The Vice Chancellor University of Ilorin, Prof. Abdulganiyu Ambali, in this interview embarks on sublime reflections on the gains of his administration , the challenges lurking ahead as well as the promising prospects lodged in the belly of the future:
Excerpts:
Before you eventually emerged the vice chancellor, you actually applied for this post several times, what informed your persistent application?
The dream I had was to be able to do something that will influence positively my environment like following events that have changed peoples’ perception of life positively. To be able to innovate and keep in tune with current happenings all over the world because, I feel that if you can live better elsewhere, you should be able to create a similar environment wherever you are and be able to put in place what other people have in their places.
Did you have evolve a blueprint before you came on board as instances are rife of people assuming leadership position without any working document?
Of course, I had a vision. When we were coming for interview, we were asked to put it down in writing and that was what I did, and I have been trying as much as possible to follow it, of course with modifications as times goes on because life is not static. Things are not stationary; you have to continue to evolve better ways of doing things. So, I had a blueprint, if you want to call it a blueprint. I wanted to do something to address staff welfare. I had it in mind to do something to motivate the staff around me, I had it in mind to make students more comfortable, to experience what I experienced when I was an undergraduate and then to have a secured environment where students should feel free to be able to move from one part of the campus to another without being harassed by anybody. That was what I experienced when I was an undergraduate. I would go out in the evening after dinner and come back as late as I wanted and walk freely from the classroom to my room. And also when I was an undergraduate, our classrooms were air-conditioned. I had a very comfortable atmosphere to study. Those were the memories that I had in mind to bring back.
University of Ilorin is one of the most sought by students. Every parent wants his child to attend your institution because of academic excellence. Besides, it is one of the few universities with unbroken academic calendar. How have you been able to cope with pressure from parents?
It has not been easy, but I have been following the rules. Unilorin has a standard which I have been following. Here, we have laid down procedures of doing things and that I try as much as possible to follow. In terms of admission, we have procedures, in terms of student discipline; we have protocol that irrespective of the child of the person involved, we implement them. We frown at certain vices and anybody that expresses them is shown the way out irrespective of the home that student comes from. For examples: cultism, examination malpractice, theft, not following dress code all these things, we have commensurate penalties for each of them. That has been helping us to stabilize the system.
What do you think makes you different from your predecessors in terms of innovation and achievements?
Probably, my staff would know better because we have people that have served under all of us and I think they are in a better position to tell me where I am different. I know that I have passion for what I am doing just like the previous Vice Chancellors. They love the system and what has made the difference, I do not know.
We are asking what the university has able to accomplish within the time you have been here, not necessarily in terms of structures but in terms of maybe research?
Well, I think if you inherit a house, you try to turn it into a palace and I think that is what I have done. Whatever system I met in place I try as much as possible to refine it and find a twenty first (21st) century way of doing it. And in terms of research let me take that as example since you brought the issue. When I came in as the Vice Chancellor, I had it in mind that we should encourage people to do more research and I knew within me that the university alone could not fund such a project. I know what it entails to carry out a research, one, you need first of all a laboratory, you need supporting staff in the laboratory, you need constant power supply and you need research fund in order to be able to achieve what you want to achieve.
I planned towards meeting those goals. If you have a laboratory that is not well furnished, we have to do it, if you have a laboratory that is not well manned in terms of supporting laboratory assistants, we have to give them, if your environment is not getting constant power supply, there is no way you can carry out such research. I think over a short period, we attacked this from different directions. I have been inviting somebody from United States for the last three years. He has been coming to teach my people how to write proposal for research grants. We have also been able to stabilise the lighting system, so we have constant power supply, 22 to 23 hours of light in a day for some time now. We have equally improved our internet facilities for my people to be able to browse and find more information. All these have translated into positive things that you see around.
Why is it that University of Ilorin or any other university in Nigeria cannot generate its own power. You have a dam here and you also have constant sun that could be converted into solar energy. One begins to wonder why our universities cannot do basic things.
Yes, you have to define your goals, I mean your research goals, and you have to be able to tune your researchers into what they want to research on, which means you have to evolve e applied research. You know you can have a classical research that can lead you to where you want to be in twenty years. You can apply a research to address your immediate needs, you can plan a research that will translate into commodities that will be available for market, which means whichever direction you want ,you have to sensitize your researcher and say lets go this way . However, you must encourage them by first of all improving their skills towards that direction, helping them to secure grants to do it and then making them comfortable both in the laboratory and possibly at home.
Those are the things. When you get all those keys points well defined, you set a target for them, and you encourage them to do it. In terms of using our dam to generate power supply, research is going on towards that end. We have a team that is working to achieve that. For solar power, we are working on it. We have a Renewable Energy Centre in this university and their major aim is to find alternative power supply to the national grid, which means they are researching on solar power ,wind power, hydro power and others, so that we do not have to rely solely on public power supply.
You have a vast land mass and you also have an Agriculture Department. Are you looking at a situation in future where you will have farms as a way of generating revenue?
Yes, we have it in plan and we have started. If you notice, when you were coming into the school, we have Teak plantation by the left. We also have Jatropha plantation, Date palm plantation and Palm oil plantation that we embarked upon last year. The university also has livestock with the hope of producing milk in this university. We are about to start on Goat Milk production. The university council has approved and given us mandate to go ahead. We have also given some entrepreneurs some facilities within our borders for them to embark on farming with the hope that this will encourage our young students to go into commercial agricultural enterprise. That we hope will start yielding results very soon. Also with the type of contacts we are making, people have started showing interest to partner with us in the area of agriculture.
We have150,000 hectares of land which is the highest in the country and we want to make the best use of that. For example, the Solar power that is coming in, they are thinking of having one hundred and fifty (150) hectares of plain ground because you need to have that if you want to tap the solar energy coming from the sun in order to generate your electricity. We have plans for our land, and we hope in the nearest future university of Ilorin will be comfortable.
Do you have any collaboration with any university in Europe in term of agriculture?
We have but it has not reached the state of implementation. We have collaboration with quite a number of universities in the US. We also have with European universities. The Ambassador of Netherlands was here, we are trying to establish relationships with few universities in the Netherlands. You know they are very good in milk production.
Recently University of Ilorin marked its 40th year anniversary, can you give us the picture of the institution that you will like to see in the next 10 years?
Yes, I hope University of Ilorin by then will be known for changing the immediate environment where we operate, that is, influencing it positively, both as a research hub as well as an industrial university where people will be coming to tap on the assets that we have here. For example, we are still talking with people that want to be producing solar panels here in the university. If we succeed; it means all other states will be coming in to purchase solar panels here. Our Palm tree plantation, when that one starts fruiting, it will be great. We are just about to start the second and third sessions with the hope that once we start harvesting our Palm produce, it will have a multiplier effect on other industries, like soap industry, butter industry and other things that come with it. That will create a lot of job opportunities for those that are within and outside Kwara State. We are hoping that our ICT as well as Engineering Units should be able to produce things that will be of benefit to Nigeria.
Also, we have established a centre called L to P, that is Laboratory to Product and that centre hopefully in future should be able to reach out to entrepreneurs outside with products of our research and evolve a plan to encourage them to commercialize it.
You have a Zoo on campus, what are you doing to expand it to attract more visitors because it is one way of generating revenue?
Yes, we have it in our plan to expand it, which means we want to improve in numbers and quality of animals there. We are a bit reserved because of the ongoing unrest in the upper part of the country; this is because it is along that zone that we have been getting our zoo stocked with animals. But on the whole, we are trying to improve the environment of the zoo in terms of accommodation for staff working there as well as the animals that we have. We have been doing that and we hope to also increase our advocacy as well as publicity to make sure that people know us and they patronise the place. Apart from that, we have been having visitors from outside the state, even other universities, coming to see what we have and understudying the place. But on our own, we will continue to improve the facilities that we have. Now, we have the children section where we equip it with the facilities for children. We are also going to improve the parents’ place where they can comfortably be watching their children having fun.
You have a radio station; we learnt that you are also planning to have your own television station?
Yes, we want to have our television station and it is already in the pipeline .But we intend to put up the structure first before we start.
Is University of Ilorin adequately funded?
You won’t believe it, we just came back visiting few universities in the US and up till now those universities are still looking for funds, including the best universities in the world. This means the issue of funding is a continuous process. Without fund, there is little that you can do. If you have funds, you can pay salaries comfortably, you can finance research, you can fund staff and students mobility from one part of the world to the other, you can do so many things with funds. In terms of whether we being funded adequately, I think we can do better with more funds. If I have more funds, I should be able to do more, so there is no amount of money that will be given that one will say yes, I have enough now. I think there is still room for more good things to happen here if we have more funds.