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Visitation panels indict fg over rot in varsities
By Tom Chiahemen
Senior
Correspondent,
Abuja
The Presidential Visitation Panels for the
61 government-owned tertiary institutions formally submitted their reports on
Tuesday, indicting the Federal Government over the poor and deplorable state of
the nation’s universities.
In their report presented to the Minister
of Education, Prof. Fabian Osuji, at the Main Auditorium of the National
Universities Commission (NUC), Abuja, the panels, which were inaugurated on
August 19, 2004, particularly blamed the government for the poor funding of the
institutions over the years; government’s insensitivity and lip-service
attitude to the plight and well-being of university staff (academic and
non-academic) and students and; the appointment of wrong people as members of
the Governing Councils of the universities.
Presenting the report on behalf of other
panels, the Chairman of the Visitation Panel to the Ahmadu Bello University
(ABU), Zaria, Senator Alex Usman Kadiri, stunned the minister and all present
at the occasion as he painted a gory picture in the university system.
“We found some of the things that happened at the universities between
1999 and 2003 unbelievable,” he stated.
He said there were cases of dereliction of
duties, refusal to carry out directives of the Visitor, poor performance of
Governing Councils (most of which were unable to produce a single productive
idea for the development of their universities throughout their tenure), while
there were vice-chancellors who, though tough in action and conviction,
“had little or no regard for rules, fairness and procedures, with a good
number of them developing phobia for consultation and dialogue.”
On the state of facilities, the panel noted
that academic and physical facilities at the universities were in deplorable
state. “There are insufficient lecture theatres/halls, laboratories,
etc, (while) equipment, wherever they exist, are old or obsolete. Some
universities such as ABU (Zaria) have not purchased any equipment for teaching
and research since 1976,” said the panel. As a consequence of poor
facilities, a good number of the universities, especially the old ones,
woefully failed the NUC accreditation of programmes conducted in the year 2000,
according to Kadiri.
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