Remarks By Atiku Abubakar, GCON, former Vice President, Federal Republic of Nigeria, and Founder, American University of Nigeria (AUN), Yola, at the 9th Founder’s Day and 10thAnniversary Celebrations of AUN, at Yola.
15 November, 2014.
Protocol
I am pleased to be here for the 9th Founder’s Day and 10th Anniversary of the founding of this university, the American University of Nigeria, Yola. I welcome all of you who are attending these events, despite your busy schedules and the very difficult security circumstances in Nigeria, especially the North East, including Adamawa State. I thank our keynote speaker Dr William Bertrand of Tulane University for honouring the University’s invitation to share his thoughts with us.
Ten years ago I, with help from my friends, established this University to provide world-class, American style education in Nigeria to serve students from Nigeria and Africa. It was sited here in Yola, in north east Nigeria, a region in need of good quality education and jobs. It was the first private university to be established in northern Nigeria and the first American-style university to be established in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Why American style education?
My encounter with American Peace Corps volunteer-teachers in rural Adamawa exposed me to American-style education, which I found quite appealing mainly because of what I saw as its emphasis on critical reasoning, student-participation, and problem-solving. Thus when I decided to establish an Academy, comprising kindergarten to secondary school levels, I chose American-style education. And I wanted to build a university whose graduates will be ready to face the world with those attributes.
Those of you who were here on October 25, 2004, for the ground-breaking ceremony for this University will attest to the breathtaking physical changes that have taken place on this campus, especially the provision of physical facilities. The initial student enrollment in September 2005, when academic activities commenced, was 124 students, with 20 professors. In the current academic session AUN and the Academy have 1,402 enrolled students, 95 faculty members and 1,248 non-academic staff. A recent study indicates that AUN contributes to the local economy to the tune of up to $100 million annually, i.e. about ₦160 million, thereby positively touching the lives of many.
I express my profound appreciation for the painstaking work of the founding faculty, administrators, staff, and the pioneering students. Without them we would not be here today. They made enormous sacrifices and they persevered to nurture this dream to the emerging reality that it is today. In particular, I thank Professors (Dr.) David Huwiler, the founding President of this University, and his team as well as Professor Michael Smith, who succeeded him, for their courage and immense sacrifices and commitment to building this University. They took a chance on us to come to the middle of nowhere, as it were, and began the arduous task and process of changing the face of Yola and Nigeria through this citadel of learning. I also thank all those who have served in the Board of Trustees over the years for their sacrifices.
Ten years is a good period to take stock, re-strategize, and rededicate ourselves for the task of building this University for the next 10 years. And I am sure that you will all play your part. For me this occasion is perhaps a good one to make a statement on private education in Nigeria, which has received significant attention in recent years.
A Place for Private Education:
There is a place for private education in all modern societies, and for good reasons.
Western formal education, in its origins was private. Indeed in Nigeria, Western education was private, having been introduced into the country by Christian missionaries who went on to build schools across the country. Public education came later in order to ensure universal access and the removal of impediments to rapid human resources and societal development. Many commentators who have inveighed against private education in Nigeria have forgotten these facts.
Choice in education and other human affairs is a good thing. In education one size does not fit all. Variety is necessary to meet differing needs, address specific priorities in local areas, and fill specific niches and specializations. Think about this: food is such a basic human necessity, yet no one would make the absurd suggestion that government should run a chain of restaurants across the country to feed everyone who needs to eat.
Competition is good and private education is one way to introduce healthy competition in the education sector to ensure needed improvements overall. Competition breeds creativity, innovation and greater efficiency and effectiveness in service delivery.
Innovation is good. Private schools tend to be smaller than public schools. They tend to be more nimble and innovative and adapt to changes quickly because decision making tends to be quicker in order to serve students and the community better. They are also often run with more business principles even if, as in the case of AUN, they are not for profit. In the case of AUN, for instance, we made a conscious decision not to overstretch ourselves by trying to duplicate what the public universities were already doing which is to offer every imaginable discipline. We chose to focus on three core areas, namely Arts and Sciences, Business and Entrepreneurship, and Information Technology and Communications. We understood the challenges posed by limited resources and the rapid changes informational and communication technologies and quickly adopted e-learning and e-library. And from inception all our students were issued with laptops to facilitate teaching and learning in this changing environment. Public universities in Nigeria surely have a thing or two to learn from private universities and vice versa.
Private schools are needed to complement government efforts in providing education in the country. Private education cannot and should not be a substitute for government efforts at providing universal access to good quality education for the populace. It is and should be for those who desire it. In the case of universities, the private ones came into being as government increasingly became unable to provide university spaces for the growing population of qualified applicants. In fact, it took several years of struggle before the first private university in Nigeria – Igbinedion University, Okada – was allowed to operate. While speaking here on October 25, 2004, just before he broke ground for the building of this university, President Olusegun Obasanjo noted that this University is one of the series of private universities that have been established in Nigeria in the years following the deregulation of the sector. This, to him, was in line with the government’s efforts to deregulate Nigeria’s economy and unleash our people’s entrepreneurial spirit. President Obasanjo expressed satisfaction that Nigerians were answering the government’s call to invest in different sectors of our economy, including education. He went on to say that the massive investments made in education and other areas during our oil boom years were almost exclusively made by government. That was no longer possible as government alone cannot meet all of our growing educational needs. Therefore, going forward, the private sector would have to play a very significant role in education in Nigeria if our people’s educational needs are to be met and if education is to contribute optimally to our national development.
I hope that the AUN will continue to blaze the trail in innovative teaching, research, and community service. I hope that it will continue to remain a development partner for the immediate Adamawa community, Nigeria, and Africa and continue to play a critical role in nurturing the future leaders of Africa.
I commend the current leadership of AUN under the tireless Professor Margee Ensign for its work in growing this university and in putting it on the global map. Once more, I have to acknowledge the immense support and contribution of the late Lamido Adamawa, HRH Alhaji Aliyu Musdafa, who generously donated the land for this University.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me conclude by, once more, acknowledging the dreadful security challenges in Nigeria’s north east, which have given rise to a humanitarian emergency on a scale previously unseen in this part of the country. As we are gathered here, hundreds of thousands of our brothers and sisters have been displaced from their homes, businesses, and farms, and turned into refugees. These are the ones lucky to be alive. A lot of them are children. And there is little support from government agencies. I am pleased that this University has been very active and generous in helping these internally displaced persons. That is consistent with AUN’s commitment to being part and parcel of the local community and the people. I appeal to all of you to please, spare a thought for these unfortunate innocent victims of this growing insurgency and help them in any way that you can. I also, again, call on the Federal Government to quickly step up to effectively address this insurgency and assist its victims.
Thank you and God bless [you].