Gbenro Adesina
Wednesday September 9, 2015 was just like yesterday, when the immediate past Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council of the University of Ibadan (UI), Dr. Umar Musa Mustapha, presented Professor Abel Idowu Olayinka to both the university community and public as the elected 12th Vice Chancellor of the Premier institution. Then, it was like 2020 is either far or will not come. The year 2020 has not only come, November 30, 2020, is already at the door, holding the door handle, to open for Olayinka to walk away from the VC office and lodge and become ex, former or immediate past. Olayinka, a geologist per excellence, in terms of scholarship and practice, is gradually packing his belongings from the office and lodge and preparing to hand over to whosoever emerges as the 13th VC. This is to give credence to a popular saying, “Whatever that has a beginning, must have an end”.
The sign that Olayinka is gradually bidding the exalted VC Office farewell pervades the institution. Since March 23, 2020, when the institution shut down due to the indefinite national strike action embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), compounded by the outbreak of Coronavirus, otherwise known as Covid-19, the VC has occupied himself with the commissioning of projects his administration initiated and completed. Of a recent, he commissioned: Electrical and Electronic Engineering Laboratory Building, Faculty of Technology, the converted/unused garages to residential quarters at Amina Way for staff, the multipurpose building of the Faculty of Science of the institution, the Integrated Database Committee, Ransome Kuti Hall Projects, opening of the new building of the Faculty of Public Health, College of Medicine of the University and the Physiotherapy Clinic extension of the University Health Services (Jaja Clinic). He had equally turned the sod of a new auditorium for Department of Nursing.
Olayinka, who is passionately committed to the promotion of staff, has commenced the 2020 promotion exercise for both the academic and non-academic, despite various hindrances surrounding the exercise.
As part of the tradition for exiting office holders, he has also written a 269 page account of his stewardship as vice chancellor, dated July 16, 2020. In the introductory section, the VC stated, “We have had a road map, which the team we assembled has done its best to implement, since the inauguration of my tenure as Vice Chancellor. The overall theme of the road map is ‘Accelerated Development through Consolidation and Innovation’. It is trite to state that we have been committed to excellence in teaching, learning and research and to developing leaders across disciplines, who will be able to make a difference locally, nationally and globally… We thank all those stakeholders… who have been part of this joint and monumental enterprise in one form or the other”.
He highlighted some of his achievements to include Introduction of Peer Assisted Study Session (PASS), Strengthening of the Policy on Continuous Assessment, establishment of new Faculties, establishment of new academic departments, approval/establishment of new academic programmes, attracting and winning of grants, increasing internet bandwidth from 310 Mbps per annum with a considerable saving in cost, Stronger infrastructural base – design update, expanded fibre optic connection to Faculty of Pharmacy offices and library, automation of the admission clearance process; result management; and registration system upgrade, Students ID card web-based validation, improvement of University of Ibadan ranking on the Times Higher Education (THE) from 801-1000 to 601-800 (global); emerging economies 141, maintaining and improving on global rankings – Webometrics 15 in Africa, 1145 in the world, establishment of a service support/issue resolution desk, improved staff work environment, clearing of backlog of certificates of graduands from affiliated institutions running into tens of thousands, and On-going effort to reduce the turnaround time for processing students’ academic transcripts to between 24 and 72 hours.
He said, “To motivate deserving staff for improved productivity and self-actualisation, a lateral conversion of 11 members of staff of the Bursary Department, who are professionally qualified as Associates or Fellows of relevant professional accounting bodies from executive cadre to the professional cadre was undertaken in March 2019. Similarly, a lateral conversion to administrative officer of 24 members of staff in the registry, who were on the executive cadre, was undertaken in April 2019. Out of this number, 20 already possessed higher degrees of Master, while three are Barristers and Solicitors of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. We processed the lateral conversion of three academically and professionally qualified chartered accountants, who were hitherto chief executive officers, to the grade of chief accountant in the Bursary Department and this was concluded in September 2019. Within the period in reference, a total of 1,461 junior non-academic staff received promotion, 363 in 2015, 735 in 2016, 145 in 2017 and 218 in 2018, while 2,298 senior non-academic staff were promoted, 473 in 2015, 572 in 2016, 418 in 2017, 339 in 2018 and 496 in 2019”.
“It is gratifying to note that through our deliberate policy and plan implementation, the promotion of non-teaching staff in the University is now up to date. Lateral conversion of 32 qualified staff from the administrative to the academic cadre was effected between 2018 and 2019.17 of these colleagues had completed their Ph.D as at the time of the conversion, while the remaining 15 were at different stages of completion of their doctoral research programmes. This was at a period when the University was unable to recruit new academic staff on account of stringent government policies, including but not limited to seeking approval from the Federal Character Commission, the Budget Office, the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation and the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation and massive shortfall in the personnel grant received from the Federal Government”, he added.
According to him, parts of the efforts taken to reduce accommodation problem on campus include the “Conversion of six disused garages into three units of one bedroom apartments by the Senior Staff Housing Committee at a cost of 6.7 Million naira. The new staff housing units were commissioned for use on Friday, 12th July 2019. The project was supervised by Direct Labour, which helped greatly in saving costs, eight other units of one bedroom and two bedroom units were equally remodelled by the Senior Staff Housing Committee. Moreover, a new block of six flats was constructed along Elliot Close by the Senior Staff Housing Committee, thus bringing the total number of new senior staff housing units during the tenure to 17”.
Furthermore, during his tenure, a total of 15,260 undergraduates were admitted between 2015 and 2019. The breakdown shows, 4,006 students admitted for 2015/2016 academic session, 1,860 females, 2,164 males: 1,842 in Arts based programmes and 2,164 in Science based programmes, 3,536 students for 2016/17, 1,816 females, 1720 males: 1268 in Arts-based disciplines and 2268 in Science-based disciplines, 3,730 was recorded for 2017/2018 Session, 1727 females, 2003 males: in Arts-based disciplines and in Science-based disciplines, 3,997 for 2018/2019 Session, 1,838 females, 2,159 males: 1,741in Arts-based disciplines and 2,236 in Science-based disciplines.
Also, for postgraduate admission, a total of 20,733 was admitted for 2014/2015 session, male, 4,223, female, 2,901, for the Sciences, male, 7,811 and female, 5,798, for the Humanities. In 2015/2016, total admitted students were 9,675, male, 2,971, female, 2,106 for the sciences and for the Humanities, male, 2439 and female, 2,159. In 2016/2017 had a total of 10,368, male and female were 3,013 and 2,290 for sciences and 2,533 and 2,532 for male and female in humanities, and 2017/2018 had a total of 15,279. male and female in sciences were14,722 and 10,536 respectively and male and female in humanities were 16,670 and 14,127 respectively.
According to the Vice Chancellor, he graduated 5,629 in 2015/2016 academic session with 186 First Class, 2016/2017 had 9,661 and 189 made First Class. He has also executed about 223 different projects.
However, his tenure is not crisis free, as it could be described as turbulent from the very beginning. As soon as he emerged, his ‘opposition’ fired series of missiles at him expecting to prematurely terminate his tenureship, but the Ijesa in him made him fight back tooth and nail. On Tuesday, December 1 2015, at the Chapel of Resurrection, during the thanksgiving service organised in his honour for his emergence as the Premier VC, he tongued lashed his opposition asking, “Is it bad for me to aspire to be a Vice Chancellor?”.
Olayinka, who could not hide his emotion about those who tried to see his VC ambition nullified through many means including exploring legal procedure said: “Promotion does not come from the east, west or south but from God Almighty. The past one year has been traumatic for me as some members of staff continued to write petitions against me since I declared my intention to be the VC of this great institution. Last Sunday evening was spoilt for me as I was notified after the thanksgiving ceremony of Professor Adewole that some people were trying to file ex-parte motion against me in the court. Even, up till yesterday, they were still writing petition against me. Fighting me is like fighting God and nobody can fight God. By the end of my five-year tenure, I will not be judged by the number of enemies that I made but by the number of the achievements. The work starts today. By 3pm, there will be Senate meeting”.
In a media chat, six months after taking up the leadership mantle, Olayinka, an extreme blunt technocrat confessed, “Since the beginning of this administration, we have had one crisis or the other, students protesting over various issues ranging from electricity to water scarcity, among others, staff complaining about amputated salaries and outright denial of their statutory allowances”. At another forum, he attested to the crisis that characterised his administration, when he stated, “Since I resumed office, protest is like every other month over water and electricity”.
For instance, on February 10, 2015, the non-academic staff violently protested over an allegation that the VC was not carrying them along and failure to pay earned allowances. March 10, the non-academic staff hit the campus again in a more violent way over non-payment of certain allowances, locking the university gates and grounding the system. The University was to witness more of such actions in the last five years.
Students of the institution were not left out in the showdown that rocked the administration of Olayinka, leading to series of ugly situations. The attacks at different times led to different sanctions from the VC, including total expulsion and suspension of some students.
As he is preparing to leave, it needs to be acknowledged that he has some areas he scored very high, most of which have been highlighted above. Equally, kudos should be given to him in the area of attempting to ensure that academic calendar is undisrupted. The disruption is purely what he could not help. During his tenure, results were processed on time and graduating Master students do have both their transcripts, statement of results and certificates. However, this is not so with the students of the Distance Learning Centre (DLC), where some students wait for at times three years to have their results processed and graduate. Apart from Economic Department that is notorious for unnecessarily delaying their DLC Students, many students, from other departments, who have written their final examination about four years ago are yet to graduate because their results have not been processed. DLC needs a major shake-up and repositioning for better and effective service delivery.
Olayinka has done his part, the incoming VC will have to take it from where he stops, with special attention to discipline among the staff, sexual harassment, and discreet investigation to the ordeals of the PhD students, which has culminated in rechristening the PhD acronym from “Doctor of Philosophy” to Doctor of “Patience, humility and ‘Dobale’ (prostrate)”.
