All the people of Sokoto and their historically and culturally linked people of Kebbi and Zamfara states should be celebrating the prospects of another university in Sokoto state. Even if it is being established by aliens from outside Nigeria or the geopolitical zone of the Northwest, an additional university comes with multiple benefits for which universities all over the world, bring to their host communities.
The significance of knowledge is so basic to humans that Muslims are enjoined by the Holy Messenger of Allah SWT, Prophet Muhamnad SAW to: “Go even onto the labd of Singh in search of knowledge.” Sihn, China, was then regarded as the furthest place to the Arabian world, birth place of Islam.
Sokoto, Zamfara and Kebbi axis stand to gain from the prestige and pride that an additional university would bring to them. This is the more so, that the dreamed university is being established by one of their own, “a Son of the Soil”, to put it in the Nigerian parlance: Senator Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko. Talk of the likes of Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, Igbenedion University, Edo state, among others. The icing to the cake in the case of the proposed privately owned university in Sokoto is that, it confers on the people the pride of a blaze trailer in the Northwest and, in fact, the entire North of Nigeria.
However, beyond the excitements and positive vibes generated by the plans of Senator Wamakko to establish a university in the Heart of the Caliphate, some pertinent and sober questions that border on skepticism, pessimism and, suspicion are being asked by enlightened, rational minds around Sokoto and beyond.
First, the timing of the announcement appears curious to some observers who suspect that the idea may be no more than a political step to buoy the senator’s dicey political clout and esteem. Senator Wamakko, now engaged in a pitched battlefield with Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, is seen in certain quarters of doing and saying things dramatic and appealing in the public domain even if such were unattainable, fantastic dreams. Provided it momentarily raises his stature while diminishing that of his rival, let the devil care about the long term consequences of falsehood and deception. Same as reasons of populism and cravings for bolstered political profile have been given as the motivation for his recent failed free fumigation exercise against mosquitoes in parts of the state.
A University of Science and Technology? That, not a few think, is a tall order because of the high capital out lay required for equipment, laboratories, workshops and related facilities in such an institution in the modern sense. The highly specialised professionals needed on the academic staff list of a university worthy of that name, science and technology also, don’t come easy. Unless if one is having in mind a modest science and technical secondary glorified as a university, we should be talking and looking at Tens of Billions of Naira to be sunk even at the foundation and start of the project.
As a former governor whose administration built a university, Senator Wamakko should be conscious of the huge fund that goes into a university project. Even with the vast government resources at his disposal, his administration’s Sokoto State University could not go beyond an administrative block, two hostels and a row of lecture halls with bare capacity for a modest number of students. And that was after the government claimed to have sunk tens of billions of Naira in a long span of seven years.
Just by the way, though and best a topic for another day, people are also asking why the construction firm, Mac Namera, abandoned the project of the Sokoto State University after less than 20% of work even as it had been paid the contract sum fully upfront? Why was the government paying the contractor in cash, humungous sums, in billions and hundreds of millions instead of through the banking system? Mac Namera was at that time allegedly deregistered in Ireland for insolvency thereby bringing up the questions: will the senator be paying cash and to an insolvent construction firm?
The fundamental issue of funding has further given rise to some people taking the Wamakko initiative with a “pinch of salt”. How rich, for example, people are asking, is the Aliyu Wamakko Foundation, the platform said to be floating the proposed privately owned university? Aside the well-known fact that the Wamakko Foundation is synonymous with his person in terms of its funding in particular, from what other sources does the Foundation generate its finances?
Skeptics suspicious of the honesty and feasibility of the Wamakko University and who hinge their reservations on the financial wherewithal for its execution, believe that the Senator on his own, cannot and, should not possess the magnitude of the requisite capital. Though now under the EFCC investigation for allegedly looting the state treasury of about 15 Billion Naira while in office, Wamakko has consistently and vicariously denied that he ever dipped his hands into the Commonwealth of Sokoto people. But then again, there is the question of him acquiring the NUC stipulated acreage of land for a university? Never mind that he might have secured that using his position as governor 2007 to 2015.
For as long as it lasts (the EFCC investigation), lets concur with him that, he is as clean as a fiddle, as sinless as a newborn baby and as innocent as a lamb. But, since we all know that the much talked about humongous sums that our senators garner as emoluments should not suffice for one of them to have enough to spare for a university of science and technology, in the real sense of that phrase, the tendency is strong to suspect that somehow, there exist many gaping holes with the equation not adding up on the issue of the latest surprise coming out of the usual fantastically deep, political magic bag of Senator Aliyu Wamakko.
Alhassan writes from Kofar Atiku, Sokoto.
