Why quality education should be prioritise in Nigeria University system- Prof. Dilli Dogo (2023)

Vice-Chancellor, Nile University of Nigeria, Prof. Dilli Dogo is a man with a tall CV. He is a first class graduate of Medicine, and administrator who graduated in 1984 with a distinction in medicine and physiology.

He has continue to to specialize in Surgery and rose through the ranks to become a Professor of surgery while providing provide first class medical services to both the public and private sector. 

In this exclusive interview with DOOSUUR IWAMBE, he examined some of the challenges affecting the nation’s education sector and how it can be tackled. Read the excepts.

Tell us about your journey so far in Nile University and what you are doing differently to make it stand out ?

I came to Nile University on a mission to support the evolution of the College of Health Sciences as Provost of the College. The college of health sciences was opened in 2016, and had a critical challenge around 2019 and that brought me here.

I’m proud to say that we are able to put everything in place and in the next four weeks, we shall be graduating our first set of Medical doctors and to me, even if I leave today, I can proudly say I’ve achieved the legacy I was trying to put in place here.

It’s a great privilege to serve this great institutions. Nile University is an institution with a difference. We are a member of Honoris United Universities, which is the largest pan-African Private higher education Network currently, with 15 universities in 10 African countries. 

I assume office here on March 8, 2022 as Vice Chancellor and since then, our focus has been to reengineer this institution be a world class institution that all of us can be proud of.

Since we took over, we reinvigorated every aspect a university as it ought to be, recreating the foundation, pillars we need to reinforced, upgrading infrastructures, re-training all our staff with a huge focus of creating a world class university in Nigeria.

Currently, Nile University has 59 partner institutions across the globe. Nile university is committed to providing first class educational experience to the African continents so that quality of graduates can compete favovorably with any graduate anywhere in the world.

In our quest for excellence, the federal government is now working with us towards the take-off of one of a very few specialized institutions, the African Aero Space and Aviation university as part of the Aviation Roadmap by the President Muhammadu Buhari led government.

We have substantially completed all the formalities and I understand it has been approved.

The minister has requested that we should officially sign the Memorandum of Understanding, MoU.

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The media will be invited because it’s going to be a landmark occasion for the country. For the college of health, I want to tell you that it is rated as one of the best. 

How were you able to achieve this feat within this short period of time

University administration and Medical administration is a familiar road for me. I have told you that I’ve worked in almost all the spheres of the academic sector for about 39 years now.

If you’re asked to drive on a road you’ve not travelled on before, you will not be able to know where the pot holes are and you will end up driving at a moderate speed. But if you are used to the road, you will even go at 100km per hour.

That is why we are here working against time. We want to catch up, we are devoted, focused and determined to get it done. We don’t want excuses.

We want to instill discipline in the system, we are restructuring. The zeal and policies have brought us this far.

Has the incessant strikes in nation’s universities been a blessing in disguise for private university?

I wouldn’t call it a blessing in disguise. To me, it’s a sad development because the private institutions are created to compliment efforts of government and not necessarily to take over.

The job of developing and impacting quality education in Nigeria cannot be done by government alone and that is where the private sector comes in. Everybody have a stake in it.

The government, private sectors, me and you. If the existing sector collapses, especially, the public system, you can imagine what it is. Everybody will be affected. There are certain public institutions that have about 70,000 students. If such a system collapse, you can imagine the collosal loss we will have as a country.

Today, we have about 222 universities out of which 111 are private institutions. With all this on ground, you will still discover that if about one million candidates are sitting for JAMB every year, how many can be accommodated by the private sector.

What we encourage is that government should work hard to ensure that the job of governance and provision of quality education in public institutions continue while the private institutions continue to support the process.

What we are doing here in Nile University is to ensure that those who can afford quality education in the country are given the privilege and opportunity ,so they won’t have to go to other countries where the culture is strange. If we can provide the necessary infrastructures to produce this quality of education, its a win-win situation for Nigerians and Nigeria.

So, I don’t want people to see the strike as a blessing in disguise at all. Government has a major role to ensure quality education for all Nigerians. Whether there was a strike or not, Nile University will continue to grow because of its unique structure and quality.

What is your perception about education in Nigeria 

The education sector in Nigeria is vibrant because as you all know, Nigerians love education. They don’t want to be illiterates. What is lacking is quality education. By the time enough investment is made in education and quality is provided, it will fast track development and innovations in the country.

Our current move here in Nile is to create an industrial hub where people can come for research. One of our student in the faculty of engineering last year innovated, designed and produced a prototype of a “remote drip irrigation using GSM mode”l. In order words, you can be in your sitting room and be irrigating your farm through this irrigation. It won a lot of accolades. The Nigeria Society of Engineers were here to present a gift to her. All these can be made possible if we have the right type of education.

Unfortunately, in Nigeria, everyone want to be a graduate. What we don’t ask ourselves is what type of graduates we are producing. Is it graduates by name or through certification or graduate who can compete with their counterparts across the globe. Why you have a lot of unemployment today is because the graduates out there are not right for the industry. 

A true graduate is trained to be independent. They are trained to be employers of Labour rather than looking into the market to be employed. If every institution is doing what we are doing here in Nile, we will be able to address some of these challenges.

Post Covid, what innovations is Nile putting in place to avert disruption of teaching, learning

Even before Covid-19, Nile was the first university to be certified by regulators to resume classes because we are proactive. We know what is required. I was the chairman of the covid committee and when the issue come up, we put up every structure that was required to curtail the spread.

We created a clinic and an isolation centre here in the university. Before them, there was no clinic here. Now, we have a university clinic and we are currently planning on building a medical Centre. The World need to be prepared for emergencies. The pandemic took the world by storm because nobody was ready.

However, it serve as an eye opener to many nations that we need to update and upgrade our infrastructures to cope and manage emergencies. 

What are the plans on ground to make Nile University the best in Africa?

For a university to thrive, there must be a good relationship between town and industry and the only way you can create this is by having a strong linkage with research and innovations.

The future economy will thrive on research. We need to create a critical research hub, then the patronage will come from industries. Collaboration will come and then, the system will impact positively. Nile university has a huge mission to achieve and we are committed to getting it done. The infrastructures you are seeing here on ground today is preparing us for the future.

Where do you see Nile University in the next ten years?

In the next ten years, I want to see Nile in the league of Havard, Oxford and all those strong institutions that are contributing immensely to development across every sphere of life. I want to see Nile University as a reference point to other universities; as a the prime university driving growth in Nigeria.

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