Building a University that teaches, earns, and transforms!!!
Nigeria
Opinion
From the VCs blog
When Governor Hyacinth Iormem Alia announced the creation of the Benue State Government’s University of Agriculture, Science and Technology (UAST), Ihugh, the immediate question from both proponents and opponents was predictable: “why establish a new university when the state already has a Benue State University in Makurdi (now renamed Rev. Fr. Moses Orshio Adasu University), the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi (now renamed Joseph Sarwuan Tarka University), the Federal University of Health Sciences Otukpo and the University of Mkar, Mkar? Shouldn’t scarce resources be directed instead to upgrading the infrastructure, laboratories, and teaching standards of the existing State University?” On the surface, this argument seemed sound. Nevertheless, it betrayed a misunderstanding of, or a deliberate disregard to the deep philosophical underpinnings of UAST Ihugh, and a lack of recognition of the structural obstacles that will make it nearly impossible for the older universities to deliver the kind of revolutionary transformation for which this new University is designed.
Universities are creatures of their history – that’s why they are traditions and not mere buildings or architectural estates. Moses Orshio Adasu University was founded in 1992 as a conventional, comprehensive state-run university; structured to award degrees and certificates across a comprehensive array of disciplines. Joseph Sarwuan Tarka University, on the other hand, was established in 1988 as a Nigerian federal government run institution with a specialised focus on Agriculture, Science and Engineering Technology, yet bound by the rigidities of Nigeria’s federal bureaucracy; so is the Federal University of Health Sciences Otukpo, a later entrant. The University of Mkar, Mkar, as a faith-based private university, is sustained by tuition and mission-driven principles but limited in scale and by an ultra-conservative, non-progressive promoter and Management. All four Universities, despite their contributions, share overlapping structural and systemic handicaps. Their governance systems are subject to political patronage, ethnic biases, and/or entrenched bureaucratic interests. Their funding models are tethered to government subventions, student fees, and donor grants, none of which encourage the aggressive commercialisation of research or entrepreneurial activity. Most importantly, their institutional cultures are marked by anachronistic inertia. Human beings naturally resist change – it’s a given; so institutions, as aggregates of human habits, resist it even more. Asking the MOAUM or Joseph Tarka University Makurdi to suddenly evolve into industry-phasing, revenue-generating, innovation-driven enterprises is like asking a ship to sprout wings mid-voyage. You can patch and improve incrementally, but you cannot re-imagine them from the grounds up.
This is why UAST is not a duplication but a disruption. It is conceived as a polymathic and hybrid university: one that teaches and researches but also earns, innovates, and sustains itself through intellectual property generation and propagation, industry partnerships and sundry commercial activities. Its philosophy rests on real financial autonomy, the commercialisation of research, a seamless bridge between academia and industry, strict insulation from political capture, and sustainability through diversified ventures. At the heart of this design is the University’s Open Innovation and Startup Incubator (OISI) and the UAST Holdings Limited (UHL), a novel University ventures holding conglomerate that will oversee UAST’s agricultural enterprises, consultancy services, digital ventures, departmental supply chain stores and the numerous investments in development construction and real estates. By the third year, UHL is projected to cover at least 25% of the university’s recurrent budget, with revenues funding scholarships, research grants, and capital projects by the fifth year. No Nigerian state-run, public university has attempted such a model before, not because the idea is new, but because the existing institutions are structurally incapable of embodying it.
Critics and cynics who argue that investing in the old universities is more prudent overlook the systemic entrenchment at play. Decades of governance capture, a hundred percent dependence on federal or state subventions, and cultural inertia mean these universities can improve but not reinvent themselves. Strategic differentiation also matters to project the much needed, long overdue disruption that should birth the new Nigerian University offering. BSU is a generalist, comprehensive University; Joseph Tarka University remains a federal university with an inefficient and speedily diffusing agricultural framework marked by a growing sprinkle of academic disciplines not streamlined for purpose; and the University of Mkar, Mkar, plays its niche role as a private institution with limited room for progressive outlook, funding and innovation. UAST, however, is designed as a practical, skills-based, research-driven, commercial hub where learners will graduate, not only with lame degrees – that render them not just unemployed but rather unemployable – but with entrepreneurial capacity, a robust intellectual property office generating scores of sought-after patents, and the industry experience, where university farms, processing plants, industrial design thinking, foundry and fabrication; and a motley digital platforms that will directly generate revenue and increase GDP for both the Benue State and Nigeria’s economy. The old universities ask: how do we produce graduates? UAST asks: how do we produce solutions and create or generate industries, revenues, and self-reliant knowledge economies?
The global precedent is clear. In the 1980s, China, despite already having numerous universities, yet still created new specialised institutions to drive reforms because the old ones could not be retooled fast enough. India built the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) parallel to its traditional universities for precisely the same reason. In Africa, Rwanda launched the University of Global Health Equity in 2015, despite already hosting universities, because it needed a new model unburdened by the past. Today, UGHE is globally recognised for innovation.
Consider also the financial data. In 2022, federal universities in Nigeria were reported to rely on government subventions for over 85% of their recurrent budgets, with internally generated revenue (IGR) contributing less than 15%, mostly from fees and ancillary charges. State universities fare even worse, with many unable to pay salaries without government bailouts. Not a single one has reached 25% self-sufficiency through commercial ventures. UAST is designed to break this dependency trap from inception, not as an afterthought.
At its core, the establishment of UAST is an aspirational wager on possibility. It demonstrates that a Nigerian state can build a university insulated from undue political interference, sustained by diversified ventures, and dedicated to translating research into industries. It is not about increasing the count of universities but about disrupting the old and creating a new model. By the fifth year, when UHL’s ventures are funding scholarships and infrastructure, the debate will shift. The critics will no longer ask, “Why another university?” but rather, “Why didn’t we do this sooner?”
His Excellency, Governor Hyacinth Iormem Alia’s decision is therefore more than a policy intervention. It is a declaration that Benue can transition from subsistence agriculture to commercial agro-industry, from donor dependence to self-reliant innovation, from education as theory for certificates, to education as skills for ‘sabiticates’ and enterprise. To cling to old structures is to settle for stagnation – which has been the bane of Nigeria’s dysfunctional higher ed. To build anew is to embrace the daring and risk of change but also its promise. The question is not why UAST exists when other universities already do. The real question is whether Benue can afford not to take this leap.
Prof. Qrisstuberg Amua
Pioneering Vice-Chancellor
Article sent by Correspondent Dooyum Naadzenga
