Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar appeared not to be
satisfied with the management of the American University of Nigeria, which he
founded 19 years ago, regretting that the institution had yet to be on its feet
as it ought.
Atiku, in a paper delivered at the AUN as part of activities
marking this year’s celebration of the institution’s founder day, had revealed
his frustrations with the management of the university that he founded for not
being able to get the institution firmly rooted on its feet.
Founder’s Day, in the American style, is an important
tradition where an institution unites to honor those who have contributed to
the university’s rich history and its founding.
Every year, the AUN rolls out its drum to commemorate its Founder’s Day on the birthday of the former Vice President, who founded the institution in 2004.
However, at this year’s celebrations, Atiku revealed the
real motives behind his establishment of the AUN.
He said his motive for establishing the university was not
to gain political office but to give back to a society that has given so much
to him.
Speaking at an event in his paper entitled, “AUN in the Age
of Socio-Economic Crisis and Emerging Disruptive Technologies,” Atiku had made
a veiled reference to his frustrations with the one too many leadership
transitions at the institution over the course of the last 19 years and the
inability of managers who had presided over the management of the institution
fully grasping his vision for the institution and effectively piloting the
university as a truly developmental university.
Atiku said, “You cannot realise the vision of a still small
and young institution without focus, without being organized, without patience,
without attention to detail, without persistence, and the desire to overcome
obstacles in your way. And you cannot
realise that vision with reckless management of resources, arbitrariness in
decision making, and unfairness and inequity in the treatment of faculty,
staff, and students. As a result,
continuity and fidelity to rules and procedures haven’t always been maintained
in the attempts at realizing the founding vision and pursuit of the
university’s goals. There is, therefore, an urgent need to return to basics, to
the original vision.”
“AUN is a not-for-profit institution. However, that does not
mean that you should not generate surpluses. You should be self-sustaining and
generate surpluses to be plowed back into the development of the institution to
serve a greater number of people – students, employees, and the wider community.
“Unfortunately, as I have been told, some see AUN the way
some Nigerians see public institutions – as a place they take from but not to
put in. Well, that’s a mistake.”
He, however, gave a forewarning of the changing educational
landscape, noting that only institutions that had the financial wherewithal and
were positioned for the disruption that technologies are likely to bring to
education in this age of Artificial intelligence are best suited to survive.
He explained that the transition occasioned by emerging
disruptive technologies in the age of artificial intelligence was in the
context of Nigeria, adding, “Coinciding with deepening socio-economic crisis
limiting the financial capacity of institutions and the country to acquire
those very technologies, failure of which would put us further back in the race
to socio-economic advancement.”
In his paper, Atiku asked, “How are you preparing for them,
and how is Nigeria preparing for them? What about artificial intelligence’s
potential impact on teaching and learning, especially Large Language Models
such as ChatGPT? Are you prepared for that?”
He, however, expressed cautious optimism about AUN’s
readiness, noting that the institution, which ought to be on its feet, had been
afflicted with the same kind of malady that had afflicted the Nigerian state,
which he called a “mistaken” philosophy.
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