Nigeria Government is not ripe enough to make education tuition free – YABATECH Rector

OBAFEMI OWOSENI OMOKUNGBE, a civil engineer, is currently the rector, Yaba college of Technology ( YABATECH). In this interview with our education editor, Mark Mayah, he urges on needs to introduce tuition fee in tertiary institutions in Nigeria, arguing that government in the country not ripe enough to make education tuition free and many other salient issues. Excerpts:

Let us into your early life sir?

My name is Obafemi Omokungbe, born on March 22,1962. I grew up at Ebute – Meta in Lagos state. I attended Remo Divisional High School, Sagamu, Ogun state for my secondary education. After which, I proceeded to Yaba College of Technology for my National and Higher National Diploma in Civil Engineering. Upon the completion of the mandatory National Youth Service Corp, I had invitation to come back to YABATECH for employment. I declined the offer because of the stipend which was nothing to write home about. I opted for construction company, which wages far better. I worked in several construction outfits for about seven years. On one of my occasional visits to Lagos, I visited the college because I needed some books, and met some of my course mates and they said to me, ‘you ran away, but you are the kind of person needed in the college, come and be part of the academic team.’ I went to the college because in the construction companies, when you are done with one site, you really do not know the next site and as at that time, we were posted to Ado-ekiti for another construction work. While preparations were in top gear, I sized the opportunity to visit YABATECH and candidly I was told “your working here at the college doesn’t stop you from having pee-pee elsewhere.” I then made up my mind and craved in to be interviewed and officially joined the services of the college, in 1993.

I roses through the ranks, becoming HOD, ASUP chairman and I became the Rector in 2018. That has been my journey so far.

Looking back, did you actually go all out to study civil engineering or some circumstances conditioned you to do so?

To be honest with you, my parents wanted me to study medicine. I did physics, chemistry, biology,further maths and I felt I was more interested in the calculation, so I graciously told my parents, I wasn’t interested in studying medicine, because I can’t see myself injecting anybody so, I elected engineering field and I took to civil engineering.

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Two years down the lane, how has YABATECH fared under your rectorship?

Let’s be thankful to God our creator. He has been there for us, the last two years or so, the college has been peaceful. There has not been any students’ unrest, staff unrest or whatever..we give God the glory for that. The peaceful co-existence, could be attributed to the fact that, when I was unveiled, I developed a template for the college community to guide my actions, one was on my own vision and mission on what we were going to do.

All along, we have been having all inclusive administration which I have followed religiously. My doors are opened for anyone with contributions to bring forward. We were able to fashioned out strategic plans which we are following judiciously. God has been faithful that we had not missed anything we had penciled down to do which are centred on our cure values, and that we have been doing in the last two years.

Can you vividly enumerates some of your achievements in the past two years?

Well, again, I would say that what God has made us to do….because I can’t claim the glory but to give glory an honour to God, because we asked Him for wisdom and He was there. We invited Him, if indeed He has made the post available, He should then give onto us, what is needful.

In our little way, when we came in, the college was in its lowest ebb. Anyone can testify to that, just to be modest, because I don’t like comparison. Even twins of same placenta, can’t be one. So there is no two administration that can be one, but you do your best for posterity to judge. There were bad roads, the classrooms were nothing to write home about, hostels were in dilapidated levels. May be the sentiment for the fact that I passed through here (YABATECH), I knew what it was then, do you understand? So the first thing when I took over as rector, was to put the college back to what it was then and then improve on it. There is a need for ethical revolution, so that gave me the zeal to move on with our mission and vision.

In our strategic plans, we have been improving and upgrading our classrooms, our laboratories, equipment and research facilities, the hostels and roads. We also increase the IGR of the college. With all honesty, government can’t fund education alone, it’s done on us to think outside the box, if we desire to make an impact. Firstly, if government is unable to allocate necessary fund, apart from TETFUND, so we thought there is need for us to have business ventures. At the moment, we have established bottled/sachet water factory. Whatever consumption we have here is enough to brake even, because of our immediate community. We have distributors and our capacity had been increased tremendously.

We looked inward again and said, people eat a lot of bread, which led us for the Establishment of bakery, confectionary unit which also serves the community and increasing our revenue base.

I met a moribond central lab. YABATECH at the moment, is the only polytechnic in Nigeria that have a central lab, where researches can be done on commercial scale. When we came on board, none of its equipment was functioning. I asked my management team, how can we have equipment worth over N1.2billion lying fallow without yielding dividends? We immediately swung into action, invited the necessary consumables for some of these machines, repaired the machines, appointed a director and since then, we started making money from that section, and with intervention fund from Tetfund, led us in upgrading our classrooms to world standard. I can say with sincerity of purpose that our classrooms matters, and are some if the best in the entire world.

On the bad roads, we reached out to FERMA because I got in touch with the minister of works earlier,and assistance were rendered, as you can see the good roads on your way into the college. We have comouter lab donated by Samsung. We also have a digital centre on our own for students, books and hostels. We renovated all our hostels and replaced all mattresses that were invaded bybed bugs. Over 5,000 mattresses were affected. Our idea for a comprehensive renovation of our hostels, was that when I was a student here, there were many international students. If you go abroad to study, the schools over there depend on international students to make money. Even in this covid-19 pandemic, some schools struggled by meeting their embassies to open up. If you must attract international students, you must have good accommodation.

This led us to TETFUND for intervention for hostels, because considering rankings of institutions, international students in your institution counts. Thank God, TETFUND had approved for the construction of more hostels. These are things and many others we had achieved in the past two years.

What are yours sustainable development plans for YABATECH?

We must also invest in human capital. We had proposed that staff shall commence on study leave at improving themselves. You could remember that in 2006, there was a pronouncement that YABATECH becoming a university. By then, I was the college ASUP chairman. Then I asked the then management to make the document available and let see how it goes? Up till my tenure as ASUP chairman, nothing has come up.

On assumption of office, I saw the need to actualise that policy directives by putting plans in place, if by tomorrow it becomes university, and greater numbers of staff shall quality to be in the system. Precisely, two weeks ago, I requested the deputy rector, academic to come up with time table and let me see which of our schools is deficient, by identifying how many ph.d holders in a particular school. He has given me the time table, and I assure you by next management meeting, we shall take decisions on that, and that is the only thing that will make us to be sustainable and relevant in the scheme if things. At the moment, we have 81 programmes in 45 departments fully accredited.

What do you consider as problems of tertiary institutions in Nigeria?

You see my brother, in all honesty, Nigeria government is not ripe enough to make education tuition free, except we want to deceive ourselves. Take for instance, a parent will go all out to pay N3.5 million for secondary school education and want to attend higher institution for free. Are we not deceiving ourselves? Even when you go to Canada, UK, when international students are paying, for instance, $20,000 dollars indigenes are paying $6,000 dollars, that shows that education is not free out there. But here, there is no Nigerian student in public tertiary institution is paying tuition. All we pay here is charges for identity card, sports, ICT. So the whole body …..government can’t carry it alone. These are the challenges.

For us in Nigeria to be at par with others, we must do what others are doing. I understand people won’t be happy for my calling for tuition, but if one sees that we are paying much for secondary education, I see no reason why we can’t pay in tertiary institution because schools would not totally depends on government. Perhaps , government should re introduce loan’s board as it’s applicable in UK and in the USA. Examine what its take to train a particular student in dollars in UK and USA, and start implementing that here. You will then see that people and corporate firms will start shopping for our graduates. But with the way things are at the moment, I know that people won’t like the introduction of fee in schools. The ideal should be fee paying school. In South Africa, they are fee paying though is not as high as in Britain, but start something so we can remove some of these loads from government.

What legacy do you intend to leave behind after your tenure?

In a modest way, I want what we would so to speak for us. We have the stage at which we took over and by the time we exit, our work will speak for us. But I want to leave a legacy that people will remember that, yes, we have been able to develop academically, infrastructurally and of course in terms of boosting the finance of the college at putting the college at a higher level,so we can remain the first and the best.

There have been friction withn princioal officers in previous administrations of YABATECH, what has been your relationship so far with other principal officers?

Not just only principal officers, but even with the staff. I told you at the beginning, I operate all inclusive management, my doors are open 24 hours. The point is that, let be sincere with ourselves. Management is all about sincererity, integrity and transparency. If you’re transparent, you have that integrity and you’re approachable, you won’t have any problem. That is the way I see it and that is what I have been using with the union. The unions knows what goes in and how we spent them and place it on the table for them to see. I don’t believe in hiding anything, we must all see it together and do it together. That’s how I have been doing it, and don’t forget, I was once a union chairman in this college. I can’t change that when am at the other side. The only differelabs.ow is that, I dance to the tune of those who put me there. I must be sensible in dealing with situations tst comes my way. Good to note that most of my programmes are welfare oriented.

What are the specific TETFUND intervention projects in the past two years?

A lot. Let me say one thing, without TETFUND, there won’t be much institutions in Nigeria. Visit any institution, you see logo of TETFUND. Be it at the lab, be it in buildings, be it equipment, it’s a wonderful privilege to have TETFUND in place. Its services had been tremendous in the life of every institution in Nigeria.

At least, for instance, here at YABATECH, I can count many I had introduced and completed by TETFUND. I said earlier, lecture theatre, staff offices, refurnishing of classrooms, staff quarters, equipping labs. It has been TETFUND together with the little our IGR. I think more money be giving to TETFUND to continue to have impact in the institutions.

What is the state of your IGR?

It has improved, but there are more things that are taking it. If you kook around, apart from the TETFUND, virtually all the schools had been upgraded. There is a building we found to be vibrating, we carried out another foundation on the building. We had decided to have endowment fund. We are embanking on a #50 billion endowment fund. YABATECH is 73 years old, most if our infrastructures are decaying and knowing fully government can’t do it, that’s why we decided to have endowment fund with corporate bodies. There are some buildings that are two floors, that are very old, and we intend making such buildings 13 floors to 14 floors so we can increase our carrying capacities, to help the system and society to reduce out of school from our streets.

I am glad to inform you that we have been granted approval to start e-leaning programmes in all our accredited courses. We are now having committee in place to start the programmes in phases. We are starting with courses that does not have practicals, and that will also boost our IGR as well as making YABATECH more noticeable. You can subscribe to our programmes from all over the world. That is another area we had achieved in the last two years.

With epileptic power supply, how will your e-learning succeed?

At the moment, we are planning to be off the grid. We had subscribed to 10 megawatts, 7.5 for Yaba campus while 2.5 slated for Epe campus. We had completed the fence at Epe campus, we had moved a faculty there as our 2019 TETFUND mainly for that school at Epe. We soon be off the grid. A USA company HD visited us, at giving light 24 hours. What the USA company required from YABATECH was for CBN to guarantee us. If we compare to what we are going to be paying to combinations of bills from NEPA and what it takes to be running our diesel, is lower. We have done our financial analysis ,we are awaiting the governing council to approve before the pandemic struck.

The meeting that we were to have was thwarted by the covid-19 pandemic. The moment the new council is reconstituted, we open it and YABATECH will be off the grid.

What do you do at your leisure time?

This job, I don’t have leisure time. This job that takes me three years, sometimes wdoing m about to sleep and there is a problem on camous, I must come back.

What do you want to be remembered for?

I want to be remembered for the good work we have been doing, touching the lives of the students and making them to be proud of their school and enforcing them on cure values.