Distinguished Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, SAN, a highly regarded politician known for his enormous contributions to nation building and sustenance of democracy in Nigeria, is the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman Governing Council of Federal University, Oye Ekiti, FUOYE. Ndoma-Egba, a former Senate Leader and former chairman if the Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, was first appointed Pro-Chancellor of the Federal University, Lokoja, FUL, in July 2024 and was in November of same year redeployed to FUOYE.
In this interview, the legal luminary and erstwhile parliamentarian spoke on the dramatic growth of FUOYE, his recent visits to various stakeholders and institutions within Ekiti State aimed at building synergies, collaborations and partnerships to further develop the 14-year-old university. Excerpts:
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu appointed you last year July as the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman Governing Council of Federal University Lokoja, FUL. Just when you were settling down, about four months later, that is in November of the same year, you were redeployed by way of swapping to Federal University, Oye Ekiti, FUOYE. How did you take the redeployment?
Let me start by saying that I’m grateful to Mr President and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for finding me worthy to play a role in the education sector, which is very, very critical to the growth of any nation, because I believe that education is the foundation of any society far, far more important than natural endowments like minerals and all of that. If you look at societies that have progressed, they have done so essentially through education. Secondly, it is the prerogative of the President to appoint, to redeploy and to remove. So, in his wisdom, he thought I should be moved to another kind of challenge in Oye Ekiti.
I say it’s another kind of challenge because in spite of the fact that FUL and FUOYE were peers, that is, they were established about the same time. Coincidentally, as Senate Leader, I was the one that introduced the bills that established those 13 universities including FUL and FUOYE. So, even though they are peers, they have grown at different rates. FUL has what I’ll call normal growth. FUOYE has what I’ll call an unusual growth.
An unusual growth in the sense that FOUYE has grown much more faster than you would expect of a university of its age. The growth of a university should be predictable, systematic and planned. And even though the growth of FUOYE has also been systematic and planned, if you notice, it has taken them a shorter time to reach certain milestones in terms of infrastructure, course content, faculties and student population. It has taken a much shorter period to attain those milestones than it has taken its peers.
At FUL, for instance, we were working towards a student population of 17,000. FUOYE has already exceeded 55,000. Within the same period, FUOYE is the fourth most preferred university by applicants, like the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board would put it, the fourth most-subscribed public university in Nigeria. So, in terms of students’ preference, there are only three universities ahead of FUOYE. And then if you take the latest Times Higher Education evaluation, FUOYE is number 15 in 14 years. FUOYE has in 14 years grown to be among the top 15 universities in Nigeria. I think that is an astronomical growth. In fact, I will even consider it supersonic growth.
At FUL, the challenge was managing normal growth for sustainability, in FUOYE, it is managing unusual growth for sustainability. So, for me, the redeployment came as a big surprise. Because, FUL had become like a comfort zone. I was already in my comfort zone. I got on very, very well with the Vice Chancellor and the management, and we were working together. Don’t forget that we had just finished the FUL convocation. And we were still relishing the success of that convocation when the redeployment came. But we take everything in stride.
On October 26, 2024, FUL held its convocation and you were the Pro-Chancellor. By February 22, 2025, which is about four months after, FUOYE will be having its convocation with you as the Pro-Chancellor. How do you feel about that?
I must say it’s divine and it’s an unusual occurrence. But if you look at my life, these unusual things have always happen. One of the reasons I was reluctant to come to the Senate at the time I was invited by former Governor Donald Duke to run for the Senate, was because I was applying to be Senior Advocate of Nigeria and I haven’t gotten it. And I think that was my second or third application.
To be a Senior Advocate, to be eligible for the rank of the silk, you have to be either in legal practice or in academics. But even though I had met all the requirements, at the time I got it, I was neither in legal practice or in academics, because I was in the Senate. So, I became the first person to be conferred with the rank from outside legal practice or academics.
And till date I remain the only person in that category apart from a colleague of mine who got it while in the House of Representatives. And that was 12 years later. But one can say one opened that door. So, unusual things have always happened to me and I think that this is one of those unusual things that God has designed in my life, that in four months I will be presiding over two different convocation ceremonies. It’s a very, very humbling prospect. But it’s also a very humbling opportunity.
Upon your resumption recently as FUOYE Pro-Chancellor, you visited different stakeholders within Ekiti State, starting from the governor, His Excellency, Biodun Oyebanji, to traditional rulers and other prominent individuals, including Chief Afe Babalola, founder of the Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, ABUAD. How were you received in all of those visits?
First, let me say that when you have the kind of position I currently occupy and you moved into a state, the standard protocol is first of all you go and see the governor to say look, I have come to assume office. So that the governor knows you are now in his territory. And give the kind of assurances that you need. You are going to subject yourself to the laws of the state. Yes, FUOYE is a federal university, but you are going to be operating from a state. It’s a federal university that is within the legal and ordinary jurisdiction of a state. So, you are not going to say because you are a federal institution you are above their laws.
And of course, the institution is owned by people. Forget that it’s federal. It’s the people who gave land. It’s located in the territories of people. And in the case of FUOYE, the Federal Government in its wisdom established it in two campuses ab initio. From the beginning there were two campuses – in Oye, where you have the main campus and the town after which the university is named. And they also have another campus in Ikole that is recognised and approved by the Federal Government. And then we have, of course, outreach centres and all of that. So, these are major stakeholders in the university. They should know that you are there. They should know what your thoughts are. And you should also seek their cooperation and their blessings. As far as I’m concerned that is standard protocol.
When I went to Lokoja, it was the same protocol we tried to apply. Unfortunately for some reason, we were unable to see the governor, or his deputy, not because we didn’t try. But we were eventually received by the Head of Service in the name of the governor. That is standard protocol. Then, having said that, of course, there are stakeholders in every state. In every society there are stakeholders. And you need the buy-in of those stakeholders to be able to drive your vision and plans for the institution. We also saw the Catholic Bishop of Ado-Ekiti. We will see other church leaders and Imams. We will see them.
You mean the visit has not ended?
No, No, No! It can never end. For as long as I’m in Ekiti I will be visiting and deepening my contacts with the people. Because I need their support. I need them to understand what I’m doing. And for them to understand what I’m doing; you need formal and informal opportunities. Now, the reason we started with the Catholic Bishop is because of the historical role the Catholic Church has played in education. From over two thousand years till now, if you read the history of the Catholic Church, you will see the role of the church in enlightening the minds of people.
Then of course, we needed to see Chief Afe Babalola who has done an amazing job in education and health. Before that visit, I just had my own impression of what Afe Babalola University was like. But when we got there, it gave me new insights into what a tertiary institution could do.
We went to his farm. We went to the industrial complex where what they produced from the farm are processed for sale to the public. And they also feed the students from there. We saw his power source. Afe Babalola University does not depend on public power supply. And because of that realisation, I have challenged my own Faculty of Engineering and the Department of Physics in FUOYE. I want to see a proposal on how we will generate our own power. If it has to be solar, we shouldn’t buy the panels. We should fabricate our own solar panels. I want to see us generate our own power, generate our own water supply.
Yes, the technology for drilling boreholes is there, but I want to know that the rig drilling our boreholes was fabricated by our Engineering Faculty and Physics Department. I also want to know that our pipes and our tanks are fabricated by the institution. So, going to see Chief Afe Babalola was not only to tap into his wisdom, but also to tap into his blessings and to see first-hand what they are doing, how they are doing it so that we can cooperate and collaborate with them, and also reinforce our own vision about what we want to do.
So, like I said, the visits to stakeholders have not ended. Ekiti has very, very prominent people who have played major roles in education. We still have somebody like my senior colleague, Chief Wole Olanipekun, who was Pro-Chancellor if the University of Ibadan, and now Pro-Chancellor of University of Lagos.
From the visits, would you say that the people of Ekiti have interest in the growth of FOUYE, knowing that it is a federal university?
One thing I have known for as long as I can remember, in fact, there is this joke when we were students in the University of Lagos, that if you went to a compound anywhere in Ekiti and you didn’t see a Ph.D holder, then they were non-indigenes living there. So, from time immemorial, the Ekiti people have been associated with education. They have been known with education; they have been known for education. Education is their mainstay. Education is their industry. Education is their export. So, they have always thrived on education. And from this tour, I noticed that everybody, the high and the low, everybody is interested when education is mentioned. They don’t have a dichotomy whether it’s a state institution or federal institution.
For as long as the institution is sited on their land, they all claim ownership. I mean, if you read the history of how land has been given for Federal University, Oye Ekiti, you will understand the level of interest that the people have in education. And when we went to Ikole, where the second campus is located. They were even telling us that ‘if you need more land tell us, we will give you.’ They were not asking for money. They were not asking for compensation. But I had to raise the issue of compensation when we went to see the governor. Because I think it’s only fair and proper. Even if the people are being generous, we should make an offer of compensation. Let them be the one to say ‘no, we don’t need it or use the money you would have paid us to do something for the community.’
After your inspection tour of the main campus in Oye Ekiti and the second campus in Ikole Ekiti, what was your impression about the facilities you saw on ground?
First of all, why was the inspection tour necessary? You needed a physical appreciation of the layout of the university, the infrastructure level, just a physical appreciation. So that when you see something on paper, you will be able to relate with what the document is talking about. That was why the inspection tour was necessary so that I will be able to align whatever I see on paper with what is on ground. Now, what is my impression? Yes, it’s done well for a university of its age in terms of facilities. But there is still a huge deficit in terms of infrastructure.
You say it has done well in what?
I said it has done well in terms of infrastructure for a university of its age. But there is still a huge infrastructure deficit. If you are going through the documents, we still rely substantially on diesel for power. Yes, we have solar powers here and there. But quite a huge chunk of our expenditure is still on diesel. I will like to reduce that expenditure to zero as soon as possible by generating our own power. If you recall when we went to see the governor, we made an appeal for some roads that will facilitate movement within the university. We made a request for the government to intervene in some roads. Then the university is not fenced. So, there are still a lot of encroachments into the land. And then if you take the issue of student accommodation and staff accommodation, there is a huge, huge deficit. And that is why our students still live within the different communities.
Fortunately for us, the communities have welcomed our staff and students. From the briefing I got, there is absolutely no incident between our students or staff and the communities. No negative incidents. But we will like a situation where our staff are housed within the perimeters of the university. Like most other universities, they have staff quarters. At least, to provide accommodation to some level of staff within the university. And we would also like for our students if they like to live on campus. Yes, we are looking at partnerships with the private sectors to develop students’ accommodation through the PPP model. We are also hoping to work with the Federal Housing Authority to see how we can develop our own accommodation within the campus. Even though we’ve done fairly well in terms of infrastructure, we still have a huge infrastructure deficit. And then secondly, I will like to see a smaller student-lecturer ratio. I will like to see it narrowed. In many of the departments we have reached an acceptable level ratio-wise. But in some other departments I think we need to narrow the ratio by getting more staff.
What are basically the major steps or strategies that you intend to adopt to fast track the growth of FUOYE under your chairmanship of the Governing Council?
Well, I told you that the growth rate of FUOYE is a bit unusual. We have to manage it for sustainability. I don’t intend that we should slow down. But we should develop strategies to ensure that even at that rate, the growth can be sustained. And that is why I’m talking about the infrastructure deficit that we have to cover the ratio between staff and lecturers and students. We have to generate our own power.
Where do you intend to take FUOYE to at the expiration of your tenure as the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman Governing Council?
I said earlier that as at today from JAMB’s statistics and from JAMB’s statements, FUOYE is the fourth most subscribed public university in Nigeria. I intend to take it to number one. From the current Times Higher Education ranking we are number 15. I hope to take it to amongst the first three in the country. It’s a very tall order. But like I keep saying, anything that can be imagined is possible. It’s just for you to start with the imagination and then you start working towards its realization. For us to achieve the two things, we need to work on all the other deficits that I mentioned about infrastructure and lecturer-student ratio and all of that.
So, strategically, that is my plan. But we need to develop very, very urgently some policies. We need to develop a corporate social responsibility policy. And that corporate social responsibility policy must be stakeholder-generated and stakeholder-owned. Because it is a policy that will bind the university and its host communities. So, we have to negotiate what they expect from us. Yes, so far, we’ve lived in peace. But we shouldn’t take the generosity and hospitality of our hosts for granted. We shouldn’t. So, we should agree on a formal framework for relating and a basis for our expectations and their own expectations from the relationship.
In addition to the social corporate responsibility policy or if you wish strategy, we also, because of the rate of our growth in terms of where we stand on public subscription to the university, like I said number four, then rating number 15. The level of interest of our host, not just the host communities, by host I mean the entire Ekiti State – from the governor to the public. Because of that level of interest and the speed we are going, there is need for us to also involve a strategy for engaging with the public, so that the public is part of what we are doing. And if there are any innovations or any suggestions, the public can also contribute to what we are doing. So, we also need a strategy for public engagement.
Can you share your thoughts about the students and staff from what you observed when you resumed as FUOYE Pro-Chancellor?
Well, I have met all the unions except Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU. So, when next I’m there I will meet with ASUU. I have met the Students’ Union Government. I have met student groups individually. I have met NASU. I have met SSANU. I have met NATE. I have met all the unions except ASUU. And all of them have been most kind and most generous in their welcome. And you know when somebody is kind to you it’s a debt. It’s a debt that you must pay back. When somebody is welcoming or generous towards you, he expects that you will reciprocate one way or the other. And the way I hope to reciprocate the warm welcome and reception is by giving them service from my heart and my soul to the best of my endowments in honesty, fairness and justice.
FUOYE VC, the man who runs the daily affairs of the university, is currently faced with the allegation of sexual harassment. The Governing Council which you head has set up a committee to investigate the matter. But as the Pro-Chancellor, what would you have to say about this?
Let me say that I have no comments to make for now, for the simple reason that Council only a few days ago set up a committee to investigate the allegations with very clear terms of reference. I don’t want to prejudice the outcome of their work. So whatever comments I would have to make, I will have to await the report of the committee that council has put in place. Even at that, it would be after council had considered and approved or dealt with the report one way or the other. So, for now I have no comments other than to appeal to all the stakeholders including the media to just be calm and trust that the proper things will be done. They should be calm and not begin to speculate and reach judgements before they have the facts. So, I will just appeal to everybody to bear with us. The committee has a very short time to investigate everything and report. They should just be patient. I’m interested in the justice of the situation. Therefore, we cannot prejudge anybody now until we have seen the report.
You have been a great contributor to educational growth in the country. You are the Chairman Advisory Council of an Abuja-based private educational institution, Start-Rite Schools. As a senator, you initiated a lot of projects and programmes, including the facilitation of the building of the Law Faculty in the University of Calabar, named after you. What would be your assessment of the level of importance attached to education in Nigeria?
I have said again and again that the wealth of a nation is not in its natural resources. The wealth of a nation is in its young men and women, who would be a blessing to their nation only if they are educated, if they are skilled and given opportunities. If they are not educated, skilled or have the necessary opportunities, they will be a curse rather than a blessing.
For these young people to become a blessing, we must invest in their education. It is the foundation. You and I are here talking today because we went to school. I have had the opportunities that I had in life because I had the benefits of education, not just education, but solid education.
Now if you take my powers, for instance, who did not go to school, they are probably in their villages contributing at that level. But they would have been able to contribute at a higher level if they had the education. So education is the foundation. If you take countries like Israel and Japan that are not naturally endowed, how come they control the world technologically? It is because of their educational system. It is through education that even guarantee your security. It is through education that guarantee your today’s prosperity and future prosperity. So education is at the foundation.
And that is why as a family, we have invested a lot in education. I mean take it from my grandfather, for instance, who even though was not educated in the Western sense – he didn’t go to formal schools – but he saw the advantage of education, and that was why as far back as the 1959s, he saw the need to send my father and his siblings to school in Europe. They were not on scholarship, he funded them. And it was not peculiar to my family. If you went to my village in the 1950s, there was this huge competition among families on who is able to send his children abroad
So, as a family, we have invested a lot in education. As you rightly mentioned, we have physical proof of the investment we have made in education. My late wife started Start-Rite Schools that has also grown almost at the same pace as FUOYE.
