By Sunday Ani
Expectedly, the founder of Maduka University, Ekwegbe in Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State, Chief Sam Maduka Onyishi, is elated by the singular achievement of having the tertiary institution which holds a special place in his heart take off on the day that he marked his 60th birthday, November 23, 2023, in the serene environment where it is located. From that beautiful place, his vision is that Maduka University will produce graduates imbued with entrepreneurial spirit, no matter their primary field of study. He wants to produce wealth creators after graduation, not job seekers.
In this interview, Onyishi, who is also the Chairman and founder of Peace Mass Transit speaks on what differentiates the university from others, what motivated him to establish a university, the quality of teachers in the school, among other issues.
You have carved a niche for yourself in the business world, why did you decide to establish a university? What do you want to achieve with it?
Well, in 1993, I entered into a covenant with God, and I told Him that if he blessed me, I would use the blessings to serve Him and humanity. I also asked God to take my life a day before the day I would decide to leave him for another god, to ensure that day would not come. That was in 1993. Then I was coming back from Kano, where I was a spare parts dealer, to Nsukka to study and I had N260,000 in cash. I invested that money to buy two buses, which I used to start Peace Mass Transit as a student at the University of Nigeria.
So, God really did wonders in my life. He kept to the covenant. When I turned 50, I looked at what I had achieved and said, how do I fulfill the promise I made to God? I decided to put the money I made into an impact-making investment that will change lives and influence people. I was considering investing in the health sector (hospital), education or agribusiness. After much consideration, I decided to invest in the education sector by founding a university because a university could accommodate both the hospital and agribusiness effectively. Education is the place where I think I can develop young people for God; show them that people can make money without being dubious; make money through the right ways, working hard, being prayerful, law-abiding, God-fearing and obedient to the laws of the land, and then still being prosperous at the same time. If God did it for me, he can do it for many people and I think I can just be an example of such a person. So, this is the only way or one of the things I can give back to God and humanity. It’s no longer about how to make more money; it’s about how to make God happy and not regret giving us the little that we have.
We already have a good number of tertiary institutions in Enugu State. What informed your choice of location?
I told God that I was going to use His blessings to serve Him and serve His people. His people are the people where I come from. They are God’s people. So, when I say His people, I mean my people where I come from. There’s a reason God made me an Nsukka man. There’s a reason He made me an Igbo man and Nigerian. Charity, they say, begins at home. So, if I’m going to serve God, let me start serving Him from my community, and from there I can get to other people. University is a global thing. You can use it to give services to people all over the globe. Besides, the location of the university is strategic. What do you need in a university? Apart from infrastructure development, you need human resources. And the human resources are the lecturers. So, my university is within an hour, 30-minute radius of over 15 tertiary institutions from Kogi, Benue, Ebonyi, Abia and Anambra states. You know in the university system, you collaborate with others to make things happen. So, there are openings there for us to embrace and make a change.
What will Maduka University do differently from the other universities in Enugu State, and across the country?
I have just told you a little about my history; that where I’m coming from, you can do it with hard work. You don’t have to be dubious or fraudulent before you can make it in life. Knowledge of God, hard work, dedication, honesty, and transparency, can give you everything you want in life. Again, you can start small and make it big. I did it, others can do it too. I want everyone in my school to have an entrepreneurial spirit. I have it, that’s what brought me from being a second-hand clothes dealer to a bus conductor, bus driver, spare parts dealer, bus operator and today, a chancellor of a university. So, every graduate of the university is going to be an entrepreneur. No matter the course you studied at my university, you will be able to stand on your own because at Maduka University, we teach you to be an employer of labour and not a job seeker.
Does that mean that there will be compulsory courses on entrepreneurship for every student of the university, no matter the field of study?
Yes, any person who is studying in our school will do courses on entrepreneurship from the first year to the final year; that’s our plan, and that’s going to be our focus because it’s an entrepreneurial university. A lot of people have had opportunities in life but they were not able to properly utilize them. People should be able to create wealth, and if people are fortunate enough to come into contact with opportunities, they should be able to harness them and turn them into wealth-creating opportunities. Sometimes, when people make money, they lose it due to lack of good knowledge of how to manage and grow money. These things can be taught and we have the environment, and the people that can pass that message to the younger generation.
What are the state-of-art facilities and infrastructure that the school can boast of?
Well, in a university of our type, of course, apart from human resources, we have good laboratories in all our courses. This is because every modern course today, including social science courses, should have a laboratory. We have laboratories in health and medical sciences, engineering, and computing. Currently, there are accounting, mathematics and economics laboratories. Every course has a laboratory, so you do theory and you do practical. This will balance you up as a graduate. You have internship opportunities to go out and have real-life experiences apart from what you are being taught in school. So, that is the difference between a university like ours and others; we have an interest in practicality.
Apart from that, we have sporting facilities. Today, we are putting up an Olympic standard football pitch and a sports arena. In sports, handball, volleyball, lawn-tennis, and badminton courts as well as wrestling, and boxing rings will be Olympic standard because we have the intention of hosting the NUGA games or co-hosting it one day, even though we are a private university. We think that a student who has not undergone these sporting activities is not complete. So, apart from mental development, they should also have physical development. It will make them complete individuals. So, we want an all-round trained student. In Igbo language, the university is called Marahadum. It means to know it all. So, you cannot say you are a graduate when you don’t have any knowledge of sports, arts, music, or anything except in the area of your course of study. For example, an engineer should have basic knowledge of finances, how to run a family, etc. These things make you a complete person. Yes, you don’t have to be an expert in all the areas, but basic knowledge in all areas of life will help you not just in being self-employed, but also in living a happy and fulfilled life because knowledge, they say, is power.
Your school’s tuition for courses like Law, Pharmacy, and Nursing is said to be N588,000, while others like Accounting are N378,000 per academic session. Don’t you think the fees are high considering the economic realities in the country?
No, I don’t think so. Before you say it’s on the high side, you will have to compare it to what other private universities are taking. You will find out that ours is among the least. It is the least and it’s for a purpose.
So, what is the purpose of making it lower than what other private universities charge?
The reason is because the university is ours. We’re not running it for any person. So, the interest is our interest, and what’s our interest? Our interest is to give service to God and man. Secondly, it is owned by a foundation, Samuel Maduka Onyishi Foundation. So, it’s a nonprofit-making university. It’s not meant to make profits and then share it with the shareholders. No, it’s a service, a gift and our contribution to the world. The university took off on November 23, 2023. That day was also my 60th birthday anniversary. So, that was my gift to Nigeria and the world on my 60th birthday. We come empty and we go back empty. I don’t believe that you have to keep money, or pack all the money for your children because your children don’t need all the money. What they need is a good education and I’ve done that for my children. It is more precious to invest in humanity than acquiring endless wealth and vanity. So, my family and I have decided to use what God has given us to serve humanity.
Kidnapping of students has become the order of the day. What measures have you put in place to ensure the security of lives and property of both the students and the staff?
The issue of security is a general one in Nigeria; it’s not just in any one place. However, we are lucky that the Enugu State Government, both the previous and the present administrations, support what we are doing. So, they are providing enough security in and around our school. The Nigerian police and the military also support what we are doing. They are providing enough security in and around the campus. The community where we are is happy with what we are doing. So, they are providing local vigilante services in and around the university. The local government is also interested. Everyone likes what we are doing, so I don’t think we have any problem with security. However, when you bring people together, you have to provide adequate security for them, apart from what the government and the security agencies are doing. We also have our own internal security. We are mindful of the security situation in the country, therefore, that has been adequately taken care of. We also deployed modern security technology like CCTV cameras in and around the campus for maximum security.
What are some of the challenges you encountered in making this dream come through?
We encountered a lot of challenges. The first challenge is the unfaithfulness of some Nigerian contractors. They are very unfaithful and can’t keep to their promises. They would collect money but would not do the job they are paid for. Unfortunately, in the past three or four years, the economy has not helped matters. When we started, our budget was at N2000 for a bag of cement. But, in six months, the price of everything changed. A bag of cement moved from N2000 to N3,000, N4,000, and then N5,000. We even bought for N5,700 at some point, and because of that, the contractors had a field day. We lost control of our budget because nobody even knew the price of anything in the market. So, whatever they tell you is what it is. We ended up spending far more than we budgeted. We lost control of our budgets just six months into the project. We are only lucky that God helped us weather the storm.
So, what made you have faith in continuing with the project?
What made me have faith is the expectation that very soon I’ll be 60 years old. I felt that I should finish it before the age of 60, because if I’m not able to build an investment now that I’m around 60, is it when I’m 80 that I will build one? So, I need to build the university when I’m still strong because I need to have time to nurse it. A university is like a baby. You have to nurse it for five to 10 years; you need time to nurse the university. So, I have to do it when I’m still young and I want to nurse it myself before I get very old and this is my life project. It’s something I want to give to Nigeria. It’s something I want to give to God. So, to me, it is a fight to finish. It’s not a battle that I can lose. It’s a battle that must be won because there is no other thing apart from that. That’s just what I decided to do; there’s no other thing I want to do.
Though Maduka University is privately owned, did you get any kind of support from your state government?
In this kind of economy, every state government has its own problems to resolve. My university is a private venture and does not have anything to do with any state government. It’s entirely a private investment and it’s philanthropic. It’s a social investment, so no government will give you money to go and do philanthropy. You don’t use another person’s money to do Father Christmas; nobody does that.
Are you in any kind of partnership with any organisation, local or international?
Right now, we have some foreign and local universities that have indicated interest to work with us. We’re going to work with universities locally and internationally, depending on their areas of strength. We’re going to partner with some technology universities from Japan and Malaysia to boost our technology. We’re also going to partner with some universities in India to boost our school of health/medical sciences, and some local universities to boost our human resources, exchange research, and so on. University education is global, so it’s not something you can do in one place, it depends on what you are looking for and who can offer it.
Funding is very critical to the sustenance of any institution. Is Maduka University going to be self-funded?
Yes, as I told you, the university is not supposed to be a business that you start today and it begins to fund itself today. I told you that it’s like a child that you have to nurse. So, you have to nurse the university for some time, to be able to stand strong and stand on its feet and begin to take care of itself. But, in the first five years, sometimes, up to 10 years, you continue putting money there. And even after 20 years, you’re still putting money into a university because a university is always growing, expanding, and demanding. So, it’s a lifetime investment. It’s not something you say, oh!, I am tired, I have finished with it; no, you don’t finish with a university. You continue to give back because even after putting up all the infrastructure, you still need to continue to put in money for research. And school fees from students are hardly enough even when you are fully grown.
Furthermore, sustenance is also not only about funding. We have, by God’s grace, made adequate provisions for that. We are going to be able to nurse the university but apart from that, the plan to sustain the university also has to do with even members of my family. By God’s grace, my wife has a PhD today. As I speak with you, of my four children, one has finished her PhD, while the other three are in the process of getting their PhD from different universities across the world. All of them are going to bring in different perspectives and different knowledge from different backgrounds to play in the university even when they are professors wherever they are all over the world. They will still be supporting the university through virtual meetings, virtual lectures, and so on. They are going to be bringing in knowledge from all over the place. And this is in preparation for succession. You know, one day, you are going to hand it over to your children and the board will also be there. Of course, the kind of board we are putting in place is not a board that isn’t knowledgeable but a board that will be committed, and so on. So, both at the family level, board level, and personal level, we are looking at all the areas to make sure that we are not found wanting. Those who are coming after you must appreciate what you have done for them to be able to keep it afloat.
How are you going to ensure that cultism and other related vices associated with tertiary institutions do not rear their ugly heads in the university?
Our university has adequately taken care of that. The issue of cultism and other vices are products of external influence. They come from outside the school. In our school, every teacher, every lecturer, every student is residential. It’s a 100 percent residential university. So, nobody will come from anywhere to bring cultism to the school. And you are not going to do that inside the school because once your parents bring you to the school, you remain there until it is time to go on holiday. You don’t leave the school without your parents applying for you to leave the school. Once you are in, you are in. You don’t leave the school without the consent of your parents. So, all those external influences that students suffer are not going to be applicable in our school. And because all the workers are going to live inside, nobody goes out to bring in anything to anybody, or runs errands for any person. People are going to concentrate and do their job and do it according to the rules and regulations of the school.
And on the part of the lecturers and the issue of sex-for-marks, how are you going to deal with that?
No, no, you see, all those things are environmental factors. The environment creates room for those things. There’s no room for such a thing because everybody’s living inside. So, where are you taking somebody to? Where are you going to meet with somebody to have a secret discussion? Everything is being done in the open. So, such things thrive in darkness and because we are living together, there’s no darkness. There’s nowhere to stay and have nocturnal meetings. There’s no darkness in our school, no dark spots or dark alleys.
Would there be consequences in case anybody flouts the rules?
Such things are not to be discussed, not to talk of acting on them. It’s a no-go area both for the students and the lecturers. It’s not a place where you go and sell handouts or you want to buy handouts unless you don’t want to study. If you’re not going to study, then you’ll be prepared to pack your bag and go. So, our school is not for people who are coming to look for somebody to help or who to help them. No, it’s for people who mean business, who want to study because they’re going to be our ambassadors and must be able to defend their certificates. Our certificates are going to be highly-priced. It is for those who have worked hard, who have passed both in character and in learning.
What is the recruitment process like, because the quality of the lecturers will also determine the quality of the students to be churned out?
We’re not employing teachers to come and try. We’re employing experienced teachers. For our management staff, they were all headhunted. They are all people coming from various schools, highly regarded, respected schools, with a wide experience right from our vice-chancellor and our registrar down to the librarian. They are all coming from positions of high respect and they have all been in the management team for above 10 years from various highly regarded universities, both private and public. And that’s how it is among all our teaching staff.