WALT Rostow, an American scholar and development economist, enumerates the stages of development that all societies must pass through to march to greatness.
The typology of development that Rostow contemplated focuses mainly on how nation-states could take a leap from traditional to becoming modern societies. Such other development theorists have based their extrapolations from processes of transformation in the individual, with examples like Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic model.
The basic factor in all of these theories and models of development is that development is not a constant variable in growth. Development must be curated, cultured and observable. In this context, development could be understood freely as an art and a science.
While it is easier to observe the cause of development in the transformation of the individual person or nation-states, the observation becomes blurrier when development is to be assessed in how institutions turn the curve from their formative period to how they become great. The confusion in monitoring development in institutions could be explained to the complexities in institutions and the dynamics of the human factor that operates within them.
This perplexing situation very well explains the situation of things at the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE). Created in 2011 by the President Goodluck Jonathan administration, FUOYE, like every other citadel of learning, had its teething problems, and much of it had to do with accreditation of programmes, building adequate manpower that will engineer the take-off of the school, revenue generation and all sorts. In its first 10 years, the pioneering administrators of FUOYE created what could be described as the foundation upon which the future development of the institution will be built.
The actual building of FUOYE started in 2021 when the current Vice-Chancellor of the institution, Professor Abayomi Sunday Fasina, took the mantle of leadership. When Fasina was inaugurated as the vice chancellor of FUOYE in 2021, he designed his administration’s policy objectives within the framework of a 20-point agenda that would not only make FUOYE highly competitive in a saturated environment with high density of universities—both public and privately owned, but also ensure that the host communities in Oye and Ikole Ekiti derive full socio-economic benefits of the institution. One of his first major tasks was to foster a peaceful and merit-driven academic and business environment in the administration of the school. When his administration took office in February 2021, Fasina inherited a university that was frequently in the news for negative reasons.
The situation was dire, marked by recurring student and staff unrest, with protests that sometimes led to the closure of the university. Determined to end this troubling pattern, his administration’s first decisive step was to establish mechanisms aimed at fostering peace and stability within the institution. As one of the pioneering students of FUOYE, I know quite well that the academic atmosphere in the school has far improved from what it was in my days. Unlike in the past when there were no regularities to students’ admission and few programmes were on the offer, the FUOYE of today has greatly transformed to becoming a modern citadel of learning and much of the credit for this transformation is due to the meticulousness that the Fasina administration employs in running the affairs in FUOYE.
Today, FUOYE is recognised as the fourth most sought-after university for admission in the whole of Nigeria and the reputation of the university is permeating to neighbouring countries. In the league of universities founded in 2011 by the Jonathan administration, FUOYE towers far above its peers and has amassed the capacity to give the long-established universities a run for their money and accolades. I feel so proud to call myself a FUOYE alumnus and our appreciation to the Fasina-led administration cannot be enough. Unfortunately and in spite of all of the achievements that Professor Fasina has recorded in FUOYE, it is disheartening that some agent provocateurs are hell bent on soiling the integrity of FUOYE through an attempt to enmesh the Vice Chancellor in an imaginary sex scandal.
It is bad enough that the Nigeria Police had caused an investigation into the petition in 2023, with the police dismissing the allegations as “a ruse.” It is worse still that unrelentingly, these purveyors of ill wishes to FUOYE engage women advocacy groups to further embarrass the alma mater, forgetting that whatever affects the head, affects the whole. However, it is good enough, too, that the governing council of FUOYE has also caused an investigation into the situation. The end point of all of these is that while sexual harassment cannot be condoned in any civilised environment, it should not be a weapon of personality destruction. And it is on this note that the investigation by the panel of the governing council is expected to exhaust the full balance of fairness in the matter.
- Ikeoluwa, an alumnus of Federal University, Oye-Eikiti wrote from Abeokuta.
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