No room for cultism here — Federal University Otuoke VC

Professor Seth Accra-Jaja, a professor of Management Science, is the second vice-chancellor of the Federal University of Otuoke, in Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State. A distinguished academic, Accra-Jaja was appointed vice-chancellor of the university in 2015. In this interview by EBIOWEI LAWAL, he speaks on efforts to reposition the institution.

How has the journey been since you assumed office as chief executive?

There are lots of challenges and there have been progresses made; but there is much more to be accomplished. For a university, there are some basic areas that we try to look at as administrators. One is the area of infrastructure; then you talk about the general culture of the university, especially as it affects the personnel or human resource that manages the other two sub-systems.

Just like the general comments most public administrators make when they enter office, they would say ‘I did not find anything on the ground’; but ours is not exactly that, because our belief is that if you are sent to a place to clear a farm, you don’t start by looking at the areas that have not been cleared; you try as much as possible to see the much you can do at the time you are there.

So, I would say, briefly, that in terms of the structures, the processes and also the welfare of staff and students of the university, we have tried to meet our benchmark since my assumption of duty.

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This university, since inception, has not held any convocation. How do you feel being the one to make this happen?

We have not been able to undertake this exercise, not because we didn’t want to, but there are certain processes that must be put in place, like having a chancellor who presides over the convocation. And then there were the little disturbances we had in our general academic system. I am talking specifically in terms of strikes.

Because of these, we have not been able to have the convocations before now. So, early this year, we decided that we must hold the convocation before the end of the year, at least to make sure that our students we have graduated do not go about with just statement of results, because ordinarily as a practice, we can’t issue them with degree certificates without a convocation.

How I feel? Just like any human being. And as I promised on my assumption of office here that whatever structures, processes or activities that we find other best-ranking university do, notwithstanding our rural background, we would try as much as possible to bridge the gap between where we were, where we are now and where we hope to be.

With most universities having cult-related challenges, how have you been able to control security situations?

Here in our university, the lecturers, non-teaching staff and students try as much as possible to live as a family. As long as we are under this umbrella or the same roof we call Federal University of Utuoke, we try to understand each other and correct each other. We don’t wait for the vice chancellor to come and make corrections all the time.

Students are free to interact with their lecturers, draw our attention to areas that they feel need some level of amendment. They do so through their various student associations, which include the Students’ Union government, faculty and department associations. We’ve been able to check each other and place ourselves on a balance. That’s why in terms of security, we secure ourselves; and if we also talk about cult-related issues, we also check ourselves. It is not that I have magic sticks or iron that I use to drive cult activities away from the university. And not only that, we also have zero tolerance for any act of indiscipline. As long as we get information and verify the information through due process and fair hearing, we swing into action. If we are convinced that an individual is involved in cultism or have such thing in mind, we don’t wait for the person to carry out the act; we show such person the way out of the institution.

When is the university moving to its permanent site; and has there been support from the state and Federal Governments with respect to funding?

We are already at the permanent site. Where we are now is the permanent site of the university – except that with the nature of some of the structures we acquired from the Federal Government and also what the host community did to ensure that the university started, we tend to operate a multiple campus, which is also breached by one small road. If you walk through the sand-field, the two campuses are linked; so, we are already at the permanent site. And in terms of government contributions, both federal and state, well I won’t say that we have got sufficient, but I think looking at the economy and also benchmarking what we get from what other sister universities get, I think the government has done very well.

Since your appointment as VC, what are some of the challenges you have faced and how do you address them?

Before I assumed duty as the vice chancellor, we had just 2000 students. We were running 12 programmes. In fact if it was that time you entered this compound, you wouldn’t even see any human being after 12 noon because lectures must have been over. But when I assumed duty, I felt that if the essence of establishing the university in this rural area is to ensure access to quality tertiary education, then there is the need for us to expand our programmes; and after due resource verification, the NUC graciously approved our programmes to 28. They gave us 16 additional programmes in three faculties. They are Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Management Sciences and also Faculty of Education.

So, that helped us to boost the students’ intake and changed our carrying capacity from 300 that it used to be to 2500. That also opened up opportunities for people within our catchment area to have admissions into various programmes.

Well, the challenge of our university is a universal one, and that has to do with funds. The other one is the management of human behaviour because we are dealing with human beings with different types of attitudes; and you also know that when you are trying to put up a system like this, you may not have time to actually select all the right things and people that should make up the university community, so sometimes you end up having both the good and the bad.

What are the plans to ensure that your university offers courses in law and medical sciences in the near future?

You know you can’t just come out now and say that as a university this is what we want to do. We can only plan for it, set the target and the goals, then start pursuing them. All our programmes that faced accreditation have all been accredited. Then the new ones we created in 2016 will face accreditation next month and we are very hopeful. Assessing ourselves based on our previous performance, we are sure that we would likely also get those programmes accredited.

In terms of projection for expansion, we are really on course in the sense that for basic medical sciences, we are trying to partner with the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) to start up the programme. But one other thing again, if we look at things critically, we have the State Medical University. The Niger Delta University is also running a medical programme. Although we are partnering with FMC to see how we can start basic medical sciences, we are also trying to look at some other areas where these other universities around have little or no strength so that we can build on that rather than just duplicating the normal or the traditional programmes.

For the Faculty of Law, if you look at our structures, we can’t just start a programme because other people have done so; we are trying to put facilities on the ground so that if we commence the programme, you would say I attended or did my law programme in the Federal University of Utuoke and it was a wonderful experience.

What is the relationship between your institution and the host community like?

Our relationship with the Utuoke community is cordial because I don’t think there’s anything they have needed from us other than admission of their sons and daughters. And we have a system where we don’t just collect lists from the community leaders; we go through the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) master list and make sure that any admission we are giving actually belongs to a son and daughter of the community. And when you are doing things that appear to be transparent, the only option is to have a very clean slate between the community and you. That is not to say that on individual grounds, some people may not ask for things that the university cannot offer or give; but on a general note, I would say the relationship between key strategic individuals and the university has been very cordial.