FULafia destined to be among five best in Africa — Dugga

|By Musa Ishaq & Emmanuel Egwurube

FULafia Bulletin: Congratulations once again Professor on your appointment as the Dean, School of Postgraduate Studies, Federal University of Lafia, by the Vice Chancellor, Professor Shehu Abdul Rahman.

FB: Sir, you matriculated some students into the postgraduate school, how do you feel about that?

Answer: I feel fulfilled as everything went according to our arrangements.

FB: How many students did you matriculate?

Answer: We have admitted over six hundred students and as at now over half of them have registered. There is late registration, of course, that’s going to happen. So, we are careful not to provide any specific figures as it were, because as we are talking, the registration is still ongoing and by the close of the day, we should be able to know these numbers. But the matriculation is essential to signal the closure of admission processes and the full commencement of academic activities. So, it is important for us to hold a ceremony of this nature as we have done. By this, the student are officially postgraduate students of the University.

FB: In the blueprint of the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Shehu Abdul Rahman, there is this word that have been ringing on peoples’ ears, which is the vision of making Federal University of Lafia one the five best University in Africa. As the new Dean of Postgraduate School, how do you intend to help the vice-chancellor to actualise that dream?

Answer: The Postgraduate School is, perhaps, the highest level of research in the University and, therefore, if we are going to be the fifth, or to be among the five best universities in Africa, the Postgraduate School has a prominent role to play and in playing that role it implies that we must be organised enough to give the students the necessary environment to excel. So, quality of research, quality of equipment, timely completion of academic programmes and processes, these are the roles that we, in the Postgraduate School, are going to play towards the realisation of the vice-chancellor’s blueprint.

FB: What do you expect from the matriculating students?

Answer: Well, in line with the motto of the University: “integrity, innovation and excellence,” we are expecting that they will contribute to knowledge, they will produce ideas, knowledge that can help the development of Nasarawa State, North-central Zone of Nigeria, the country and the world at large. This is postgraduate level, the expectation is that you are not just studying because you want to graduate, but you are studying a real issue and you are bringing ideas that can move the study that you have done forward. Hopefully, we will be harvesting some of the ideas from our students to showcase at different fora.

FB: Still, talking about the dream of becoming one of the five best university in Africa, do you think that dream is achievable?

Answer: There is nothing that’s not achievable, who says it is not achievable? However, I want us to be focused on what we need to do to make that dream achievable. Essentially, we should not just be focusing on trying to be fifth best, let’s focus on excelling, let’s focus on doing things we need to do and, of course, making FULafia the fifth best will come with that. It is like an athlete who is in a race with other athletes, let’s say in a 100 metres dash, you don’t keep saying I want to be the first, you actually need to be ahead of the game and you arrive at first. This is what I think we should be doing.

FB: Do you think the Federal University of Lafia has the capacity and or infrastructure to actualise that dream?

Answer: There is no university in the world that has every infrastructure that it needs or it requires. But it is a question of what are you doing with what you have. Therefore, we can use what we’ve got to be what or who we want to be.