By Sam Kayode
Vice Chancellor (VC) Borno State University, Professor Babagana Gutti has said that the maiden convocation of the University will come up in January 2026.
He said that the management is doing all it can to adjust its academic calendar to ensure that the ceremony takes place first thing next year hopefully.
Prof Gutti regretted that he took over a main campus that was overwhelmed with myriads of weighty challenges which to him must be fixed before other pressing issues like convocation could be handled effectively.
Going philosophical, the VC posited that life is all about challenges so even when he wanted to hit the ground running, a year ago when appointed, some issues he was not expecting to harass his sensibilities were serving as a clog in the wheels of progress.
To him, meeting lots of hitches was not the issue, but meeting those he expected and those he did not expect as an academic was quite intriguing and it actually subjected him to serious tests in the realm of administration as a new comer in the office.
Gutti said that funding was a major issue he met on ground as expected because previous administrations did not effectively put forward their challenges on the front burner for the government to regard them as primary for the campus to function.
Transportation of members of the University community
One of those problems he met on ground was transportation especially when one considers the fact that the main campus is located at Njimtilo almost 20km from the centre of the Borno state capital maiduguri.
“Transportation was a major challenge for every one when i arrived. Imagine a situation in which in the morning, it was easy to get transportation but sadly it was not the same in the evening for members of the University community to commute because of the distance from town.
“I met about ten of the campus buses broken down and I had no choice but to fix them. That was my first task, doing what I could to ensure that students had transportation to and from the main campus of the university.
“The situation was so bad with the vehicles that I had to change all their tyres for safety purposes and gave them the basics needed to return the buses safely back to the road.
“We also got two extra buses from somewhere through the ministry of poverty alleviation and we are expecting more by the grace of God from the North East Development Commission (NEDC).
“As for the bus drivers, they are being retrained to cope with the challenges associated with the roads. The essence is to teach them to be careful. We don’t have the resources to fix the roads but our drivers must cope with the status of the roads. ”
Commenting on the trailer crash that killed two of his students last year while going home in the campus bus, the VC noted that the Dangote company took responsibility of the bills of the late students and even those who were admitted by refunding the amount spent on the students in the hospital.
He revealed that the parents did not press further charges for their wards because they believed that “these issues in our clime are usually left to God” to adjudicate but the issues are being further looked into to avert further incidents in the future.
Previous Centralization of Administrative activities in 3 buildings on campus
Professor Gutti posited that on assuming duty, the entire campus was crowded around the senate building to get things done which was not too good for the progress of the campus community.
” I discovered that most of the daily activities were centralized in two or three offices on campus and this was because most of the departments did not have overheads for such facilities on their own.
” On seeing this I had to create overheads for every department so they did not have to come here (VC’s office) just to photocopy documents. I bought printers and papers for all of them to take off with the new way of doing things.”
The VC noted that one year after, everyone now has his own office facility and the work of administration is going on very well without being over centralized like before.
Water Reticulation on campus infrastructure
Water supply was a very important commodity for institutions with large populations like his as such the non availability of this vital product in every building and everywhere was a major challenge.
“Imagine when i turned the taps in my office, there was no water. That to me had to be fixed so I had to ensure that it was history.
“I actually repaired all the damaged bore holes and reticulation was done to all the buildings so that the three main boreholes can supply the campus effectively.
” i could have used our funds here to dig more but the topography of the University will not allow that to happen effectively.
“Due to the scarcity of water in most of the buildings all the sock aways were blocked and even filled. We had to repair all of them and made them functional.
On water issues with the female hostel, Gutti said the only borehole that was working in the campus a year ago was the one by the student hostel.
“There was light and water then but whether it is drinkable or not is another thing entirely. However, one year after assumption of duties, 100 percent of the main campus is completely reticulated now and we are happy.
” Also, out of the intervention from TET fund another extra borehole may be added to the ones we have in the campus soon”. Said the VC
While reeling out his achievements on more water especially with the take off of the faculty of medicine, the VC maintained that moves are on to create soft water out of the harshness of the water oozing out of the belly of Njimtilo.
The VC regretted that there were no laboratory for the MB BS and five other programs in the Medical College to kick start so that became a primary task to be handled.
“They should start seeing cadava right from part two and we have fixed the labs for them to have such a facility to study with. We spent a lot of money to resolve these issues.
“As a matter of fact, all the generators were fixed and we spent a lot of money to make progress on this because they had all broken down.” Said Gutti.
Solarization of the campus
Gutti regretted that massive vandalism went on in many of the offices before he hit the ground running so he had to fix most of the electricals in the nine year old university all over again.
” in most of the blocks the vandals cut all the wires and took them away. I had no option but to fix them and in the process to maintain sanity on campus.
“I had to fix solar in the student hostels so that they now have 24 hours electricity supplies because it is essential for them to study.
“Students did not have foams to sleep so we had to buy them the double bunk mattresses to lie upon.”
On personnel, he went on: “I can tell you that, we are recruiting right now and i expect the figure to go up very soon.”
He regretted the proliferation of new universities when the ones on ground are yet to have the requisite numbers of teaching staff they desired.
“We believe that most of the universities today do not have the number of requisite profs yet the proliferation goes on.”
On the non academics on campus, the VC noted that they don’t have much challenges with them because most of them were transferred from Kashim Ibrahim College of Education maiduguri.
What next for the university ?
The VC hinted that he had about two to three faculties in mind which he is yearning to establish before the end of his tenure and they are the faculties of computing with departments like Robotics, Cyber security, AI, software engineering ICT and many others like artificial intelligence.
” Environmental studies where we will do Urban and Regional Planning Architecture, Building, survey ect.
“The third one is the College of Law which will offer different kinds of law courses in the faculty.” Concluded the VC.
This reporter recalls that the visitor to the University Professor Babagana Zulum has signed a new bill to law which has succeeded in changing the name of the University to Kashim Ibrahim University (KIU).
This development which would have a backdated effect from 4th of August occurred after this interview was conducted in the office of the Vice Chancellor Professor Babagana Gutti.
