The Price of Accreditation
To the authorities, staff and students of the Rivers State University of Science and Technology (UST), Port Harcourt, it is time for sacrifice in a bid to secure accreditation
By Lawson Heyford, Port Harcourt
Twenty-seven courses being offered at the Rivers State University of Science and Technology (UST), Port Harcourt are yet to be accredited by the National Universities Commission (NUC), 26 years after the institution was established. Of the 33 pragrammes being run by the first indigenous technologically-oriented institution in the country, only six has so far been fully accredited by the NUC.
First established as the Rivers State College of Science and Technology (RSCST) in 1972, the institution was raised to the status of a University in 1980 by the administration of the first civilian governor of the old Rivers State and Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chief Melford Obene Okilo.
Years after that initial accreditation by the NUC, which also denied five programmes of the University outright accreditation, two other visits by officials of the commission have failed to make any difference. Reasons? Officials complained bitterly about the untidy environment within the campus, caused ostensibly by the clustering of shanties and make-shift apartments located at the Azikiwe Road entrance of the institution.
There were over 1,000 shanties which doted all over the affected campus entrance, with over 120 pit toilets to boot. Tens of thousands of people including non-academic staff and students had been squatting in these shanties since 1973 – one year after the land was acquired from Nkpolu Community in the Port Harcourt Local Government Area, for the establishment of the institution by the then military regime of Alfred Diete-Spiff.
In order to get out of the logjam and impress officials of the NUC, the eighth governing council of the University took the bold step to order occupants of the shanties to vacate them in order to allow for a clean up operation.
But the council could not implement its directive of 2004 until the coming of the ninth council, headed by Professor Godwin Tasie, a former vice chancellor of the University of Jos (UNIJOS), Plateau State, who had also served in four other federal universities.
Consequently, after series of meetings with officials of the three unions on the campus, the Students Union Government (SUG), the Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASUU), and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the governing council gave the tenants a deadline of June 20, 2006 to relocate. In sympathy, the unions asked for extension and they were given 10 more days, which expired on June 30, 2006.
On Monday, July 17, 2006, bulldozers from the Rivers State Environmental Sanitation Authority (RSESA), moved into the area, already vacated by their occupants.
Ipalibo Harry, Special Adviser to Governor Peter Odili on Environmental Matters, who supervised the demolition exercise explained to The Source that the situation on the campus needed desperate solution in order to transform the university into a modern day citadel of knowledge.
Tasie corroborated Harry’s statement when he said that the untidy campus environment occasioned by the illegal structures, was an embarrassment to the university authorities – one which had worked to deny the institution the accreditation of most of its courses. Harry said that beyond that, the make-shift structures that littered the campus posed great danger to the security situation. He, therefore, commended the governing council for the bold step taken to bring sanity back to the campus.
But while the tenants agreed with the good intentions of the University authorities, some of them complained that they were not given enough time to arrange for alternative accommodation. As a result, the tenants said they had been displaced even when their rents had not expired.
But Tasie, chairman of the governing council, wondered for how long the tenants would have been informed to quit when they knew about the planned demolition since two years ago. He challenged any of them who had paid rent for the shanties to the university authorities to come up with such evidence. According to him, most of the staff who constructed those shanties rented them out while they were still being paid their rent subsidy by the university.
Tasie said that the demolished area would be replaced with modern buildings of 2-3 bedroom flats, which on completion would be rented out to only junior and middle cadre staffers of the university. According to the governing council chairman, due process would be strictly followed in the allocation of the houses.
Although Tasie could not say exactly the cost implication of the project, he explained that 14 commercial banks in the state have already indicated interest in partnering with the university for the construction of the buildings. The project, he said, would be expected to be completed before the end of the year, when officials of the NUC are expected to come for another accreditation visit.
Obviously, with this new move, along with the newly introduced disciplinary measures, including non-sorting of lecturers, non-harassment of female students and non-selling of handouts, the university may just be ready to switch on its new amalgamation with Lincoln University, United States of America (USA).