Professor Akeem Olawale Lasisi, a Professor of Ear, Nose and Throat Surgery, and former Chief Medical Director, LAUTECH Teaching Hospital, Osogbo, is the pioneer vice chancellor of the newly established Federal University of Health Sciences, Ila-Orangun, Osun State. In this interview, he spoke to MODUPE GEORGE about his leadership experiences, vision for the institution as well as its uniqueness, Excerpts.
Tell us about your new appointment at the Federal University of Health Sciences, IlaOrangun, Osun State
I left the University of Ibadan and I took up this appointment as the vice chancellor of Federal University of Health Sciences, Ila- Orangun, in February 2022. The university was created by the Federal Government in 2021, but the principal officers were announced in 2022. We took our letters on February 18, 2022 or thereabouts. Since then, we have resumed in the university and there have been quite a number of events leading up to the resumption of students.
You are a professor of medicine and even a surgeon. How do you intend to cope with administrative work?
I am a Professor of Medicine, precisely, a Professor of Ear, Nose and Throat Surgery. I major in the Middle Ear Surgery and Hearing Genetics. However, your function as a professor of surgery involves running clinics where you meet nurses, medical records and all sorts of people. You also do ward rounds. It’s not just that you go to the theatre; you also go to accidents and emergency wards. Basically as a professor, what you are doing is research and publication as well as accessing grants. That itself will get you across to a lot of diverse groups of people. You meet people in the community, like I have a study now, where we have been to virtually all the average towns and major cities in the South-West and North-Central of Nigeria. As researchers, we go to various towns; meet people, speak to deaf people and we take their DNAs. You meet diverse kinds of people, which I think is the best for this kind of engagement. By your calling, training and experience as a professor, you already have substantial experience in the running of academic institutions. I have been asked to run a university before and I have been in the university basically since I entered the medicine school in 1984. I’ve always been around the university. Also, as a professor, you have run through the ladder as a lecturer, senior lecturer and a professor. This would have given you the opportunity also to serve on several committees within the university and you would have served in professional academic associations. I have the fellowship of the West African College of Surgeons and we have credit centres. So, you know how centres and departments are supposed to be run. These are the experiences you want to put to bear in your position as a VC of a university. Although, let me say, it is not as easy as one thinks, particularly because this is a new university; so, basically what I have been doing in the last one year is trying to set up the name of the university itself in CBN, trying to open an account for the university, which is what an average professor wouldn’t have done.
When was the idea of establishing a Federal Health Sciences University in Osun State conceived?
Generally,specialised universities are the new things in the world, though not new as in new, Nigeria is just trying to buy in into it. We have specialised universities, like the University of Agriculture, University of Technology, but come home to the University of Health Sciences, which is supposed to serve as the training ground for producing work force in medicine and medical-related specialties, there are not many. The idea started much earlier than now. The first Federal University of Health Sciences is in Otukpo, Benue State. The process of establishing our own started in 2016, owing to the paucity of the workforce in the health care sector in Nigeria. The Federal Government of Nigeria came up with the idea of establishing more universities that will produce just these sets of workers so as to increase the numbers of workers available to man the health care of the country. The rationale behind the concept is that such institutions can come up with ideas that are novel with our own surroundings and increase research in diseases that are peculiar to our own environment. Then, you also know that the COVID-19 experience really exposed the underbelly of the country’s health sector. So, these entirely put together were the observations that made the government resolve to create universities of health sciences. Afterwards, there was an appointment of the principal officers such as the VC, librarian, registrar and the bursar. These four officers were to jump start the whole process of the university. The government had also acquired 500 acres of land for the university, but it is the responsibility of the principals officers to establish the name of the university, get accounts and create a vision for it as well as come up with a master plan which includes the survey of what the institution is going to look like at least for the next 20 years. We are also going to write what we call the academic brief which is going to be the anchor of the programmes the university is going to run. All of these will have an implication for staff needs which include the academic and non-academic and the other support staff, which is what we’ve been doing between February and March when we eventually took off.
Can we share your vision for the university and the plans you are putting in place to achieve them?
My vision is to have a university that is truly specialised; our focus will be on medical or health sciences. I am going to ensure that we major in Medicine, dentistry, pharmacy physiotherapy, microbiology, audiology and the other regulars. We will intensify research in these areas and this is the philosophy that is guiding our recruitment. Part of the vision is to also have a university that will be competitive in research in medicine and health care and that is going to directly impact society. As it is in our master plan and academic brief, we will put a lot of premium on research. So, in addition to those special programmes that we are going to run, we have also added a number of centres namely Centre for Reproductive Research, Centre for Hearing Health, Centre for Molecular Biology, among others.
The duration of the vice chancellor is just five years, so, my vision is that by the time I am living, basic infrastructures must have been fully established in the University. I will equally ensure that a good number of faculties have been established. I have also envisioned that with the four-year courses we should have been able to graduate at least one set and we would have also added relevant courses. For instance, we haven’t started Pharmacy yet, we should be able to start Pharmacy in the next one or two years.
How far have you gone with admission processes, and what other progresses have you made so far?
The university resumed academic activities on March 27. The students first of all did an online registration and they started lectures officially on April 3. Right now, we are running nine programmes; Medicine, Microbiology, Pharmacology, Audiology, Info-Technology, Medical Record, Nursing, Medical Laboratory Science and Biochemistry. The NUC approved about 50 intakes for us in each of the courses, except Medicine. For Medicine, the Dental and Medical Council of Nigeria in addition to that of NUC approved 100 intakes for us. Meanwhile, we have about 500 as quota from the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), but we were able to negotiate for an increment and it was approved for us. So, in the first year, we should be able to have about 700 students. Now, we have three faculties: Faculties of Science, Basic Medical Sciences, Clinical Sciences and Allied Health SciencesFor now, the university does not have a hostel, what we do now is a public-private arrangement for our students in the hostel. Our temporary site for the institution is part of the present College of Education in Ila-Orangun; we have refurbished a part of the building and we are able to get laboratories, lecture rooms, staff offices, library and a temporary health centre.
Right now in the university we have a temporary teaching hospital spring up through the intervention of the Federal Government. This year we are going to start the construction of our College of Medicine Building, Faculty of Allied Sciences and the multidisciplinary research building, while we will also complete the Senate building and the library. We already have a university health centre built by the SDG Office, which will assist in the health care of the students and staff. Our multidisciplinary research laboratory has also been approved this year. So, with what we have on ground, we can start with active research and can be competitive.
How many students have you in the university presently?
Presently we have about 400 students who have resumed fully out of the 500 quota that we were given, but we are still going to take about 150 to 180, who are going to join them latest in the next two weeks.
Running a health-based university is capital-intensive. Neither the tuition fee nor the government’s subvention is ever going to be enough, what other options are you looking at to generate more funds?
One of our plans is to get our research centres working so that they can be open for public use and our health centre too will be made available to the populace. These are going to be part of our Internally-Generated Revenue (IGR) sources. In addition to that, I have also envisioned that we will set up laboratories that the people in town will have access to and then, we can make more money. We have also planned that we are going to make some souvenirs for our university which will also give our students some self-worth. Like I said, I have been on the neck of the staff to access research grants. We have also been speaking to people, big companies to come partner with us, build structures for us, and fund certain programmes.
Where do you see this university in the next 10 years?
I want to see a university that is making good names in research and having good linkages with universities across the world. I want to see students to have graduated in all the programmes run by the university, while we would have added many more programmes.
As the pioneer VC, what would you do to ensure that the usual vices associated with institutions in Nigeria today do not creep into your infant institution?
On a general note, one of the things we are starting with is having a Psychiatrist (a behavioural Physician) in our health centre. This will also help with detection at the individual level, especially when the students are observing their health centre registration. I believe we can detect the people who are on drugs at this level, and upon detection we can bring them up for therapy. For the hostels, we have people who are monitoring what time the students are coming in and going out and we also have a time regulation whereby no one can come in after 10 o’clock. All of those efforts are for detection. However, we have not discovered any yet; if we do, we are not going to ask any student to leave. We are going to follow up on the defaulter but when the situation gets out of hand just like any other university, the penalty is expulsion. We also have security personnel who move around the school and overtime we are going to have CCTV cameras installed in strategic places within the university and the hostel areas.
