The Federal University of Otuoke (FUO) will surely be great, says the new Governing Council of the institution led by Senator Gbemisola Saraki. Saraki recently led members of her council to the university located at Otuoke, the hometown of former President Goodluck Jonathan in Ogbia, Bayelsa State.
It was, indeed, a maiden visit that sparked fresh hope and new beginning for the university community. The day coincided with the Old School Day of the students. Clad in different forgotten fashions that depicted ancient ways of dressing, the students out of excitement for the presence of Saraki and her crew danced away old school tunes that wafted from a loud speaker strategically stationed on campus.
They were full of expectations that the bearers of the university’s torch would tackle most of their challenges. Undoubtedly, Saraki appreciated the shortcomings of the institution. She took time to tour all the facilities, buildings and equipment belonging to the institution.
Her verdict. The institution is a huge joke. It is not measuring up with other universities in terms of buildings, facilities and equipment. In fact, the physiognomical countenances of Saraki and her council members depicted their feelings. They were sad at the structures on ground and they immediately knew that they had a lot of work to do to make people reckon with the university which was established by Jonathan.
Leading the tour is the new Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Seth Accra Jaja. He took them to almost all the nooks and crannies of the school and pointed at everything he felt was wrong with the institution. He was accompanied by senior officials of the university. Jaja was expectant that at the end of the tour, Saraki would seek ways to address the critical challenges militating against his new job and the growth of the university.
But Saraki soon discovered that what she saw on ground was a tip of the iceberg. In her inaugural meeting with all the stakeholders of the university, she was inundated with various demands. After meeting for hours with the vice-chancellor, the registrar and other principal officers of the institution, Saraki expanded the meeting to accommodate other parts of the university community.
The second leg of the meeting had in attendance representatives of the Academic Staff Association, Student Union Government, non-academic staff, laboratory workers among others. They all made various demands and appealed to the council to grant them.
However, Saraki who took notes of all the concerns sincerely told them that there was no way the council could satisfy all of them in view of the present challenges in the country.
She said: “We must be honest and realistic with ourselves, where we are in Nigeria today we are simply not in a position to meet all demands.
“There have been calls from different groups of people, we have such a high percentage of young children in Nigeria, so a lot of money is going into education.
“The federal budget this year has spent millions of dollars on education. By the time you share that to all the institutions, it will come practically to nothing.
“So, some people argue that this is time to start looking for student loans because the FG alone cannot provide for all the facilities.
“It is now time for everybody to begin to get up, there is no more armchair Nigerian, everybody has to put on their running shoes, start looking for how to raise funds and the other way is to ensure that universities have facilities and programmes on ground that will attract students.”
After the meeting, the chairperson who spoke to the Niger Delta Report, lamented the infrastructural deficit and dearth of equipment in the institution.
Saraki said: “Honestly, I am very sad to see what I saw today after four years, especially when you look at all the other counterparts or sister universities, it is expected that by now, we would have gone beyond that and move much further.
“As you can see, we do not have the facilities on ground, we do no have the buildings, the equipment. Surely, we just have to start all over again and chase after our contractors who have withdrawn from site. Federal University, Otuoke is lagging behind.
“We have students that want to come in, we have lecturers and people on ground, but we just do not have the facilities in which to accommodate them.”
But she said the governing council took stock of what was on ground and after interaction with the university community, had a vision to make FUO one of the foremost universities within Nigeria.
Saraki said the council would ensure that the students produced from the school were qualified and armed with the credentials of interacting with other developed countries.
She said: “So, our vision is to ensure that some of the courses we run will take the peculiarities of the area like marine engineering, environmental engineering and other things that are of interest and which we believe will benefit both the community and Nigeria.”
In his comment, Jaja who commended the council for the visit said the university expected the council to help them to fuel the engine so that the school could keep the academic vehicle moving.
He also acknowledged inheriting a crack academic foundation from his predecessor. He said there was nothing to fear about security adding that the university faired well in the last accreditation exercise.
He said: “We met crack foundation and processes academically. We are trying to see how we can build on traditional academic culture in terms of curriculum development, delivery of lectures on the part of our lecturers and also improve examination system.
“My major challenge will be the attitude of persons who may not want to embrace change. But we are still trying to accommodate them and we also believe that as behavioral scientists, we will be able bring them in.
“With this new council, I believe it will no longer be business as usual. There is nothing to fear about in terms of security. We scored well over 90 per cent in the last accreditation exercise.
