was said that school fees hike has been responsible for low students’ enrolment; I will leave us to judge. It could be partly responsible but you cannot ignore a lot of other things.
Remember I mentioned earlier on that LASU lost accreditation; if programmes were not accredited, particularly those ones that will attract students like admin, public relations, insurance, economics, even law, you cannot advertise for them.
So, that will naturally affect your enrolment because you cannot admit students into those departments. For two years, they could not admit into Faculty of Law, now we are admitting comfortably. Because we lost accreditation in accounting, we could not admit into it.
One important factor we cannot overlook is this: if a university is prone to incessant strikes, either by teachers or students, as a parent, would you want to send your children to that university? What kind of brand are we selling to the wider society? It is very myopic to just focus on school fees.
We should look at what we are doing to ourselves. We need to think seriously about rebranding and about the image of the university. The more you have this riotous environment, every parent will not be happy to send their children here and that will definitely lead to low enrolment of students. I have received a number of texts from people asking me, ‘Why did I come to LASU?
Am I not wasting my time?’ I went to give a lecture to medical students two weeks ago and I realized that the 400-level medical students actually came into the university around 2008. It means they have spent six years in the university and they told me, ‘Sir, we don’t want any other strike in this place’.
I am not going to be specific, but it is also a fact that a very senior official of ASUU-LASU has two children in Babcock University. Meanwhile, he wants LASU to be shut down. I think we need to think seriously about it.
Are you in essence saying that the present crisis was caused by some elements who are not comfortable with your reform programmes and wanted you out or by the hike in school fees?
I have not alleged that some people wanted me out at all costs but some people naturally might not be happy with certain reforms we have made and you cannot rule out such considerations. The issue of school fees is about two and a half years old. The interesting thing is that government did not just arrive at the figures.
The figures actually passed through even the academics of LASU, the Senate. The Senate of the university knew about these things, they approved the fees, so how come they are now raising these issues? I find it very interesting that the president of the students union said nobody should fight for them, that they are capable of fighting for themselves.
I don’t think the issue of school fees is a big problem. I know government is trying to do something about it and it will be interesting to see what happens after government has taken a decision on that.
The governor said the new fees is for new students and not the returning ones. Could you shed more light on this?
When the new fees was introduced in 2011, it was stated clearly that it will only apply to people just coming into the system, that the old students will continue to pay N25,000 because government felt that they had a pre-existing contract with the old students and they should maintain that.
Now, at some point in time I said hike in school fees in quote. This is because it is not really a hike but a review of the value of goods. But in doing that, government also tries to increase the vote to scholarship and bursary. And I know a number of students who enjoy both scholarship and bursary.
Indigent students said they approached the school authorities to be exempted from the new fees but were ignored. How true is that?
With regards to indigent students, the university never received any request, but I know that the governor instructed that we should not demand for school fees to be paid at once. People should be allowed to pay in two installments: Pay 70 percent during the first semester and pay the remaining 30 percent at the beginning of second semester, when you want to register.
During this recent crisis, the student executives said that they heard that some people dropped out because of school fees and I was there and the governor said ‘I have asked you to give me a list of those that dropped.’ The list was given to me in government house and we went back to the university to look at it.
Of course, we found many on the list who were not students of LASU. We find out that many of them dropped out because they could not meet up with the appropriate CGPA. We found that some people had actually collected bursary and scholarship but still did not pay the school fees.
I recall the governor said that upon going through the list, if we have any indigent students who dropped out, government will pay on their behalf. I don’t see a government doing anything better than that. The Governing Council also promised to give scholarship to brilliant students irrespective of their state of origin. So, all these things are in the pipelines.
So what do you think is the way out?
I think that is what government is doing right now, by interacting with the students. An adhoc committee has been set up. I don’t have all the details but I know that the report is going back to the governor.
It will be considered by the state executive council and I expect a decision to be communicated to the Governing Council of the University and we will be able to do something about it. I believe that when that happens, and very soon, that should put a stop to all these things.
Are you making any personal efforts as the Vice-Chancellor towards effective resolution of this crisis?
In fact yesterday (Thursday) I was in Alausa discussing with the committee set up by government,. Aside that, we have been in discussions even within the university. I told you that two days ago, there was a meeting with some HoDs and Deans. Also, yesterday at the Senate, there were 40 senators there and we not only took decisions on the way forward, we also looked at what had happened and I can assure you that we have made ourselves available for dialogue.
In fact we are supposed to meet with ASUU at 9am yesterday, but unfortunately ASUU said it was not available to meet with us. Up till now, there has not been any bilateral declaration of war, it is just one-sided because it is not worth it. Tomorrow, I will leave this position, we will meet outside, we should be able to relate with one another.
On a final note, will there be an end to this current crisis? The answer is yes. Whether people like it or not, change has come to LASU. I prefer not to talk much but I just believe in doing what I have to do,. Those who want to declare war, let them declare the war.
If they have grievances, let them come out into the open to say what they have to say. Whether we like it or not, LASU has to change, we have to move forward. Obafunwa is not scared of anyone. I will just keep smiling. Let s just leave it at that for now.
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