Q: How has it been as the vice chancellor in this university?
A: God has been helping us. I came here with 30 years experience. I was at the University of Benin where I held various offices. I was Dean and I acted as the vice chancellor on a number of occasions. My expectation was that being a Christian university, it would give me the opportunity to correct some of the things that I was battling with in public, non-faith based university. You know conventionally when we award our degrees we say the degree is based on character and learning but I have found out that many universities may be strong in learning but they are very weak and grossly deficient in the character component. I thought that this university, being a faith-based institution will be a place where one will have an enabling environment to make contributions towards the character component of the products that will come out of the place. So far, everything is going on well. We have come quite some way but there is still a lot of room for improvement. We believe that with the cooperation of people around us, we will get there.

Q: What are the challenges of the university as a private institution?
A: I think the major challenge is funding. The challenge of funding is not unique to private universities. Pointedly, I will like to say that where it becomes a major challenge in private universities is that we don’t have access to any funding from government. The government recognizing that education is not something that can be handled by individual institutions, decided to establish a few agencies to help with funding in certain areas of university education. These include ETF and PTDF. But it is painful to know that some public universities are unable to access funds for research and her we are, private universities, we are looking for just a few millions and the government is saying that the laws that set up these agencies do not accommodate private universities.  I believe that something is structurally wrong with that arrangement.First, the funds that these agencies administer are funds that were sourced from all Nigerians, including parents and guardians of students in private universities. The funds were sourced from Nigerians and held in trust on behalf of all Nigerians. The products of these universities make contributions to the general Nigerian economy. The country is currently talking about re-branding and I can confidently say that some of the greatest contributors to the re-branding efforts are in private universities. I will give you some examples:I have a crop of young men in this school who have done the nation proud. There is one of them who for the past four years has won every prize for young inventors in this country. He has also represented Nigerian as a young inventor. He has been to India, Korea and Indonesia to represent the country. He has developed some out-of-the-way-inventions. For example, he has developed a foot-mat that once a person steps on it sucks all the dust in the shoes and stores somewhere. Already, manufacturers in China and Korea are struggling to sign an MoU with him to mass produce his inventions. This is a student in a private university who is already marketing Nigeria. And the university where he is being trained cannot access funds to prepare others like him to make contributions towards improving Nigeria. I think that government should consider a review of the laws that set up ETF and PTDF so that private universities can access those funds.

Q: Don’t you think that the rate at which private universities are licensed calls for concern?
A: I will say yes but also if you look at the statistics, you will find that JAMB (Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board) has said that it is not able to admit all students that seek university admission. If you look at it from that point of view, I think it is a good development but the regulatory agencies have to be careful to ensure that they don’t license just for the purpose of licensing. There are minimum standards for licensing a university, maybe the regulators should look at raising the standards so that they can increase the quality. But I think we should not discourage those who can set up quality private universities from setting them up.

Q: How do you think the nation’s education sector can be revamped?
A: It has to start from the foundation. One of the things I have found out is that because of the emphasis we lay on paper qualification, people struggle and do all kinds of things to get the qualification and parents have become accomplices. Education has becomes a very fraudulent industry; we have examination malpractices at all levels. If we are going to improve education it is going to require contributions from all people. The government has to increase funding. We always cite the UNESCO’s recommendation that 26% of the budget of the government should be for education but we lose sight of the fact that that is actually the minimum in a situation where the sector is stabilized. In Nigeria, if we are to lay a foundation for that minimum that is recommended, we need to put something in the neighborhood of 30% in the education sector for the next 10years to get the sector stabilized. After that, we can begin to talk about 26%. There are countries in Southern Africa: Lesotho and Botswana, where more that 26% of the budget is voted to education. I think that most of this has to do with the attitude of the government to education. 

Q: What is the unique selling proposition of Benson Idahosa University?
A: What is unique about us is that we train people who do not go out to queue for job but go out to create jobs. We train entrepreneurs, not mere academics or professionals. Even those who choose to pick up employment are irresistible to employers. We have examples all over, even at the United Nations.A young man who graduated from this university only two years ago has set up a very viable sewage treatment company in Warri and is being patronized by oil companies, hotels, universities etc. Now, he is an employer of labour. The point is that we produce people who carry our brand along. They do not create problems for the community but solve problems through job creation. Of course, as a Christian university, we say we want to be effective disciples of Jesus Christ, excelling in every area where we find ourselves working. 

Q: Are there any plans to introduce new programmes?
A: Yes. We have submitted application to the NUC for new programmes. They are: Medicine, Nursing, Juvenile Deliquency and Rehabilitation Studies, Hotel Management and Tourism, Library and Information Studies and Public Affairs and Strategic Studies. We believe that in the next academic session we will mount these programmes. We are also going to start our post-graduate programmes this session. 

Q: What do you plan to make as the VC of this university?
A: My vision is to see that all the programmes of the university are accredited. Now, we do not have any programme that is denied accreditation. Some of our programmes have full accreditation and some have interim accreditation. But I want to work towards all our programmes having full accreditation. I also want to set up a unit where we can harmonize all the talents in this university. We have a number of inventors and I think it will be a good thing to provide them a platform where they can give expression to their talents. Then, we can invite those who can finance the inventions to partner with us and we can then go into making the inventions available to the public.