ABU gets a new Vice-Chancellor

The Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria has a new Vice-Chancellor. He’s Prof. Ibrahim Garba and his letter of appointment says he resumes work today. He’s from the Department of Geology, ABU, and has been in the system as well as out there in the mining industry, gathering theoretical and practical experiences in the process. I had asked around who the leading contenders for the VC’s seat were when the selection process began late 2014. Garba’s name was never mentioned. That got me curious to know who he was after he was announced as the choice in what must have been a rigorous selection process at the largest university in Africa. Having managed to avoid the red tape and get him to invite me for an interview, I entered his living room and got a handshake while he said, “Tunji Ajibade, I’ve been reading you in The PUNCH; it’s just that I’ve never seen your face like this. I read The PUNCH.” I sat down opposite him thereafter and asked, “Prof, how does it feel to be the VC of one of Nigeria’s foremost universities?”

“To say the least, I felt humbled because it came to me as a surprise,” Garba had responded, adding that he didn’t expect to emerge as the winner going by “the calibre of colleagues that had also contested.” When he began to get congratulatory messages however, many of which referred to the fact that he would be heading the largest university on the continent, the weight of the task became obvious and this humbled him the more. I had heard tales of how contestants usually run around to contact influential people in order to become VCs, so I wasn’t ready to let Garba get away with this explanation. “You had been the VC of a state university in Kano State at one point, did this influence the decision to select you?” I asked. He used the opportunity to inform me that three of his fellow contestants had been VCs and one was currently a VC in other universities, but they were not selected.

Even at that, I wanted to know the calibre of influential people he had contacted in order to be selected. Garba said, “I contacted no one, except my God.” I pointed to the picture of an Emir in his living room, stating that His Royal Highness must have been one of the people he contacted, as well as others in the Presidency, including the Minister of Education. But Garba laughed at my suggestion, stating that he had never contacted anyone, and if it was a case of influencing his appointment, some of the other contestants knew more influential people than himself. He added that if I knew the selection process I would have known how impossible it would be to influence the number of credible Nigerians involved. I informed Garba that what he was saying was a revelation to me because I had often heard it said at events in ABU that unless one was an “Abdullahi”, one should never dream of becoming the VC of ABU. To this Garba said, “I would not know whether or not that was a factor in my appointment, but if probably it was any of these kind of divides, why would I be the best choice out of all the other candidates? Am I the most Islamic or the most religious or the best Hausaman, or Fulani? I am not even from Zaria or Kaduna. I am from Kano State. So, if there is any of these geographical or ethnic thing, I think probably there would have been stronger candidates to pick other than myself.”

He did frown at a situation whereby appointments are based on religious or other primordial considerations. He thought “this reflects our stage of development. As a people, it means we are unable to break that barrier of primordial sentiments in all our dealings, be it in politics or in academics.”

I asked him to identify the challenges at the ABU and what vision he would implement. He said the first challenge was how well the system delivered on its number one responsibility which was the quality of students sent into the society, noting that this was low at the moment and something needed to be done. But broadly, he wanted to embark on three things which were, to refocus the system for better service delivery (teaching and research); reform the system “where there is the need for reformation because the ABU as a university is fairly conservative in many respects in terms of doing the same thing over the decades and thinking this is the best way to do it even when things have changed globally. Then, I want to reinvigorate the system,” he explained.

His reference to conservatism caught my attention, so I asked if he realised that reforming a conservative system might raise issues in the conservative North, and if his decision meant he was a radical. He laughed and said he was not a radical, but “if doing what’s right means being a radical, so be it. Life is dynamic, you don’t tamper with something that you think is giving you results. But when what you have been doing all this while is not making you to be competitive, you have to change.” In any case, he added, whatever new ideas he had must go through a process, mentioning the Senate and the University Governing Council as bodies that should facilitate smooth reforms where such would be necessary.

Next, I asked him what he thought of a situation where, instead of having Student Union Government, the university management permitted the existence of a Student Representative Council. Garba said he didn’t know the nature and exact reasons why this was the case, but he would find out. “If the current system is fine with the students and it is the best in order to allow for peace on campus, then there will be no reason to tamper with it. But if there are problems with the current arrangement, we will see if we can reform it so that it will give students better expression,” he said.

Student matters such as this one made me narrate the complaints by postgraduate students who spent three or eight years doing Master’s and doctorate programmes respectively, and I asked what Garba would do to ensure that students graduate on time. He said part of the blame was on the students who finished course work and disappeared for years only to return later. Another reason, he said, was the larger number of intakes. But many of the issues that led to delay were being actively worked on by the School of Postgraduate Studies, he pointed out. I called his attention to the fact that delays were not caused only by students but also by departments, some of which asked students to proceed to internal defence after a successful post-field departmental defence, a situation that the PG school recently rejected, saying such was not stated in its academic requirements. To this, Garba said such a demand was wrong and when he got into office, he would “know to what extent this is happening and where they are coming from. If it is not a widespread problem, we will identify it and solve it straightaway.”

As someone who had spent time in the industrial sector, was he interested in further linking university research to industry? “One of the areas we must sit and address is the linkage with the industry,” he replied. “It is only when we link up with industry that the society will feel the impact of what we are trying to do in the university system. So we are hoping that with time the industry will see the use of research in universities, more especially if the government has new policies to curtail unnecessary import into the country. We import everything, and this kills our innovation.” So, where would the new VC want his institution to be by the time his tenure was over? “The easiest way to put it,” Garba said, “is that I want to fulfil the expectations of our well-wishers who want this place to be the best of its type. I will want the ABU to be truly the best university of choice in our environment and beyond,” he added

Tweet