University of Ibadan

GBENRO ADESINA/IBADAN

The University of Ibadan, UI, has decried the sharp reduction in federal allocations to the premier university, saying it was the reason for the inability of the management to meet up with its financial obligations to the staff.

According to a statement from the institution, signed by its registrar, Mr. O. I. Olukoya entitled, “Shortfall in personnel grant release”, the management said, “It has become necessary to bring to the notice of the university community the reduction in personnel cost released to the university”. According to the release: “Throughout year 2014, we received N804. 6 million to pay our monthly salary. In 2015, we received N932. 7 million from January up to November but in December 2015, our allocation on personnel cost was reduced drastically to N663. 97 million.

“This is a reduction of N268, 7 million. This shortfall accounted for why deductions for the month of December 2015 could not be paid to all deserving cooperative societies and unions. The total figure of deductions for December 2015 which is still outstanding amounted to N301. 6 million. We are already making efforts to recover these deductions from the appropriate authorities”.

“Surprisingly, we received the sum of N782. 5 million as personnel cost for the month of January 2016. This sum is a far cry from our expected personnel grant. Our budget in 2016 for personnel cost is N12. 97 trillion net of NHIS and contributory pensions. We therefore, expect monthly allocation of N1, 08 trillion; instead, we got N782. 4 million, a reduction of N298. 6 million. The import of this is that again in January 2016 we were not able to meet up with 100 per cent of our commitment on personnel cost.”

“The administration is making frantic efforts and also consulting appropriate authorities to ensure that we receive appropriate funding not only for this year but to also have a refund of the shortfall for December 2015. The administration, therefore, implores all staff and students to be calm and patiently hope that all outstanding issues with respect to our personnel cost budget will be addressed before the budget of 2016 is finally approved”.

In another development, the institution’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Abel Idowu Olayinka has declared his major challenge to be how to ensure that UI is ranked among the top five universities in Africa in the next few years.

He disclosed this while reacting to the recent ranking of the Nigerian universities which rank UI as number one adding, “This is do-able given the pedigree of Ibadan over the last 68 years. As we speak, we have perhaps the most highly developed Postgraduate School, with easily
the largest number of Masters and Doctoral students in Sub-Saharan Africa. The UI
School of Business has been approved by the National Universities Commission, and it
is set to take off soon with her flagship MBA programme, which used to be run by our
Department of Economics”.

The ranking by the NUC shows:
1. University of Ibadan, UI
2. University of Lagos, UNILAG
3. University of Benin, UNIBEN
4. Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU
5. Ahmadu Bello University, ABU
6. University of Ilorin, UNILORIN
7. University of Jos, UNIJOS
8. University of Port Harcourt, UNIPORT
9. University of Maiduguri, UNIMAID
10. Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, FUNAAB
11. Lagos State University, LASU
12. Federal University of Technology, FUTO
13. Covenant University, CU
14. University of Nigeria, UNN
15. Federal University of Technology, FUTA
16. Nnamdi Azikiwe University, UNIZIK
17. Enugu State University of Science and Technology, ESUT
18. Pan African University, PAU
19. Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, LAUTECH
20. Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola