The bill to transform Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, (MOUAU) Abia State, into a conventional university scaled through second reading at the House of Representatives last Wednesday. It was sponsored by the Deputy Speaker, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Kalu and six other lawmakers. The lead debate was however, led by Hon. Kelechi Nwogu, who argued that tinkering with the establishment Act would expand the university’s academic scope, encourage interdisciplinary research, and enhance the institution’s global recognition. “The transition to a conventional university would allow MOUAU to offer a broad range of academic programs in fields like Arts, Medicine, Law, Social Sciences, and Humanities,” he opined. Advancing the viewpoint, he stated that, “This diversification would attract a larger, more varied student population, making MOUAU a hub for learners from diverse backgrounds.” And for him, universities that offer a broad range of disciplines are most likely to enjoy higher rankings globally.
Taking exception to the amendment proposal, a university don, Dr. Philips Not, expressed concern that the move is ill-timed and harped on the need for legislations that would channel more funds for technical incubation of agribusiness in universities of agriculture, which will in turn, leads to new jobs and wealth creation. He stated emphatically that, “It amounts to a misplacement of priority to switch over to conventional University at this period the country and South-East zone are battling food security…” The summation of his intervention is that turning MOUAU to a conventional university will neither attract extra funding nor accelerate development to the state, and instead, he urged the lawmakers to go for a brand-new federal university for the state.
The idea of converting MOUAU to a conventional university was mooted during the tenure of Professor Hillary Edeoga as Vice Chancellor (March 2011 – February 2016). He was in alliance with other vice chancellors of specialized universities across the country who wanted a relaxation of their core mandates so that they would offer admissions in courses like Medicine and Law, where virtually every family wants their children to study. The VCs were disposed to the change as it would give them the leeway to get more students and earn more school fees to run the universities, and service the growing demands from moneybags, those at the the corridors of power and the top echelon of public bureaucracy. That was the key motivation.
Relying on claimed directives from a former Minister of Education, Prof Ruqayyat Ahmed Rufai (2010-2013), vice chancellors of Nigeria’s specialized universities began offering admissions in conventional courses “to increase the chances of admission for eligible candidates who might have been denied because of space constraint.” However, in 2017, the then Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, ordered the universities that introduced and admitted students in courses outside their original mandate to stop forthwith. Such a halt was necessary. The change ought to come through amendment of the enabling laws, and not by mere pronouncement.
The establishment of specialized universities in agriculture, technology, and medical & health sciences in Nigeria is a global norm and was a well-though-out policy by our national forebearers. A university must not necessarily be a jack of all trades. The argument that the global ranking of MOUAU will go up if it becomes a conventional university is not true. Universities are ranked in part based on quality of teaching, the number of scientific publications in highly indexed journals, and outputs weighed by societal impact. It could be patented innovations and inventions of the staff members. In fact, the methodology for the 2024 rankings of universities in Sub-Saharan Africa by Times Higher Education had twenty metrics grouped under five pillars: “resources and finance; access and fairness; student engagement; ethical leadership; and Africa impact.”
With a mounting youth unemployment, what should be the priority of lawmakers and policy makers is to ensure increased targeted funding to those specialized universities to leapfrog Nigeria from its economic doldrums. It will help the country to contain youth ‘bulge’ and hopelessness ravaging the younger generation.
First, if the country can appropriately fund or incentivize learning in the fields of medical & health sciences, including Schools of Nursing and related disciplines, the country would be repositioned with her youthful population to fill the gap of over thirteen million nurses and health workers needed in the next five years in developed countries, occasioned by aging population, effects of COVID-19 pandemic and lack of specialty in orthopaedics and trauma courses. Their remittances from abroad will boost our GDP and enhance the strength of Naira.
Second, as Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, stated during the 2019 Mo Ibrahim Forum, agriculture and ICT are the promising sectors for the young minds to become billionaires. The universities of agriculture and technology should serve as centers of applied research, innovations in various value chain, as well as the development of technological and digital startups. I had made a case on June 4, 2024, column for a standardization of the ingenuity of young hackers to begin our Silicon Valley with their linkages with universities of technology. It is the town and gown relationship between Stanford University and Silicon Valley startups that are upping the US and Israeli strides in innovations.
For agriculture, the enviable height of the Netherlands as the second largest exporter of food in the world should challenge Nigeria. A small-sized country of less than eighteen million population with a land mass that covers only 41,850Km2, the country’s cutting-edge agriculture was attained through application-oriented and field-based experimentation farms in nine research institutes of Wageningen University $ Research (WUR). “WUR has the golden triangle concept, in which government, knowledge institutes and companies work together to develop the economy.” Thus, the Netherlands became agricultural powerhouse through vertical farming, seed technology and robotics. MOUAU does not need to become a conventional university to make global impact. What it needs is right and targeted funding for optimal utilization of the experts in the school to curb food insecurity and create jobs and businesses before competing at the global scene.