The first Vice Chancellor of the new Kwara State University (KWASU), Malete, in Moro Local Government Area (LGA) of Kwara State, Prof. Abdulrasheed Na’Allah in a chat with ABIODUN FAGBEMI, in Ilorin, bared his minds on his visions for the institution. He had his academic and administrative exposure in Nigeria, Canada and United States.

Where have you been all this while and what were your immediate reactions to your recent appointment as the Vice Chancellor of KWASU?
I left Canada many years ago. I went to the United States where I was until last year. I decided to come back home on the invitation of the Kwara State government, to be the pioneer Vice Chancellor of the Kwara State University. The assignment was to start it from the scratch. I saw it as an absolutely wonderful opportunity. I was lucky to be called upon by the people and government of my state, to use all the experiences that I had gathered in all these places and time.  I mean, my training and experience as an administrator of higher education internationally. Whether we like it or not, the kind of experience we need today in Nigeria is no longer by choice but by necessity to ensure that our universities can complete favourably with those internationally acclaimed.”
Would you view your take off at KWASU as not favourable considering the fact that you are starting from the scratch?
Most universities in Nigeria would start from temporary sites, maybe one primary school or secondary school or just some centers somewhere. But we are starting from our main campus. It is amazing. It is actually very rare. The leader of the board of accreditation openly told us during his visit to Malete that the only area where he saw something similar was at the Katsina State University. He was taken totally aback by the kind of progress that we have at KWASU.    
So we started pretty well. We have buildings standing; almost 90 percent of the road network has been completed. All you are going to be seeing now are the structures, of various sizes on the roads. This is outstanding. This is clearly a world-class citadel of learning.
We have also recruited academics from the best of places around the world. We have lecturers who are outstanding, who had received best of education in Nigeria and abroad. We have recruited people from Harvard University; from Canada and the United States. We have equally had additional recruitments from different parts of Africa, even Indians. We are a world-class university and our steps are deliberate, our processes are very calculated towards achieving this goal of a world-class university.
Will this university be science-biased in line with the directive of the National University Commission, (NUC)?
Our name is Kwara State University. The need of the people of this great nation today is for people to engineer development of our community. If you go to our website, we are the university for community development. We have to respond directly to the wish of Nigerians. The National University Commission (NUC) talks of 60:40 sciences to humanities. We are moving towards that. That is our goal and intention.
Beyond that, we are moving with zeal to develop our community. From next academic session, which is September, we will be starting a new College of Engineering. We are collaborating with Princeton University to set up the college. We had a committee made up of best scholars in Engineering, including somebody who joined them from Princeton University, who submitted a proposal to us. This proposal is already with the NUC and Dr Bukola Saraki, Kwara State governor. It included setting up of workshops, laboratories, which will be set up by Princeton university scholars here. It is going to be one of the best Engineering Colleges in our society, using the equipment that are relevant to our community towards changing our country for the better.
“We will equally have a College of Rural Medicine, in which we will train people who are not only medical doctors but who will make it possible for themselves to practice in rural areas. What do we mean by rural areas? Where you don’t have water and electricity for instance; we don’t want them just to resign to fate that since we don’t have these facilities here, we are leaving. Medical graduates from KWASU will be able to go in there and engineer survival, provide electricity for themselves, provide means of water so that they can then practise their profession. That is what we call rural medicine, which is the concept we are developing. We are going to have a pharmacy department too, patterned in line with this. Truly it is going to be a major world-class thing.

Considering your overseas background, how do you intend to prevent cultism among the students population of this new citadel of learning?
We are lucky because we have other universities to learn from; we have experiences to borrow from. We are taking deliberate strategies and I don’t want at this stage to discuss all of them. But they are intended to ensure that we stop at the gate individuals that are undesirable elements. We are screening thoroughly, we are very carefully looking at people; we have zero tolerance for any act considered disobedience to the rules of the game. We deal with such instantly. We are learning from experiences that are already available in Nigeria.
Do you have any drive for public/private initiative at KWASU?
Very soon, people will be calling KWASU a public/private university. We are already moving towards that. For example, we have a film village that is the latest in the School of Visual and Performing Art. The film village will be 100 per cent public/private arrangement. We already have some banks involved in this endeavour that are ready to invest hundreds of million of Naira into the project.
Between now and September this year, the hostels we are going to start developing will be through this public/private arrangement. The government has put in place right here on the campus, hostels in which our current students live in. But from now forward, it will be through private involvement. We just don’t want the private people to be here, we want them to know and feel that they are stakeholders. We want them to be part of the governance of this university, at different levels of their contributions.
For instance, if you build hostel, you must be part of its management. You can insist on a strong maintenance culture. If it is not strong, it will affect what you have built. If you are part of the School film village, you will be part of the management of the village. We will fully become a university on community development, and will develop on private and public collaboration.
How do you compare University education here with those of the Canada and United States?
Nigerian scholars are outstanding. We have wonderful scholars here, they are very brilliant and I respect them. I am proud of being a product of University of Ilorin; and anywhere I go, I uphold the slogan that the university is better by far. The opportunity that Canada and United States gave to me is to bring the world to my fingertips. To expose me to other issues of the world, to be able to give me more knowledge to complement what had been given me in Nigeria. The background that I had in Nigeria was what I used to acquire additional knowledge in Canada and United States.          
The reality for anyone who goes abroad is that if your foundation is not strong, there is no way you can survive there. That is why it is important for our universities to always insist on merits and strong foundation. Where we have weaknesses, there must be efforts to strengthen such areas.
But it is sad that many things that used to make our universities strong those days have disappeared. It is very bad. We must churn out graduates who will be employers of labour and not parasites to the societies or communities. We need to train people who will be critical thinkers, who can use their brains to make the difference. There is no reason why Nigeria should not compete with other nations of the world. We are greater in population, we have zeal-driven people, we have am kind of resources in this country that poverty should be a strange concept here.
If Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, Japan have made it, there is no reason why Nigeria by now should not make it. In fact, we have resources more than many of these countries.”
What is your advice to many Nigerians abroad who till date have never seen any thing good in the country that could bring them back home
It is difficult to say that anybody will not see anything good in Nigeria. You are exaggerating. If your parents are here, even if you don’t want to come back, you do know in your heart that Nigeria is like no other country. We are a great nation, we are a great people; we have a great family tie. In fact my advice to all of them is to bring the wealth of experience they have got to help develop their country. No other person will help develop Nigeria for him or her.
When the Europeans came those days, we didn’t know their techniques. We opened our doors to them and they exploited us to the marrow. These people have been able to go abroad, they have learnt the techniques of the Europeans, whites and the Japanese; let us bring that experience back to Nigeria and help Nigeria to negotiate a better place for the country in the comity of nations.
Any of them who wants to come back should be encouraged by the government that there is a place for them in the country. The government should put in place, social amenities, because it is the right of the people who pay tax to enjoy the facilities. We need to work together, make peace possible and develop our fatherland.”