For one, the host community and the university were at loggerheads over the killing of a son of the community who was a member of staff of the school.
ABSU was also in the throes of a debilitating Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike called by the union in the South East zone to protest the non-implementation of the Federal Government–ASUU agreement of 2009.
Then there was the stiff opposition to the decision to abolish the Multiple Choice Question (MCQ) model of semester examinations in the school, which was popular with the students.
To further compound his problem, the university was soon enmeshed in a gang rape scandal, which put it on the global map for the wrong reason.
More bad news: ABSU staff were being owed six months’ salary, and the National Universities Commission (NUC) had its hammer dangling over ABSU with the intent of banning the school from admitting new students even as the body had refused to accredit ABSU’s School of Nursing.
Now the good news: Ogbuagu, who assumed duty in December 2010, has successfully implemented a directive to stop the MCQ and has taken ABSU through three semesters with the essay type of examination.
He has also presided over the first convocation ceremony to take place under his leadership; restored peace between the landlords and the school; pulled ABSU through an image-damaging rape scandal, and ensured industrial harmony while making giant strides in physical and infrastructural development.
Reflecting on his stay as ABSU helmsman in the last one year, Ogbuagu declared that the school has crossed the Rubicon.
‘We have come from a point when there was six months of national strike that affected the universities and another five months that was zonal that affected all state universities in the South East and that means the chalk was not around for five months,’ he said.
‘So when we came back, it was just like waking up the sleeping elephant. We had nothing, no staff except that staff that ASUU has willingly given us for the chemical studies; this place was full of weeds,’ the ABSU the Vice Chancellor further said.
He added: ‘In the technical sense of the word, I came here as a Vice Chancellor without a university and without the population that make the university necessary.
‘And since then, we have gone through three laborious semesters in order that we escape the deluge of NUC and JAMB that in fact have de-accredited us for admission of this set of students because they thought that after about 11 months out of oars, that there isn’t much that could be done except we should lose one year and.
‘And if we lost one year, it could have meant losing fundamental carrying capacity.’
Ogbuagu said the school was able to overcome its many challenges by the cooperation of the visitor, Dr. Theodore Orji.’
First, he said, the governor released about N1 billion to enable ABSU offset the salary arrears.
‘Technically, since I came for about 11 months, we have done 16 salary exercises in terms of the monetary side of the sacrifices that have to be made soon after we came back to re-engage after the national and zonal strikes,’ Ogbuagu explained.
But there is a fresh challenge – the increase in the monthly staff emolument of the university, following the implementation of the Federal Government-ASUU agreement.
Ogbuagu said the monthly wage bill of the university has jumped from N160 million to N270 million per month as a result.
‘And in terms of funding, as I said, the government has done sacrificially a lot,’ he said as he eulogised the governor for making coming to the rescue of ABSU.
The Vice Chancellor noted that the management also had the task of carrying out the psychological resurrection of the sleeping giant with respect to building up of staff morale, the building up of the morale of the students, and re-engaging with the pure, acceptable mentality of academicism.
His words: ‘Truly, the giant, Abia State University, went to sleep. That’s why I said we have crossed the Rubicon.
‘Crossing the Rubicon does not mean that rapidly re-engaging and rapidly covering semesters, one after the other, and does not imply that we sacrificed the quality and content of learning and scholarship.
‘We have a management that kept an eagle-eye and sustained it to ensure that the system of catching up had been done.
‘It was not only that the university itself had the problem of not going to admit new set of students, our medical school was also threatened with de-classification by the Medical and Dental Council.
‘By the grace of God, we have had some approvals for the Nursing School, Nursing Sciences where for three years we could not graduate any set of students. It is part of crossing that Rubicon that we now have full accreditation for the Nursing Science.’
Ogbuagu pointed out that the journey has not been easy. ‘We are not bluffing that there were not some areas where we got some jiggers on our legs because of much trekking on the path.
‘But we hope we have done excellently well which has placed us in a situation of marching forward for the remaining of the academic task that has to be done. With our emphasis in re-engaging to normal academic life comes the challenge of continuity, perfection and dexterity.’
The issue of MCQ was very contentious when Prof. Mkpa Agu Mkpa held sway as the ABSU Vice Chancellor. In fact, he introduced the system and vigorously defended it against adverse criticisms that it made students lazy.
With the coming of Ogbuagu, who succeeded Mkpa, MCQ was abolished and replaced with the essay type of examination. Why did he abolish it?
Ogbuagu gave a lengthy answer bordering on the undercurrents that sounded the death knell for MCQ.
He said: ‘There is no examination mode all over the world that is well organised and done well that does not deliver depending on the mentality of the environment and the consumers of that commodity. I will not as a scholar stand here to sing the glory of MCQ or essay type of exam.
‘But I did not change it. Those who observed it most intimately outside the terrain of this university like the NUC came and said “stop it; it is harming the system” and by March they had written to this university.
‘I came here in December 2010 and, of course, they made arguments: Arguments came from the NUC on why at that present state of mind of users of that mode may have extra-ordinarily abused it.
‘Some even went as far as saying that as far as we are Nigerians, given the ingenious ways of circumventing what is even good, that there are some who might not even attend lectures at all and they might come just to guess answers to questions and might get them correctly.’
According to the Vice Chancellor, ‘There are also some in the civil service who argue that the graduates can’t even do a memo of three, four lines and further argue that if you don’t have the essay type of exam, the analytic power may not be there.
‘So, MCQ may not be the best, essay type may not be the best but societies are based on their crudities to doing anything; so the NUC said stop it and the State Executive Council looked at it and fired a letter to this place. So I came to implement an essay type and it was, it is a Herculean task.
‘Do you know why? Because the preferences of students here was for MCQ and the last three exams we have conducted in three semesters away from that highly preferred MCQ meant a Herculean task.
‘It carried some restlessness here but we have implemented that NUC and Abia State Executive Council directive.
‘As a scholar, put it on granite, no method is the best. The method that is the best is that in which honesty is upheld and those human ingenious ways of circumventing what needs to be done are checked. We can give you a basket full of stories of this exercise (essay type examination) from the positive side of this enterprise.’
Away from examination issues, it would be recalled that ABSU was on the world stage in the last two quarters of last year, courtesy of the alleged rape saga the school was associated with.
The story was that five students of the university gang-raped a female student. While the school authorities insisted that nothing of such happened, the allegation continued to reverberate across the world, with some saying that it happened off campus but involved ABSU students.
Till date, nobody has produced either the alleged victim or the alleged rapists.
How did ABSU overcome the saga?
‘We kept three positions,’ Ogbuagu said. ‘We condemned with all the strength at our disposal anywhere in the world where that may have occurred.
‘We honestly and sincerely told all that cared to hear that we have looked very much around and we said we will be very humble to accept anything on the contrary if it happened because it is a condemnable act.
‘We responsibility looked inside and inside. We maximised the usage of the advantage we have, asking our children here – and we are in a zone of confidence for them.
‘We tried to see what we might get and what we might hear that other sources that may be intimidating, like a policeman or SSS coming here, may not get.
‘At the end of the day, we are still saying we believe we are promoters of excellence.’
Ogbuagu said he is a scholar of the wisdom of John Callaghan, a former British Prime Minister, who at a time it was like tempest was overcoming the great reputation the British Empire had accumulated over the years – rumours and lies had engulfed members of the House, in a drastic order – remarked that falsehood and lies have a way of going half the globe before the truth starts wearing his shoes to start his journey.
‘So we felt that the rape saga had almost overtaken us and gone round the education institutions and the world,’ he added, noting that people would always know the truth no matter how long it takes in emerging.
Another issue that is bothering students of ABSU and their parents or guardians is the introduction of discriminatory fees for various departments/faculties.
Ogbuagu defended it, saying it has been a long tradition, describing it as ‘a question of beautiful demarcation between more expensive areas in terms of material inputs.’
Citing Medicine, he said some departments, which need maximum input of funds and are also in very high demand and squeeze the resources that are available should attract more fees from the students than those offering courses that do not require practicals.
Providing essential services appears to be guzzling a lion share of the school’s revenue.
The Vice Chancellor explained that power supply is eating deep into the university’s resources.
‘ABSU is doing what other universities, especially in our zone, are not doing. We have to offer municipal services that are ordinarily taken for granted in other environments.
‘This light (power supply in the university) we must put on for 16 hours everyday. We are 100 per cent responsible for the water we use here,’ he said.
Ogbuagu disclosed that ABSU buys a 33,000-litre truck of diesel for N4.5 million which is exhausted in just a week.
For the Vice Chancellor, ABSU does not brook any form of malpractice by whatever name.
On examination malpractices, he said: ‘It is an unacceptable behavior. It is one of the things we condemn and will continue to condemn, whether you call it sorting, whether you are benefiting materially; or by kind or you are exploiting students, in terms of the materials you give them.’
On the issue of deviants who engage in cultism instead of facing their studies, he said: ‘There is no human society that has a monopoly of manners that cannot be questioned.
‘We are fighting squarely this objectionable, unacceptable side of our job here and if you ask questions, you will know we have made significant improvements in the past few months on this matter.’
He declared that cultism has been reduced to the barest minimum and beat his chest that ABSU would always abide by its motto by promoting “Excellence in Service.”
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