ONCE  upon a time, a  renowned  great philosopher and apostle in one of his statements made in reminiscence of his service to humanity, had said “I have fought a good fight, I have finished the race, kept the faith and assuredly, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.”

Incidentally in the course, of penultimate week, Professor Adebisi Balogun, Vice Chancellor of the  Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA) made a similar confession at an event organised to mark the glorious successful completion of his  tenure as head of the administration of the institution.

Also, in recognition of his contributions to university education development in Nigeria, a thanksgiving service was organised for him.

Now, Professor Balogun is proceeding for a year sabbatical leave as he had handed over to Professor Adedayo Fasakin,  the university’s Deputy Vice Chancellor, (Administration), in acting Vice Chancellor capacity pending the appointment of a substantive Vice Chancellor for the university by all the stakeholders in the institution.

From all indications, Professor Balogun-led administration made some indelible impacts on the infrastructure development academic programme advancement and manpower capacity building which   has earned the university recongnition in world ranking.

Currently, the university is  undergoing a complete face-lift to sustain its leading position among other universities, not only in Nigeria but also in Africa.

Moreover, the university has experienced sanity and academic stability during Professor Balogun’s tenure. He also introduced the collection of  certificates on the graduation ground, a real situation that the university had never experienced before his regime.

While expressing the challenges he faced during his tenure, he said: “My vice chancellorship mandate was not generally accepted by other contestants and some other staffers in the university, but for God’s intervention and the idea to involve some of my antagonists in my administration. The development gave me the opportunity to enjoy their contributions towards the management of the institution.”

On funding, Professor Balogun stressed the need for every university in the country to look beyond the owner’s financial support but to  explore other fund-raising opportunities from Alumni, industries and the general public, adding that students should not be excluded from the exercise.

According to him, students must contribute their quota to university education development, if we want to promote quality education at all.

“One of my vision agenda for the university was to shift my attention from the  federal government fund and look outside the system to generate money for the university. This led us to Lagos in 2008 for capital campaign to raise fund for the university. It is sad to note that the federal government is spending so much on each of its universities in the country. Yet the amount is still being regarded as underfunding. At the Federal University of Technology, Akure, last year, our overhead cost  amounted to N31 million monthly and later rose to N100 million. We spent N3 million on electricity and N4.4 million to buy diesel. We have over 100 professors and about 22,000 staffers in the university. The expenses incurred by the university is too high to cope with the money being released to the institution by the government,” he said

Based on his 30 years working experience in the university since 1982, he suggested that tertiary education must be seen as a special project for every other ministry at the state and the federal levels in the county.

According to him, the ministries of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Environment, Power, must contribute their quota for the development of university education in the country adding that their impact must be felt in all the universities. He said that if industries, finance houses, alumni and other stakeholders, including parents and students would join hands in funding the university system, academic  instability  would be a thing of the past.

Professor Balogun expressed joy for his achievements at the university. According to him, all the 30 academic programmes in the university were  fully accredited by the National University Commission (NUC),  while  new academic programmes were introduced in the areas of Transport Management, Technology, Marine and so on.

“ A standard university must be well-equipped to attract foreign students, and should be able to give accommodation to all its students, at all levels. University of Technology is capital intensive in this regard, government must fund the university adequately to justify its existence,’’ he said.

It is recalled that the Professor Balogun-led administration engaged in over 19 projects including student accommodation and 99 per cent of the projects have been completed.

He advised the incoming Vice-Chancellor to work more on Information Communication Technology network of the university and not to lose focus.