MOUAU VC recounts progress as school graduates 4,958

Just as the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, MOUAU, Umudike, Abia State is set to convocate 4, 958 graduands, the Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof. Francis Otunta, on Thursday, recounted the progresses the university has made under him as the head of the institution.

Addressing newsmen as part of the university’s 8th convocation activities, Prof. Otunta disclosed that his administration has conceived and birthed the establishment of two Deputy Vice Chancellors (DVCs) for Administration and Academics, “resulting in more efficiency and a better spread of responsibility in the interest of transparency”.

The university colleges, he said, has also grown from six to eleven, while the campus has also translated from sleepy one to animated, disclosing that the receipt of the sum of N2, 166, 963, 212.89 as the second tranche from 2013/2014 NEEDS Assessment Fund “has enabled us to revive the 25 uncompleted projects that were part of the 45 projects that had been funded previously”.

“All 31 contractors previously owed were paid and asked to mobilise back to site. This cost the university over N684 million.

Work is in progress on some project sites, while some are still suffering a setback due to an upward variance in costs resulting from the fall of the naira.

“The TETFund money was not spared the strange happenings surrounding funds. The 2012 – 2013 merged normal intervention had six projects committed to it.

Three have been completed while three are still in progress. 2013 – 2014 TETFund Special Intervention was committed to twenty projects. Four have been completed, while 16n are still in progress,” he added.

According to him, “There were also projects being funded by Internally Generated Revenue, IGR. Sadly, too many irregularities plague these projects and monies.

For example, contracts were awarded without due process. All of these have greatly threatened the progress of this administration in terms of infrastructural development”.

The VC thanked the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for building an ultra-modern complex that houses their Centre for Entrepreneurial Development, the Chartered Institute of Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) for the donation of a similar project, stating that the university FM radio is now vibrant and has outside broadcast van.

He disclosed that IGR has been strengthened, as a committee has been set up to revive school farms and other agribusinesses, while all of the 21 courses in the school but one have been granted accreditation by the National Universities Commission (NUC),

as well as having re-introduced and sustained inaugural lectures, stating, “In the past 24 years of the university, only 23 inaugural lectures were held in the university” until he came in as the VC.

On the challenges facing the university, Prof. Otunta disclosed that since he took over the university as the VC in 2016, the university has suffered severely from lack of fund,

pointing out that management of the school “discovered early to its dismay that a lot of impropriety has permeated the system, such that everything was politicized and auctioned”.

“This has given rise to mediocrity, disrepute and ridicule of our great university. We have stepped on toes in a bid to sanitize the system and introduce a high standard of meritocracy”, he said hence a committee was set up to assess the staff”.

The VC disclosed that in consideration of the current economic situation in the country, management of the university had granted a N10, 000 rebate on hostel charges from N52, 000 to 42,000, pointing out also that students of the school now do well in sports and literary quests outside the school,

while explaining that students of Philosophy, Peace and Conflict Resolution and Mass Communication were affected by non-accreditation, while such students will be ceded to other courses based on their WAEC qualifications.

Of the 4, 958 graduands, 98 made 1St Class, 1,437 made 2nd Class upper division, 2,111 made 2nd Class lower division, 1,276 made 3rd Class while 36 had pass degree.

Sunday Nwakanma, Umuahia