The Vice Chancellor of Lead City University, Professor Aderemi Adeyemo, who was a guest on the live broadcast of Parrot Xtra Hour’s Radio Show on Splash 105.5 FM last Tuesday, spoke on a number of issues bordering on the education sector in the country, and how his institution has been thriving. Excerpts:
You are the vice chancellor of Lead City University, Ibadan, can you share with us briefly about the school?
By the grace of God, I am the Vice Chancellor of Lead City University, which is the first private university in Ibadan. It was established in 2005, and we are 17 years old now and to the Glory of God, we are doing very well. We have over 10 faculties. We have Faculty of Law, College Of Medicine, Faculty Of Pharmacy, Faculty Of Social And Management Sciences, Faculty Of Arts, Faculty Of Education, Faculty Of Communication And Information Sciences, Faculty Of Basic Medicals And Applied Sciences, Faculty Of Engineering.
We thank God for where we are today; it is God that has brought us this far and not by our doing. I am also the Chairman of Association of Private University VCs and Registrars of Nigeria.
What was life like during your undergraduate days?
During our own time, things were not like this, we had only public universities at that particular point in time. I attended the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University. I attended University of Ibadan, I attended University of Nigeria and I did a program in Lead City University. I also attended a foreign university, Charisma University.
How did you actually get to become the VC of Lead City University?
I have always wanted to be a teacher. I started my career as a secondary school teacher in Ile-Ife, before moving to Olode Grammar school, but Ife being a university community, I was able to use that opportunity to develop myself, after that I moved to Osun State College of Education, Esa-Oke as an assistant lecturer before I became a principal lecturer.
Later, I moved to Ladoke Akintola University, before joining Lead City University in 2006 and I became the pioneer HOD of Accounting Department, and to the glory of God with the support of my governing council, the teaching and non-teaching staff, it was my department that was first granted accreditation from NUC and ICAN.
Later, the department was merged with Business Administration, Management and Accounting, and later got full accreditation for management and accounting.
Later, I was appointed as Director of part time program, I was also appointed as Vice Dean, Faculty Of Social Sciences in 2017. To the glory of God, I was appointed as the Deputy Vice Chancellor in November 2017 before becoming the acting Vice Chancellor in 2018 before later being confirmed as the substantive Vice Chancellor.
Can you tell us more about some of your achievements since you became the institution’s Vice Chancellor?
Lead City University is a specialised university and all members of staff ranging from the principal officers, teaching and non-teaching staff are friendly.
Our doors are always opened for students to interact with us, unlike during my own days in the university, I saw my Vice Chancellor just during the convocation.
In our institution, we deal with knowledge for self-reliance, we want our students to be job creators so that at the end of the day, they will be employers of labour and this is a recognition of the power of education and this has been our mission.
The vision of the university is to contribute to the development of tertiary education in Nigeria by providing qualitative access to knowledge and training with innovative and challenging teaching techniques that guarantee a balanced education and we have been moving towards this. Our students are doing very well and most of our graduates are employers of labour and they are doing very well in their chosen professions and I am very proud to say that Dr Kola Ladoke, your manager at Lagelu 96.7fm here is one of us, we are very proud of his achievements.
Talking about the global visibility, can you highlight some of the partnerships you’ve been able to establish?
Our university has been getting so many awards and we were able to secure grants in 2018 from the United States of America. We won a grant worth over N100 million and we are one of the private universities in Nigeria that accessed it. I and three other lecturers went to the US to receive the award. Our workers and lecturers too are also getting grants from the World Bank and I even presented a paper at a World Bank-organised event and it was one of the best.
I will like you to talk about how you have been surviving the National Universities Commissions (NUC) accreditation hurdles?
In 2017, the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, Professor Abubakar Rasheed, came to our university twice and he was really impressed. In fact, Professor Abubakar was so impressed to the extent that he told us that he had never seen a private university like this.
We have full accreditations for all our programs and we have started our MBBS programme, medicine, pharmacy, Pharm. D, physiotherapy and dentistry.
If you are given the opportunity, what advice will you give the Federal Government on how to permanently solve the issue of constant ASUU industrial actions?
I will appeal to the government to please find a lasting solution to this lingering ASUU industrial action for the interest of the Nigerian educational system because it is worrisome, it is uncalled for, for universities to be closed for more than eight months. I think the government should find practical approach.
In terms of practical approach, I think we run a system and our own system is different. You cannot compare our own university with public universities in terms of ownership, but I think to a large extent the public universities have seasoned scholars. The governing council of each university and ASUU should come together and have a framework, you know you cannot compare the system of a federal university to a state university, the ownership differs and even the employees/employer relationship, teaching staff and non-teaching staff, I think there is need for university councils to have a framework to find an holistic way of trying to make sure that things work.
I know lecturers must be paid and paid fully. I will never subscribe to a situation whereby the lecturers will just be treated shabbily. ASUU and the government should come out with a framework that will give us a very good blue print in order for the Nigerian university system will become more stable and vibrant.
The Federal Government should fulfill its promise to ASUU and the situation whereby you sign an agreement and you fail to honour it is unfair.
