I had planned to have a quiet weekend, not commenting or getting involved in any form of online politicking just to have a little rest, unfortunately, the reverse is the case. As I read with so much pain and hurt in my heart as some persons took a quick sweep on His Excellency’s laudable steps in expanding our educational sector and capacity as a people. It is preposterous and outlandishly ridiculous that majority of comments so far are borne out of spite, resentment, umbrage and indignation, while some reactions are out of outright genuine concern but borne out of ignorance. While the former are totally not to be dignified with any form of response, the latter needs to be schooled on the nitty-gritty of University Education, vis avis creation of campuses and schools.
Various questions that should be asked are, why should different campuses be set up in various locations? Does setting up these campuses take away administrative power from the main campus? Is there any law that prohibit establishment of multiple campuses for tertiary institutions?
According to Wikipedia (n.d) a campus is a college or university that is physically at a distance from the original university or college area. This branch campus may be located in a different city, state, or country, and is often smaller than the main campus of an institution. The separate campuses may be under the same accreditation and share resources but they are under the administrations of the main campus but maintain separate budgets, resources, and other governing bodies. The above definition absolves His Excellency of any dubious intent as peddled by the naysayer.
It therefore not a new thing that universities in Nigeria have various campuses scattered around their states or outside their states as the case may be.
The University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) has an Enugu campus with faculties of Law, Medicine and Engineering concentrated there. Ahmadu Bello University also have two campuses Kongo and Samaru and in fact the present College of Education (Technical) was an ABU college of Agric campus. The University of Lagos has two campuses, the main campus at Yaba, while the second campus is located at Idi-Araba. Under Kwara state back then, there was a school of metrology here at Itakpe not even at Ilorin or in Lokoja. Coming home, Kogi Poly has various campuses of schools littered in other part of Kogi state, Osara, Itakpe and part-time centers.
In United Kingdom, the almighty Oxford University have various campuses, the All Souls College, Balliol College , Worcester College and many of its campuses scattered around Oxford, so it is not a new thing anywhere.
Campuses are not just sited for sitting sake. The sitting of campuses at the Central and Western senatorial district is based on the availability of infrastructures that are not available at the main campus locality. The Ajaokuta steel plant which should have been and which would be the bedrock of the Nigeria Technology is lying there in the Central, the former ABU school of Agriculture is situated in the Western senatorial district, so there are facilities on ground for easy take off of these campuses.
Casting our minds back, Kogi State University was built on an existing facility of the Agriculture Development Programme (ADP). It is instructive to note that, no University can have all courses centralized at its main campus, a single location. Therefore if there are needs for campuses to be situated, frankly speaking, they ought to be where facilities for research and practical are available and abound for quality training.
I am therefore so troubled to see youth who ought to celebrate this step and be champions of development, throwing truth away for sentimentality. Our negative and pessimistic idiosyncrasy’s crescendo is alarming and should be nipped in the bud, especially when we ought to be crusaders of a better tomorrow. What tomorrow are we therefore envisaging for our children or be part of? The one we castigated and threw aspirations at? The one that was met with perpetual discontent and resistance? How justified would we be to latter turn active participants of that tomorrow?
When we politicize thing that ought not to like education, a people is bound in shallow and in miseries! Who ever is against this move of the Governor is either suffering from abject ignorance, or illiteracy haven not gone through the walls of a higher institution or better still, have passed through just a single higher institution and such a fello is fighting development of not just their locality but Kogi as a whole and should be vehemently resisted.
Williams Charles Oluwatoyin
Writes from Lokoja
