Fasina: We Have Positioned FUOYE to Withstand Surge in Student Population

In this Interview with Raheem Akingbolu, the Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University, Oye Ekiti, Prof. Abayomi Fasina, speaks on how the university has fared under him in the last three years and factors that made FUOYE the fourth most sought-after university in Nigeria, among others issues

The issue of funding for public universities has been a sore point between the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the federal government. What is your take on this?

On the issue of funding, the government has a lot of children; it has about 62 public universities and has little resources to fund all of them effectively. My belief is that the government alone can’t fund tertiary institutions. So, when l came on board, l had a mission to create wealth through boosting the internally generated revenue to assist the university. I have been here as the DVC (administration) for years and know what is on the ground. I am aware that a major challenge we will have is funding, so I decided to create wealth. I created the Centre for Continuing Education under which we have the Institute of Part-time Studies with mini-campuses in more than nine communities in Ekiti, and sandwich programmes, affiliated colleges and, FUOYE Business School and Business Ventures, among others. We pull all these resources together to create wealth and use that to provide more infrastructure for the university and make available more stipends for my colleagues working in those IGR directorates. 

Government also gives us capital grants, which we use to build more infrastructures. During the COVID-19 and ASUU strikes, our lecturers worked for part-time students online and earned money. I pray that whoever will succeed me will continue this way and sustain my legacies. I run our four hostels on solar energy, which helps us save money because we are not buying diesel. I want to advise that some of our colleagues can also rely on solar and other green energy solutions to provide campus electricity.

How have you been coping with a large intake, and how have they excelled academically among their peers?

Our products here are doing very well out there. You are aware that recently, nine of our students in 300 level and 400 level were celebrated for passing the ICAN exams and many of them have won academic laurels in national contests. Six of them, who are fresh graduates, have recently won doctorate scholarships in universities in the United States of America. This shows that the quality of teaching and lecturers is high here. We operate a hybrid teaching system, both physical and online, and this works fine.

How is the university doing in the area of research, which is considered a core mandate?

I want to appreciate some of my colleagues because we are winning big grants, including me, in terms of research. One such was a huge grant on mathematics and malaria from Bill and Melinda Gates. It is almost half a billion naira and has to do with infectious diseases in that area. The lecturer who got that is Dr. Emmanuel A. Bakare. I also got a project grant that brought a lot of equipment to my faculty at this university. This developmental trend will continue with the new council in place because I can assure you that the new members are excellent people. They will surely contribute further to this university’s development because they have many lofty ideas for this university, especially the council chairman. 

How will you rate your administration in the last three years in the saddle in this university?

We have had a great impact on every aspect of the university, starting from academics and trying to see how we can contribute our quota to food security in Nigeria. We have 15 hectares of oil palm, five pineapple, 10 hectares of cassava, and 10 hectares of maize, etc on our field, which is a small way to contribute our own quota to food security to support the president. We also use the expansive farmland to train our students in the Faculty of Agriculture. We have also built more than 40 new classrooms to cater for our teeming students in the last four years. We have changed the face of this university in terms of infrastructural development. We have really improved on all fronts, and that is why l am not surprised that we have been ranked by JAMB as the fourth most subscribed university in Nigeria.

The courses are available, and the quality of our lecturers is very sound and high. Our calendar is stable as we are entering the 2024/2025 academic session from next month. Looking at all the parameters, indices, and indicators, you will see that we have continued to go higher in terms of proper ranking, stability of our calendar, quality of lecturers, and quality of students. 

So both the staff and students enjoy almost equal attention?

Yes, because one cannot operate without the other. Back to where I started, we have made inventions and innovations here, such as an electric car and a unit for making drugs, and we are also trying to commercialise these to create wealth. I believe promotion is key to every welfare programme, and l handle that with a lot of passion and care. As l am talking to you, I do not owe any member of staff who is due and has done his or her own part in the procedure any promotion.

If you have a mission, you don’t have anyone’s permission. I plan to promote 500 professors, and we are moving towards that now. Do you know that in admission matters, part of our welfare scheme is to give slots to staff members for their biological children?  If the children perform averagely well, we give them choice courses such as medicine, law, nursing, etc. We have over 500 members of staff who have benefited from that. We are also moving to the next welfare stage of giving members of staff some little waivers on school fees, such as 20 or 30 per cent waiver on fees. We are about to get the council’s approval for that. 

Specifically, what are your expectations from the recently inaugurated governing council of the university?

We expect the council to empower me more to do certain things for the benefit of the university. There are rules of engagement and of doing things in the university. The university is the easiest organisation to rule because there are regulations and conditions of service. For example, there are rules that have to be adhered to for promotions. There is a committee that handles all matters and decides on them based on the rules. I am only the chairman of another committee that approves it. It is a joint decision. For promotion, it passes through the department, then to faculty, before it gets to the centre. I am transparent and accountable. I am not partial. I am a product of merit, so l give all opportunities a level playing ground. If things are properly done, it will be for the benefit of the university, and that is why things are going well here. Part of our welfare package is the N50,000 stipend for online teaching every semester for the academic staff members and many more.