The Vice-Chancellor, Enugu State University of Science and Technology, (ESUT), Prof Aloysius-Michaels Okolie in this exclusive interview enumerated his key achievements in the outgone year and set plans for the New Year 2025.
What are your defining moments in 2024?
Our defining moments this year, number one, is that we started this session very well and we are ending it productively. We had the opportunity of going for staff programmes in the workshop and training we organized. We had the opportunity to ensure that the students are ready for service by dealing with the issue of their certificates. Ensuring that the issue of convocation of graduates is successfully carried out.
Due to the convocation, we had to complete the 1000-capacity multipurpose auditorium. And within this period, entrepreneurship building finishing is going on day and night. The external work has been finished; the contractor is a Hausa man. Close to five hundred million was attracted to TETFund to complete the building – no fund came from n the pocket of the University for funding.
As we are going for break today, we used funds attracted from TETFund to procure scientific equipment for all the concerned faculties. And within this year, under review, by the grace of God, we succeeded in attracting another fund close to five hundred million for disaster recovery. By the time the appropriation is completed early January, we shall start the process of installing a 50-capacity overhead tank with summer drilling boreholes to see the possibility of pushing water to close-by structures around.
We have already written to His Excellency, who has directed the appropriate body to release a transformer to increase security. Within this year, to change the narrative, we have to invest in ESUT radio, and in that building. Work is ongoing because we have decided to turn that building into an incubation hub for certification of programmes. So that as a student, within your stay in school, you are certified with other three programmes that would help you be self-sufficient in paying your fees and doing other cv things.
We are on the verge of signing another agreement, like the student hostel, which the Infrastructure Bank has agreed to finance. It’s a South African vendor that is bringing in those new hostels that must accommodate up to 10, 000 students, with a serene environment and international conference hall. Today, I want to equally convey our own input in the MOU they brought.
I believe that within this Christmas period, we may have completed the signing of those things they brought, which is the letter of intent, which equally indicates that they are prepared to build 200 residential houses, which would finally make ESUT a residential university.
We have a number of interventions we have done, and the ones for 2025, by the grace of God, are high, because we have done the legwork and, by God’s grace, made the necessary contacts. We pray ESUT would go higher and higher, because there is no going back. The little ones we have done in your hostels, you see, it is yielding better results. Even though we are not yet satisfied, because we are dreaming of a day we can get solar power to power lights everywhere.
Talking about solar, we know that the management attracted 140 solar with battery inverters installed in management sciences. It’s just like a farm; why you didn’t see it as a farm is because we are already conscious of the security in the university, because if it is built as a farm, thieves would start vandalizing it. It was donated by one of the awardees, the white man from Australia. So, we shall keep on bringing very effective people who would be coming to ESUT to invest.
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It’s been a very busy year, and we thank God for that.
Enugu State government started implementing the minimum wage in government parastatals. What about ESUT?
That’s a nice question. We even discussed it yesterday. We’re waiting for the document that reflects the consequential adjustment. Most of them at the Ministry aren’t very concerned about consequential adjustments. When you increase the minimum wage, there’s a White Paper that guides the consequential adjustment. We haven’t seen that from the governor.
You don’t become arbitrary when you increase the minimum wage. You have to increase subvention, and for now, subvention hasn’t been increased for the past 25 years. Even with all these new programmes, it’s just N136 million, and our wage bill is about N440 million. The local government pays N68 million, and if you add that to the state government’s contribution, you get N204 million. The last time we checked, they owed us N82 million. Unlimited subvention from the local government hasn’t been updated to know if it has reached N100 million. As of May, they owed us over N200 million. We used JAC to task for the money, and it’s piling up again as debt. In fact, I have to tell you that we received subvention from the state government for November yesterday. If we had waited, we would be paying staff their November salaries today.
It’s not enough to say they’ve increased it, but once the government issues us a White Paper stating the increment, procedure of consequential adjustment, reflecting on what they’ll bring, ESUT will equally join. Assuming they bring 33% from the local government, the implication is that ESUT has been bringing 57% and augmenting it. If you move people below N80 to N80, you should have consequential adjustments. The picture at the ministries isn’t clear, though we discussed it at the Council. How can we get them to bring the White Paper that will guide us to do the needful?
Not only ESUT but also no state university in Enugu State has started implementing it because of the challenges I explained. The heads of other tertiary institutions face the same challenges. We want to pay, but the government must bring consequential adjustments with matching upgrades so we can start paying.
What about the perimeter fencing in ESUT?
Yes, thank you. The major crisis we’re facing in ESUT is theft. We’ve been catching people stealing wires and cables in the university and charging them to court. We’ve looked at implementing the fencing. His Excellency, the Executive Governor, sent a delegate to check the cost of this compound because this place is 15.6 kilometers. When we did the variation, the consultant gave an excellent bill of N1 billion. The content involves dropping a gate in the PGD school.
I’ve discussed it with the state government, but their worry is where to get N1 billion for fencing. I advised them to start investing in tranches of N400 million, and I begged them not to give us the money but to award the contract and let us supervise. We didn’t stop at that. We’ve gone beyond meeting with the state government for these issues. We wrote a letter through a senator to get special intervention from Abuja. If we succeed, that package is even better because it includes 20,000 solar streetlights so that every part of ESUT will be lit up. It equally has the component of eight gates and other things embedded in it, along with security surveillance. We help the state government.
What we try to do is be proactive. If we get the money, just like we got the money for the pharmaceutical building and printing press, we’re hopeful that if the state doesn’t work, the Federal Government will. One thing is assured: before we leave this university, the fence must be thoroughly fenced.
When is the Matriculation date?
It will be this February. What delayed it is the admission in other areas and the new programmes we got approvals for. We are following the academic calendar religiously. We have advertised for admission into the new departments which will end on 29th January.
The new policy from JAMB is that a week before Matriculation, you must upload the newly admitted students, and you won’t add anymore. That’s the new thing they started last year. If we should do it, we’ll be cutting off people we should have given admission to in this January, the 50 quota given to us for these four new programmes. New programmes are 50, until NUC comes for another accreditation of the number, depending on the facilities.
His Excellency made a pledge to support ESUT Monitor Is there any new news from it?
I’m just hearing this for the first time. In a university, we have channels of communication. For instance, the awardee gave us N52 million, and he said we should open an Afri-invest account. He deposited it there, so that anytime we want to do research, we can withdraw from it. If we say we are releasing so much money, we check the result, withdraw the money, and give it to the person. That’s equally why TETFund does it.
You just don’t say His Excellency promised you money; rather, you write a letter to the Vice Chancellor, informing him about it. Other people’s letters are here, and I have written a letter to him, telling him about meeting him if he has time in this December to discuss these issues.
You successfully conducted 9 inaugural lectures in 2024. How many are we expecting this year?
The first one is coming up in February. Inaugural lectures are not imposed on people. You create an enabling environment for people to celebrate and enlighten them on the need for it. We have created an enabling environment. We started it by having lunch with the people who have done their inaugural lectures on Tuesdays to encourage them. The Chairman of the inaugural lecture said that by next year, we will have more than nine because nine have applied. If we have nine applicants now, by next year, it will be more. But you know, inaugural lectures launch you as an academic and a scholar into the society of achievers. So, if you didn’t do an inaugural lecture, nobody will kill you, but you have removed yourself from being a distinguished professor.
Concerning the new programmes, can students switch to the course?
Yes, but I don’t know the sense it will make if you are in your final year and you want to switch to radiography. So, it’s only for those who are near. That doesn’t mean if you are in your final year and you want to go back to year one, we will not allow you. There are many people who don’t want to graduate once you are qualified, we allow you. We have not treated the interview and intra-university transfers, which we will treat in January.
What motivates you?
If I stay idle, I will be sick. That’s why I’m a multitasking man. That’s why you task your brain. Before you can work that way, you must have passion, commitment, and a genuine desire to change. You keep on tempting what people say is impossible, and I give you one example. Many staff were surprised about the multipurpose hall. They didn’t believe it would be turned into what we turned it to. Has it killed us? No. But has it added value to ESUT? Yes.
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We will still discuss with His Excellency for perimeter fencing, so after, many people would want to do programs there. And that’s not where we will stop. Like, we are dreaming next year to have a state-of-the-art faculty building dropped next year in ESUT. Just like the hostel they want to build, we have insisted that the hostel must be like hostels in Canada, USA. You enter your room with a card, not a key, because we are human beings, not animals. There will be a casino there, with perimeter fencing, because it makes you think decent and understand when you are in a decent environment. And it will make the students have class.
And once it’s been done, I have in mind establishing a modern United Nations in ESUT, which I was the pioneer director of in UNN. I took my students to Oxford, and we returned. That’s the kind of thinking. Don’t think about the mundane. Think about a class. That’s why I took them there. This was when Prof. NEBO was the VC of UNN. I approached him for sponsorship, and he said, “Provide visa, and I will sponsor,” which I did, and he sponsored us.
One of the people who traveled with me, whom I eventually supervised till PhD level, is now a professor. On his return, he started thinking that way, “Why am I a professor now?” But the climate I want is that I want to see students who are thinking, reading, and I will show them the way. You will disvirgin your passport and be exposed to the world. So, they can see that ESUT students can compete with them at that level. So, they will be thinking of coming to ESUT.