How we encourage students to take Agriculture as course at ABUAD –Afe Babalola

Walking through the vast campus of the Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti [ABUAD] is akin to walking through a gallery of progressive legacy. For the visiting higher education analysts, every visit is a new lesson. Rated as the fastest growing private university in black Africa, its management says it is in competition with itself. In this interview with OJIAKU KALU, the founder, Aare Afe Babalola, revealed how his institution is pivoting academic revolution in Nigeria, especially in the field of agriculture for which it attracts students with irresistible incentives.

When did the thought of establishing a university first occur to you; and what type of university was it going to be?
Interestingly, it was never my dream to establish a university, but God in His wisdom has a plan for everybody. I have had 53 years experience in the Bar and I’m very comfortable with practising Law. During this period of 53 years, I had very important cases (both national and international) and I have had cases for and against all the presidents that ever ruled Nigeria. In the process of doing all that, I had the chance of being the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation on three occasions and I turned them down. The last of them was during the Obasanjo Administration. I turned down the offers because I had a satisfactory practice in law and didn’t want to leave that for a salary job.

How would you distinguish between the zeal to grow one’s business and that of serving one’s country? Where is the place of patriotism in that?
Well, I do not believe that showing patriotism is only by holding public positions. Long before I established this institution I had imparted on people’s lives. I have also supported education by giving scholarship in several parts of this country. So who serve the country best are not even cabinet ministers or public office holders. Sometime in 2000, Gen Olusegun Obasanjo called me and observed that there was serious corruption then in University of Lagos. I was then a patron of Transparency International in Nigeria. The president was then the chairman; so he called to ask me if I would be interested in being the Pro-Chancellor for University of Lagos, having refused his ministerial appointment, and I agreed.
But in accepting to serve as the university’s pro-chancellor, I decided to change a few things. I was not going to stay in the pro-chancellor’s lodge; I was not going to use the official car or for that matter, any of the university cars; and I refused to take the normal monthly allowance. Instead, I decided to use that money to give scholarships in the university. And most importantly, upon realising that most of the university’s laboratories and libraries were in bad shape, I invited some of my clients, including Julius Berger, Shell, Mobil and some banks to come to my aid. Most of the projects they executed in the school were free of charge at my stance. It was like their own way of contributing to the school. Within four years of concerted work, we were able to transform the university’s look and feel and as a way of commendation, the National Universities Commission (NUC) awarded the school The Best University in Nigeria; and I was overjoyed when the Commission bestowed on me The Best Pro-Chancellor award.
Now, it was when I was leaving the place, after my second term in office, that it dawned on me that I could do something for education in Nigeria – by establishing my own university and making it the reference point for others. That was how I decided to establish this university. We got our licence in 2009 and commenced academic activities in 2010.

When you ultimately had the opportunity to set up your own university, what was to be your standard?
I wanted to start a university that would be a model to others. I also wanted to make this university the very epitome of what a modern university should be. At first, I was in dilemma over what to call the university; but my adviser said, ‘’let what people see dictate what it should be called.’’ So the Afe Babalola was adopted it was already an honourable name in the nation’s public life, especially in the legal profession. We wanted to make the university the best in Nigeria, and that could compete with universities abroad.

You run the ABUAD Farms and the university within the same vicinity. For you, what is the link between the farm and the classroom?
Like I said earlier on, I grew up on the farm and I love farming. I am a plant lover. If you are on the farm, you would never remember any problem you have anywhere because you are with nature. When I applied to NUC for approval of courses, I included Agriculture, thinking and believing that people would start applying for Agriculture. But behold, all other courses had a lot of students but nobody wanted Agriculture. So in my bid to make sure people liked and chose the course, I decided to acquire the large expanse of land that you talked about and start commercial agriculture, so that the students would see for themselves what benefits they can derive from agriculture.
I invited the then Minister of Agriculture in 2003. He came and was so impressed that he gave us four tractors. Besides all that, we have a scheme here with which we encourage prospective students to apply to study Agriculture: we had to reduce the fees from N400, 000 to N200, 000 per session. Besides this, each of them, upon graduation, is awarded a soft loan of N200, 000 to start some form of farming toward being self-reliant.

Most of the produce from your farms are converted into commercial uses and the machinery for the processes were designed and fabricated locally. How did you come about that?
Once I travelled to England on a course, I had the opportunity of working in factories; and most of their machines were designed and fabricated in very small rooms that would normally contain only 20 to 50 people. The difference is that their products are packaged more beautifully. So I decided to buy some of the materials and told my local people to couple them up. Eventually we succeeded in making the machines with our own hands. I can assure you that next year you are going to see more of the equipment that made by our own people.

At the university, do you plan to expand your Agricultural programme into other components like the agricultural engineering, food engineering etc, in order to sustain your farm-to-shelf innovations?
We have thought of that already and we have what we call Industrial Park. We are establishing the first industrial pack in our university where we would be able to train people with some of the equipment so as to transfer to them the knowledge we have into industry purposes.

We observe you have a lot of staff, both in the university and on the Farms? How many persons are there actually on your payroll?
For the university alone, we have about 500 – 1, 000 in academics and 500 in administration. Then on the farms, there are roughly 1, 000 also. If you add that up, you should be having about 2, 000 staff strength.

So what forms of encouragement do you receive from government – considering your efforts at job creation?
I am afraid the answer to that question is ‘’none.’’ Regrettably, encouragement doesn’t come to us either from state or federal government. Here, we have to make use of power generating sets because there is no electricity; and same goes for water. We drill our own boreholes for potable water. See, I must say I am not happy with Federal Government’s policy of excluding private institutions from the TETFUND subventions – even after making every business pay the Education Tax. Since I pay and regularly too, I also expect to enjoy the benefits of such contribution. It’s not too much to ask for.

With all you have achieved so far in ABUAD, are you directly or indirectly mentoring other universities in Nigeria?
Yes, indeed. Because of our achievements, many universities have approached us with a view to consulting for them. When COREN came here, they found out that we have 37 engineering laboratories, all with the latest equipment. So they declared our university the template for engineering education in Nigeria, and advised other universities to come make use of our equipment – especially those that Government cannot afford to buy. So many universities like the Benue State University, Delta State University etc, come here to use our labs and other crucial facilities.

In Nigeria, there seems to be some disconnect between the engineering taught in classrooms and that practised on the streets. How is this going to change in your university?
That’s a very good question. Sincerely, I am worried about the quality of our engineers in Nigeria. So, we ensure that our students have in-depth exposure on hands-on, practical engineering as well as the theories. We also ensure our students are adequately conversant with current engineering developments. Infact, we are one of the first universities in Nigeria to commence academic activities in Mechatronic Engineering; that is if not the very first. We formulated the syllabus, which NUC now uses for the programme. To make us continually stay ahead, we had to go into sustainable partnership with FESTO Engineering of Germany. We are pioneering Mechatronics Engineering because it is the engineering of the future and is a hybrid of mechanical engineering and electronics; because a lot of electronic elements have been introduced into mechanical elements. It is the movement of electronics to guide the system of mechanics. And more significantly we have already drawn out a few programmes for Master’s degree in Mechatronics of which I am sure we shall be the first in Nigeria to run the programme at postgraduate level.

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