In this interview with Patrick Andrew, the vice chancellor of Veritas University, Prof Hyacinth Ichoku, says the presence of military and other armed guards in the university has given it the status of a security buffer which allows uninterrupted academic exercise to continue.
You hold community mass for members of the community irrespective of their faith. What’s the essence?
We normally hold our Community Mass every Wednesday for every student and staff. We come together to share ideas and sometimes acknowledge students in the limelight. We want to be sure that everyone is on the same page; that’s part of our formation system and it keeps everybody in the know of what is happening in the university. It also help to correct some ills and wrong perceptions in the minds of some students that are not wholesome. We work on the students moral and intellectual upbringing including etiquettes. These are essential because it’s often assumed that they are aware and conscious of moral etiquette but somehow they may not have the background, so we give them orientation and allow psychologists to speak to them. It’s part of our process of giving our students both academic and moral training.
I was particularly intrigued by the word ‘community’.
Does it means everyone attends including those who do not share the Catholic faith?
Yes, everyone has to attend because it is not about the Catholic faith, but the biggest feast for everybody to come together, it is an interactive session not an avenue to share faith. We are very liberal here.
Is there any sanction should any member of the community fails to attend the mass?
Yeah, there is! Sometimes, we impose community service on those who don’t attend the community mass since the gathering provides us opportunity to mingle and interact and that’s why we usually end lectures 10 minutes to the time to enable everyone to be there. Sometimes, we use it as an avenue to give prizes to deserving students who have excelled and this creates some sense of community relation. We also use the occasion to acknowledge lecturers who have had their theses published in reputable journals. It’s just a means of bringing people together to communicate essential information pertaining to our community, not necessarily about the mass.
The university sits on many hectares of land. Isn’t it challenging being able to provide the needed security for the community particularly as regards the provision of perimeter fence?
Well, we try to fence the areas that are fenceable because the high mountains have assisted us to fence some parts. You can see the mountains are so high that it would be difficult to breach. Nobody will climb this mountain just to cross in to cause havoc. Besides, we have established watchtowers in some areas within the university specifically to monitor activities within the school and its immediate environs. We also intend to set up CCTV cameras in specific places to further strengthen our surveillance and ensure that every activity in the university is properly monitored and thus ensures a reasonable guarantee of security.
How far have you gone with the plan to make the community a security buffer zone?
Well, creating a buffer zone is important because the community itself is your buffer zone. If you make the community safe, then it becomes your buffer zone. The decision to have a healthy relationship with our neighbouring communities, cooperate with them and ensure they don’t have any security challenges is one of such approaches. That is why we have the military and police presence and armed guards right from the entry point of the university and within the premises of the school. We have also endeavoured to support the vigilante arrangements of the neighbouring communities all in an effort to ensure that our community is a buffer zone.
There is tension because schools have become easy targets for kidnappers. With your large students’ population and staff strength, what is being done to reduce the tension signal?
That’s what the presence of the military is intended for. We have the presence of the military and other armed guards who are ready to ward off any threat and above all, we rely on God’s protection because as the Bible says, “Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman watches in vain.” We have done what is humanly possible in addition to relying on God’s presence. Of course, everybody in Nigeria is looking on to God because there is no part of Nigeria that is secured. We are all experiencing the same threat whether in the south or north. The most important thing is to ensure that the people around you are given some sense of security, some provision for protection and synergy, create understanding and cooperation. This in itself is a shield against any threat, a kind of buffer that we need.
What guarantee do parents have to allow their wards to return to the campus especially in the face of lingering insecurity?
Parents know that although we are a residential institution, it is not compulsory for their wards to reside in the school. We were very efficient in ICT even before the COVID 19 pandemic and were working hard to improve on our ICT to be able to run lectures both online and on site. Veritas University is the first in the country to go online when the pandemic issue emerged. So we never lost time or academic sessions during the COVID 19 debacle. In fact, we even conducted our exams online and our students were receiving lectures right from their respective homes. Currently, some of our students attend lectures within the school while others from their homes. We have graduated from ‘blended learning’ because some students can be in their homes while others are in school and all share the same white board and interact with themselves.
What’s the university’s growth projection?
Our projection is gradual growth, and at present we have about 3, 000 students’ population and we want over time incremental growth not in heaps and bounds like the first and second generation universities and it is really not about the number. Part of our mission is formation and effective performance. That’s why we sometimes turn down applications for admission in order to contain the population and ensure that the numbers we have are manageable and properly trained. In terms of the number of faculties, we have nine and currently running about 40 programmes, the latest being the law faculty under construction to take off soon. We major in Management Sciences programmes, have science and education-based programmes, humanities, and in particular we cater for the taste of this generation of students in ICT, Mass Communications and Computer Science.
Some have reservations for private universities on account of their exorbitant fees. How cost-friendly is Veritas University?
We are one of the cheapests and in fact it is really not about profit-making, but an avenue to come to terms with human capital development for the society. Affordability of university education is our priority so that both those that have and those that do not have the opportunity would be in the same classroom to receive the same quality education. This is the key policy of the university. Many of our students here are sponsored by individuals. In fact, an individual presently sponsors some 15 students. We keep to schedule, have formation of moral and intellectual characters through good academic training. In addition, we don’t lose semesters because we have an assured stability of academic programmes. Even during the COVID 19 pandemic, we were not distracted but maintained a stable academic schedule. Our teaching pool is one of the best because we are careful to recruit only those that meet certain well-defined teaching competences and intellectual standards and commitment, which is a key requirement because beyond teaching students, lecturers are required to mentor them and ensure proper feedback in terms of character evaluation.
