By ByEmmanuel Edukugho
Chancellor of Covenant University, Ota, Dr David Oyedepo who is also Chairman, Board of Regents and founding Bishop, Living Faith Worldwide, Owners of the University, recently addressed a special press conference on “FGN/ASUU Agreement on Consolidated University Academic Salary Structure (CONUASS) and Stimulus Package” in Canaanland, Ota.

After the briefing, Oyedepo fielded questions from the media including this writer who heads the Education Desk of Vanguard.

As usual, he was blunt, frank, straightforward and sometimes dovetailing into politics while answering questions put to him. Education and politics mix a lot. Whatever happens in education is determined by the political leadership.

Politicians are often the decision makers, but most of them lacked capacity, are narrowminded, self-serving, visionless, operating in an environment where merit is sacrificed for mediocrity, getting priorities wrong.

Excerpts from the question-and-answer session with Dr. David Oyedepo:

Chancellor of Covenant University, Ota, Dr David Oyedepo (left)

In your address, you mentioned the need for capacity building. What can you say about capacity in this country?

It’s about leadership status. There is a major capacity problem.
It’s the number one problem – from religious to national. We need a good capacity, just like having a good driver who knows how to drive very well.

If you don’t have a good driver for a vehicle who can drive you safely to your destination, safely to the place that you are going, or else he will head for accident.

There must be some level of discipline. We have core values to help mould our students for capacity to have expression. Look at President Obama – that’s capacity speaking.

Most of our leaders today forced their way into leadership positions. So the question of capacity does not arise, our leadership (Nigeria) is for the highest bidder, and anybody can get in there.

He becomes a senator and he cannot speak a word of English, nor does he understands the constitution. He has not read it anyway. So, there is a major capacity problem.

You see that in the National Assembly, even during a live broadcast, somebody is still phoning while a session is on live broadcast. That is how responsible our leaders are. I see two problems here – character and capacity. If you have character, it will enhance capacity development.

If you have capacity with character, you are on your way to becoming a great leader. I think our problem is two fold – we have capacity problem and to make it worse, we have a character problem.

So a combination of the two cripples a nation. This is what I think we have for now. And this has to be addressed. The more salt, the better is the taste….

We don’t even know our population — between 150 million and 200 million.
If 10,000 have the right value, the others will draw from them.

I can see a change coming silently. If you pick somebody’s money which does not belong to you, it should be taken back to the owner. A child is trainable than old persons. You cannot bend a dried  fish, otherwise it will break. Hence we keep investing on the young ones. We will be there.

Chancellor Sir, the FGN/ASUU Agreement you are now implementing was negotiated by teachers in public universities. Private Universities were not part of the negotiations nor involved. How come about that Covenant University is among the first to implement the FGN/ASUU Agreement?

It’s public agreement, and so goes beyond the public universities. There is a popular adage that when you pay peanuts, you hire monkeys.

Covenant University was one of the Universities ASUU pointed to during the negotiations with good salary structure and facilities that are far above public universities, looking for the best.

ASUU used Covenant University’s pay structure in pressing the government for a new agreement.

It’s due to our excellent facilities that we can say produce 80 first class. Because of the quality, they are even exempted from some professional examinations. There is no examination malpractice here. It is a capital offence in this place. Once caught, that’s the end of the student.

Our students have been winning awards. Our involvement is also to sentisize government to fully implement the agreement with the teachers and in accepting responsibility. Government has wrong priority. There is so much wastage in the system.

Government must take responsibility for quality education in Nigeria.
We came because we are a service organisation, a mission organisation, people oriented. N220 million to service this (stimulus package). How do you get this? It’s from our proprietors. There is commitment, dogged commitment to the system.

We are coming in to sensitize the people. There are others (Universities) who have come to implement the Agreement. We have come to help the public universities in driving excellence. We are not poking nose (taking interest or get involved in someone’s else’s affairs), but moving towards the same goal to see quality education.

How do you see the level of funding of education in the country?

Government is not showing enough commitment to funding and providing quality education in Nigeria by equipping its own schools with modern equipment and paying living wages to both academic and non-academic personnel.

ASUU wants improvement in quality education delivery. Without materials, tools, how can they perform? Government should be more committed to learning. Not just salary, Covenant University is the best equipped in Africa. Some Universities are not having the equipment that we have. The antiquated equipment should be thrown out and replaced. You cannot train engineers with old tools.

Grants are no longer given to schools by government as was in the past. Are you satisfied with this situation? What is your position on grants to schools?

Government not committed to grants. Before, government was giving grants: If you check history, government was making money available to missions to run schools. But they stopped at some point when they thought the missions were gaining from it. They took over the schools and ran them aground, only to say the missions should take the schools back.

The problem of this nation is greed and avarice. Greed, greed, greed, everybody is looking for money by all means. This won’t continue for ever. It has to stop somewhere, it has to stop some day….

By 2011, it will be a different ball game, all together, because God will answer the prayers of all Nigerians crying and for the first time, we will have the right kind of leader who will believe in the welfare of the people and commit to it and allow the resources of the land to be a blessing to the people. If that happens, I’m sure we will have a better nation.

Is there still need for the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme considering what is happening to the programme so far?

I believe the NYSC is okay. I hope that it will be sustained. But none can say where or in what direction it is heading to. However, the NYSC should be encouraged.

Do you see relevance in the continued existence of JAMB, moreso when Universities are now admitting their students directly?

Even with JAMB, there is no way we can stop any University from screening its candidates for admission. You have to conduct special screening for candidates.

If you are coming to this university, you have to write special screening test. This is the best way to determine studentship in Covenant University.

How much do you pay your professors in this University and what is the least pay for a professor here?

I don’t know what you mean by the least pay. We don’t have the least pay, N105,281 is the least pay in Covenant University and it’s for Graduate Assistants.

If you want to be a lecturer here, let’s know. We will examine you, if you’re not fit, you can then go back to the press (Laughter).