By Aloysius Attah
Professor Kate Azuka Omenugha, is acting Vice Chancellor, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University (COOU), Anambra State. In this interview with ALOYSIUS ATTAH, she spoke on growth and development in the university as the institution marks its silver jubilee and special convocation.
“Within that period too, we shall host a mentorship workshop where we shall pair some professors who are versatile with young scholars to see how they can mentor them. It will be a kind of mentorship clinic. By December, we will celebrate our people for long service award, some of our staff who have done well. It is a moment of reflection, of dreams and visualising the dreams and mapping out the strategies towards fulfilling those dreams.”
COOU is 25 years old. How do you feel about this milestone?
I’m just a child of grace. I’m just one year and four months in office and I’ve become the silver jubilee vice chancellor. I’m quite excited and happy and I give thanks to God. If you understand what jubilee entails, it is a time for blessing, a time to look back and thank God for what we have been and what we are going to become.
It is a time when we look at the numerous blessings of God and a time where doors of blessings open up and shower on the people. I told myself when I came in that we were not going to miss this blessing.
We started the jubilee celebration last year when we had the International Conference of the Consortium made up of some universities in Kenya, Uganda and others. That conference was successful and I emerged the chair of the consortium. We later came up with the silver jubilee matriculation, and the convocation is coming up now as part of the celebration.
Around July or August, we will be having the one on food security, where we are going to honour and synergise with people who are icons in food security. In October, we will have that of scholarship, which we shall institute for young scholars, where we shall get young scholars who have published in high-profile journals and give them a pat on the back by giving them money.
Within that period too, we shall host a mentorship workshop where we shall pair some professors who are versatile with young scholars to see how they can mentor them. It will be a kind of mentorship clinic. By December, we will celebrate our people for long service award, some of our staff who have done well. It is a moment of reflection, of dreams and visualising the dreams and mapping out the strategies towards fulfilling those dreams.
I think it was Dr. ABC Orjiakor who predicted at the formative stage that COOU would grow and become the most sought after university in the South East. Can you say that this prediction has come to reality?
Yes, Dr. Orjiarkor was very much right in his prediction because we are working towards being number one in Nigeria. At this moment, our dream is to be among the top 10 but after that, we move to number one.
Within 25 years, we moved from five faculties to 17 now, move from 500 students to 24,500, and now we have 73 departments, if we are able to do that within this period, able to start all those choice courses-medicine, nursing, medical laboratory, that weren’t there before and getting lots of subscription.
Last year, we had more than 1,900 applying to our Nursing Department, while we have space for only 100. We have up to 800 people applying for Medicine for only 120 spaces. If you have all these applications, it shows we are getting very popular.
All these are also not unconnected with the steady academic calendar we have in this university. That is our flagship, our best strength. If you enter the university, if it is a four-year course, you are leaving in four years; we don’t delay the students. By the grace of God, thanks to the staff and all their unions, we don’t go on strike.
Very soon, we are going to celebrate 10 years of an uninterrupted academic calendar. Thanks to the crop of staff we have here who are quite dedicated and selfless and understand some of the nuances of all these things.
Our staff are getting recommendations everywhere. We are pushing them on how to be an academic that meets global standards and competitiveness. Recently, we had one of our staff named one of the world’s best; a staff who is pro-chancellor in another university; and a staff who teaches round the globe; the kind of staff who are responsive and responsible.
What Dr. Orjiakor said was stating the obvious. We have the enabling environment; we have developed interest in research, intellectual property and whole lots of things that make a university. We are consciously trying to increase our global ranking to ensure that we are ranked properly.
We have not left anything to chance but have been very intentional in all we are doing. When we said we were going to aggressively introduce disruptions in the way things are done like in promotions, people thought we were joking, but we started that and people are now keying in.
Some people are not too happy about that but they understand that is the way forward. Like the governor would say-one youth, two skills. We are trying to follow what Mr. Governor is doing in Anambra State, to give students education that is exportable and can be used at home.
We are trying to look at the skills of the students. One of them is Artificial Intelligence and robotics, which we are utilising. We are going beyond the ordinary skills to what is globally acceptable. We shall get there.
Universities are domains for research and academic excellence but at every point in time, there is always the challenge of funding, either from shortfall from government and IGR. In this situation, how have you been able to utilise the power of collaboration with the private sector in funding research and capital projects?
Yes, no doubt, funding is a very big challenge. To put it candidly, funding is the nightmare of every university and every vice chancellor. What we have tried to do is to utilise our 3V’s: Values, Viability and Visibility. Funding is the area where viability comes in.
We encourage departments and faculties to think out how they can make themselves viable. For instance, if you take something like food science and nutrition, we have started bread production and that is a way of raising money for the university.
If you take like the Agriculture Department, we have the vegetable garden project where we have the Healthy Living Garden, the one we dedicated to Dr. Nonye Soludo, wife of the governor. We are not using that to teach the students only, we are using that to make small money.
In Fishery, we have the fish pond. For the past month, they’ve been selling the fish from the pond. We practically ask departments and faculties to find ways to be viable for the town-gown relationship, which is very much important.
Little money here and there, they all come up with what people can use for everyday research. Again, we have the research management office, which we set up that is charged with grants, getting research grants and intellectual property.
What we do there is we find opportunities for grant writing. We have trained many of them in that and they are sourcing for funds. They are writing for grants and getting shortlisted which shows that something is happening.
TETfund is another big way, which universities use to get funds. If you go round the universities, you see whole lot of projects going on courtesy of TETfund.
And of course, the state government which has been very helpful. If you look around, you will see the Solution Footprints all around our university starting from the Substation there at the gate to the WiFI that has been connected for the university to the ETF building where we use our IGR to build, to the Health Sciences almost abandoned where Mr. Governor gave us over N100million to complete and now nearing completion.
The Architecture building in Uli, which the governor also gave us money to complete, to the vehicle he has given to the university. I can tell you that the governor has assured that come the next dispensation. He is going to focus more on us as the only state university in the state.
Again, we are partnering with people. We use the power of our social capital very much here. Bringing people we know, our friends to support the university. Since I assumed office, I’ve raised whole lots of money for the university through my social capital where some noble individuals have helped us to deliver in various projects we’ve handled here too.
People like Ikenga Umuawulu, Igwe of Ogidi, Chidozie Mbanefo, Chief Benson Madubuko, Gerald Ikedilo was the one we called and US based medical doctor. He had to intervene and had our medical school sorted out for accreditation. He also gave us a bus for the nursing sciences department.
Though they are not too many yet, we have people who are responding. That is why we keep calling on ndi Anambra and beyond. Those who revere the name of Odumegwu Ojukwu to come and help us make this university worthy of the name it bears.
Of course, already, if you look around, we are being intentional about the environment of the university and making sure that you are no longer coming into a forest. When you come, you see the serenity, the ambience, and the university that is actually poised for greater taste.
Major Ivy League universities worldwide utilise the power of their alumni. I’ve seen efforts to capture the alumni through a documentary. How far have you tried to harness the alumni strength of COOU towards the think home philosophy?
Close observers will tell you that this is the first time we are intentionally looking out for our alumni. Unfortunately, the alumni association of this university before now had not been very effective. When we came in, I know that the university is as rich as its alumni, so we had to think of plans, what do we do to get them interested?
First of all, when I went to UK, I had a chat with them and had a chat with them when they had a meeting in Lagos and Abuja. One fundamental thing they complained about was the time it takes to get their transcripts and when they make requests to the university to get it sorted out.
As I speak to you now, about 50,000 transcripts are being archived and put in soft copies so that at the punch of a button, we can get any person’s transcript sorted out. At a time, what came to my mind was what I am going to do to make the alumni want to come back. If you’ve had bad experience about your university, you will never want to come back.
I thought about what we will do to always make them talk about COOU. I take this opportunity to apologise to any alumnus of this university who feels one way or the other hurt by the system. What we are here to do at this moment is to heal the wounds, to make things simpler.
We are not promising that it will happen in one second but it’s a process. Just as we are planning the archive transcript, we are also planning to have an e-certificate. It is almost ready but it has to get the approval of the Senate and Governing Council.
When I assumed office, the alumni president and his team came on a courtesy call. They saw how this place was actually looking and I appealed to them. They are the ones who actually brought the money for us to do the downstairs, the reception area, e.t.c.
The association has actually contributed. You can actually testify that those who know this place before now, can say that this place has improved tremendously. What we also did to get them appreciated too is to get the approval of the council to give awards to some of them we’ve discovered.
We have identified 25 of them which we codenamed 25 for 25, we got them through proper scrutiny. We did due diligence on all of them and chose this 25 symbolically because we are celebrating 25 years.
Next year, we are going to do 26 for 26. That is a way we are going to build the register of our alumni.
What we are doing as a university encourages many of them that have flown our flag very well and also. It will serve as an incentive to the students to make them realise that these people were in this university and they were able to make it.
What is your vision for the university in the next five years?
We already have our strategic plan. The future of this university is in the hands of all of us. Individuals from Anambra and beyond who are willing to enhance the reputation of this university because of the name it bears. Two, because we call ourselves the now university and of the future, such a university must be able to harness technology.
Therefore, our movement from analogue to digital university is very crucial. Already, we have a committee in place working on that. The future of this university lies in our ethics-how ethical we are in dealing with our students, our stakeholders and that is why we also have a committee on ethics.
Beyond just the rules and regulations, ethics is the main thing. That willingness to do the right thing without being forced. The future of this university therefore lies on how ethical we are in what we are doing. The future also lies in our not having an entitlement mentality like Mr. Governor will always say-what are you bringing to the table?
It is not a question of “I’ve been in this university for 30 years, I’m entitled to this and that.” The future also lies in our being law abiding, doing all the things that you should do and do them well and looking at what the law of the university says about it.
The future also lies in our being able to treat public goods and public materials well. What I’ve told our people and my colleagues is that we need to treat this university like it is your own property. The future of COOU also lies in accountability and being able to keep records.
Before now, nobody knew the number of students we have produced. So I made sure we set up the statistics and data unit. If I show you what they’ve done, you will marvel. Anything I write today, I copy the unit because they can tell you how many people we have graduated in Law, Medicine and others. How many chairs, how many computers e.t.c are available.
The university system has to realise that there must be change. Only a courageous person can make that change happen. It may not fit in with everybody but it has to be done. Let me then use the opportunity to congratulate all the people we are honouring at this anniversary convocation.
Our alumni, the reward for hard work is more work. If we honour you, it is an impetus to do more. I want to thank in a special way, the first vice chancellor of this university, Prof Ezekwe, who will be receiving the Ojukwu Legacy Award.
My salute goes to the governor that made this place to happen, Chinwoke Mbadinuju, now late and of course the then Speaker, late Onugbolu. We have to thank Dr. ABC Orjiakor in a special way and all the people of Uli and Igbariam for giving us this place.
People receiving the Honoris Causa awards deserve praise too. The first lady of Anambra State, Nonye Soludo. We are not honouring her because she is the first lady but because of her impactful project-Healthy Living with Nonye Soludo.
You will agree with me that if this woman leaves as the first lady today, that project is not leaving with her. Unlike other first ladies who will leave office and the thing will fizzle out and die. But not her own, it has become a way of life and a way to be alive.
I stick to one healthy food or the other in order to keep fit courtesy of Nonye Soludo. What is leadership if you cannot influence? She has influenced a whole lot of people to think of keeping alive and that’s why we are giving her the honourary award.
My salute goes to Ikenga Umuawulu who has continued to do and give so much to COOU and Igwe Ogidi, Ezechuamagha is a royal father to the core for this university. Without him, the pharmacy faculty wouldn’t have taken off. He supported us with a big building there and other facilities.
If you look at all the streetlights, even at our College of Medicine, it is courtesy of Ikenga Umuawulu. We salute Lady Ada Chukwudozie, her passion for the university is only a tip of the iceberg. Dozie Mbanefo is an entrepreneur, an engineer and many things; he has done a lot for us.
All the people we have carefully chosen for this Honoris Causa are great men and women who have distinguished themselves in the society. Like the governor will say, together we win.