‘Transferring Maritime University, Okerenkoko, To Ministry Of Education Is Our Worst Nightmare’, Says VC

Prof. Emmanuel Adigio, the vice chancellor of the Nigeria Maritime University, Okerenkoko, in Gbaramatu, Warri South-West Local Government Area of Delta State, has bemoaned the transfer of the specialised maritime institution from the Transportation Ministry to the Ministry of Education.

He disclosed that the institution’s current problems stem from the crisis that greeted its establishment and continued after it was transferred to the ministry of education.

According to Prof. Adigio, the institution was initially intended to be a specialised institution under the Federal Ministry of Transportation with full-fledged recognition, however, politics, he lamented, became a hindrance to the institution’s progress.

Adigio spoke when he and the university’s management team—which also included the deputy vice chancellor, Prof. I.C. Ogwude, Prof. Christopher Orubu (on sabbatical), and Dr. Tolumoye Tuawer—met with Warri Correspondents’ Chapel members of the Nigeria Union of Journalists over the weekend at the union’s secretariat.

“You know, a lot of the issues that were present at the time this university was founded had political overtones. Since it is governed by the Ministry of Education, the university is currently concerned, just like every other university in the nation. It is not directly run by the Transport Ministry, so that was the defect. The issues there are the same as those in other universities, which is driving ASUU to make more demands.

“That university was founded with the intention of being steered by NIMASA, as I previously stated, and with that came the idea that staff would be paid like other maritime institutions or establishments. As a result, the staff received a fairly reasonable allowance, but at the end of 2019, IPPIS entered the picture and all payments began coming directly from the federal government, which reduced the standard of living. So, it’s been very difficult. We are looking for ways to make it better. We have written to salary and wages to explain our situation and ask for a pay raise. 

“Just three months after we sent them that letter, they sent me a form, asking us to submit it to our parent ministry.” After talking to some people about it, they assured me they would submit it to the Ministry of Transportation so we could negotiate a better deal. 

“However, we are enticing the staff to participate in TETFUND-sponsored processes.” Some of the staff are excited about the initiative by which TETFUND is sponsoring both academic and non-academic staff to participate in programmes. Therefore, we are hoping to make improvements in those crucial areas where allowances need to be improved.

Prof. Adigio described his goals for the university as follows: “My initial impression when I first arrived was to see that there is a permanent site that has been sited.” 

“The establishment of a permanent site before the end of my five-year term was my goal at the time. It is moving, but very slowly and not in a way I like. In addition, I had a vision that the area would develop into a major tourist attraction due to its prime location. 

“It is an island, but getting there is challenging. is to ensure that it develops into a tourism and educational hub. That’s what I really wanted it to be because it’s a lovely location, and given how the maritime industry is becoming more and more important, I figured that developing that area would draw a lot of people in.

He said that the university which was founded in 2015, with classes beginning there in 2018, was initially founded and nurtured by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) with the goal of creating highly skilled labour for the maritime sector. 

“However, when there was political change, there were difficulties with where to cite it and arguments here and there. It took some time, but in the end, it was given to the Ministry of Education, despite the fact that it is a special university that belongs in the transportation section. We are fighting to get it back there, and we hope to succeed.

“It is currently handled by the rules of the Ministry of Education.” When I came in, I think we were in the third year, but because of the COVID-19 a year was lost, and earlier this year we graduated the first set. We have a four year programme and a five year programme. The five year programme is an engineering base where we have environmental management, and in marine transportation we have four years. 

“So in the four year programme we have graduated our first set and very soon in the next one or two months, we are going to graduate the next set, which is engineering. And you know very well that a university without being accredited will not be able to have their graduate work in the relevant industries so the first thing we did is that before the graduation we have to call in the National University Commission (NUC) to come and accredit five of the programmes that are four years programme. And January this year we had five accredited courses and right now we are in the process of accreditation. There is a visitation that is coming up as of Monday to accredit the other eight programmes.

“We have a take off campus that is in Krutie, Nigerian Maritime University Okerenkoko where they have a permanent site, but we have the take off campus in Krutie. That campus was built by somebody from that community. It was built as a diving school, but he donated that property to the government, so that’s where we have the take off campus.  I know we cannot wait for the permanent site to have quite a number of structures put in place.

“When I came in there were quite a number of pieces of engineering brought in, because in engineering you need a lot of equipment, but they were not housed. So the first thing I did was to see that we have a standard workshop built with classrooms, and it has been commissioned this year and installed the equipment that was bought before I came in. you know it is a paramilitary university, so it needs to have all the students all accommodated. 

“In fact, because of the importance and interest now in the maritime section, there is a surge of students applying to come and study there, and the few people that have interacted with our students have given a very good report about students coming from that university. So we are kind of overwhelmed with the number of students. 

“However , to meet up with that, all our efforts have been geared towards building more hostels and because of the size of the structures that are there, we have to shift again to a second campus in Okerenkoko.

“The community gave us structures that are built there, and then two of the faculties have been moved there. I can call them the smaller faculties because in engineering we have a very large number of students. We have five programmes there. We have built two hostels now – one donated by Chevron and the second one a capital project by the federal government. In Krutie, we have added two hostels – one in use now and the other in use in the next session. Shell is also building a 96 deck space hostel for us. It is a massive structure. We have brought another capital project to build hostels, which is going to start in the next two weeks. One is about a 250-bed space hostel that will be sited in Krutie and another is about a 180 bed space hostel that will be sited in Okerenkoko.

He stated that the institution is currently facing challenges such as a lack of power supply and a good water system, but the institution was able to provide a 250kva generator set to power the community water project, which will serve both the campus and community. He also thanked the community and other donor agencies for their offers of assistance in addressing the problem of water supply.

“Power is one of the essential things you need to run a system, especially on an island where there is no national grid.”  

“All of the power must be supplied by you. As a result of the high operating costs associated with running a generator-driven system, we made an effort to intervene by introducing solar energy. The administrative block now has power, and some of the hallways have solar-powered structures that provide light and power for some of the office equipment. We face difficulties in maintaining power because maintaining power for a full day hasn’t been simple.

When it comes to the dockyard, Prof. Adigio revealed that the institution hasn’t given up trying to get the acquired floating dockyard, which has been sitting empty at the port of Lagos and was intended for students’ practical training, back to it.

“A dockyard was purchased for the institution, but it was delivered to Lagos instead. The dockyard will be more profitable if it is located in Lagos, but it was intended to be brought in here for the purpose of providing students with hands-on training. However, they came up with many excuses, including the fact that the area must first be dredged before it can be brought in, which will cost billions of naira, that it lacks adequate security, and many others. that installation will not be feasible. They provided these justifications, yet our argument has not abated. 

“We are fighting to ensure that we are included in it wherever it is installed if it is not brought in here. It hasn’t been installed yet. It is vacant in Lagos, but the last I heard, they were trying to get the installation going and had brought in foreign workers to do it, and they were talking about spending a huge sum of money on it.

When asked about the university’s accommodation problems, the vice chancellor stated, “Accommodation is the biggest problem that we have there so it is a very big problem. Despite the fact that it is a very small town, it costs three, four, or five times as much to build a house there as it does in urban areas like Warri. It is very expensive to build a house there because you have to transport gravel and sand, and everything for houses is imported. Every building costs a lot of money to construct, so you can’t even tell the locals to start building houses.

“Normally it should be a chance for them because where there is a university, it is a source of income for those who own land there, and you know the federal policy they are not into building houses for staff but we are making quite a few moves,” he said. Just two days ago, one of the key figures in the community (referring to Tompolo) assessed the staff’s situation and declared that he would share his structure with us so that we could use it to address the accommodation issue. 

“When I came in there and noticed that some staff were sleeping in their offices, I said we need to tackle this. We have written to quite a number of agencies and we have gotten promises and we got interventions from boundary communities that also provided structures.

He said that efforts are also being made to ensure that relevant government agencies come to aid the university in tackling its accommodation problems and funding of the institution, including solving problems with power.