By Jude Atupulazi
A former Vice Chancellor of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, COOU, Prof Fidelis Okafor, has recalled the inputs of former Anambra State Governor, Mr Peter Obi, to the growth of the institution, saying Obi laid the foundation for what the school has become today.
In an exclusive chat with Fides in his home in Ukwulu, Dunukofia Local Government Area of the state, the former VC who is now enjoying his retirement, said of Obi’s impact on the institution, ‘No one can conceive of Anambra State University and then COOU, without first of all recognizing the pioneering role of Obi in terms of building that university to something we are all proud of today.’
He recalled how Obi had brought him to the institution when it was going through some turbulence arising from demands for increased salary and allowances by the staff members, which, he said, Obi solved, with Prof Elochukwu Amucheazi as Chairman of Council.
Okafor said that from then, Obi started transforming the institution by building campus roads to replace the muddy terrain; building of the Law Faculty; the Agric Faculty and what he described as the massive, Faculty of Management Sciences Obi started but which succeeding administrations could not complete; as well as some hostels and the accreditations of the Faculty of Law and the College of Health Sciences.
‘How I wish I took pictures of the road in the Igbariam Campus then, Okafor said.
He recalled the day Obi called him on the phone at midnight and asked him to come the next morning to the Governor’s Lodge. When he came, he met a man he later came to know as the then Deputy Governor of the Central Bank, Prof Kingsley Moghalu.
‘I joined them for breakfast and Obi introduced him to me and told me why I was invited. Moghalu told me that Obi invited him to see what could be done for the school and he wanted me to tell him what the school needed the most.
‘I told them that our priority need were hostels, as our student population was increasing and most students lived off campus.’
Okafor said he was asked to put it in writing which he did and Moghalu told him he would collect it on his way back to Abuja.
‘I thought it was a joke but two weeks after that some professionals came to my school and said they wanted to start the hostels. I showed them the site and they commenced a massive twin building that was eventually completed and named CBN Hostels.
That was a major development in the university because female students were endangered,’ Okafor recalled, noting that the building became a source of revenue for the institution.
He also recalled that when he came to the school, there was the issue of accreditation of some faculties and Obi provided funds for the provision of the things needed by the Law Faculty to gain accreditation which was achieved. According to him, this led to the marking up of the admission intake from 50 to 100, a development Okafor described as unbelievable.
As for the College of Medicine, Okafor said, the College had failed woefully in accreditation. ‘I told Obi who asked me to state what was needed to get it accredited. I went to the National Universities Commission and they told me what the College was lacking. Obi provided the funds and hired seasoned Professors of Medicine, expanded the College, bought equipment and the students’ hostel was started and we eventually got accredited. At that time, many universities of our level and older ones had not been accredited and many students started applying to come to our College of Medicine,’ the former VC stated.
‘Undoubtedly, Obi loves Education and he said it severally. He laid the foundation on which COOU stands today,’ he said, recalling also how Obi moved the site of the school from its initially proposed site in Alor to Igbariam where Obi said there was enough land. This was also as he recalled the renaming of the institution after Odumegwu Ojukwu by Obi in 2014 to commemorate Ojukwu’s Posthumous Birthday.
‘He was thinking about the good and welfare of the students of Anambra and beyond,’ Okafor said.
The former VC, a one-time seminarian who also taught at Bigard Memorial Seminary, Enugu, regretted that after Obi’s interventions, not much had happened in the school except during the time of Gov Willie Obiano when, he, Okafor, begged Obiano to include the school as part of the then government’s N20m Choose-your-Project Initiative for communities in the state. He said he wrote to Obiano, telling him that the school should also be considered as a community. This yielded fruit and the school got N20m and a project was done by people sent to the school by the state government.
