The Rot I Met At LASU — Prof. Obafunwa

Since the tuition has been reversed, is there any plan to refund what the students have paid in excess?

We have already calculated it. Do not forget that a lot of them had paid their school fees for this session before the reversal. We have already calculated within what they have been paid in excess. We will soon get to the stage of refunding what has been paid in excess. I do not have the exact figure. But I can tell you that it is over N840 million. We will refund what has been paid in excess for this session. It will not be for two previous sessions.

With this reversal, will the university not go back to the old problems?

Not necessarily. There were reasons behind the original increase for those who were just coming in at that time. Going back to the old tuition regime will not necessarily amount to going back to the problems of the past. Like I mentioned earlier, you cannot go beyond the available infrastructure. With programmes that the professional bodies already specify the enrolment target, there is nothing we can do about that. If you have an increase in the number of applicants, that will give the university opportunity to admit the best from the list of applicants. So, I do not see any disadvantage in it as long as we look at the admission criteria.

Since there has been reversal to the old fees, how do you intend to bridge the gap?

With regard to our capital projects, nothing is really going to change. We are not going to have any abandoned project. We have got assurance from the state government. If you go to every site now, you will see that work is on-going regardless of the reversal to the old tuition regime. Governor Babatunde Fashola has already requested the House of Assembly to approve some money to take care of LASU situation. We were in the House of Assembly last week. That is already being handled. I believe we have an opportunity to ask for more. It is not just for the purpose of refunding money, but also for the purpose of increased subvention to tackle things like retirees and day-to-day running of the university among others. We expect positive result. The university remains much focused.

Like I said, we were in the state House of Assembly, the discussion was very cordial. That is not to say if we request for N100,000, they approve N100,000 for us. We have to justify everything we request for. One thing this administration is trying to do is to maintain a high level of probity and transparency. We expect that rational decision will be taken. We have already asked for increase in subvention. We have already asked for assistance to do certain things. We remain very optimistic that something will be done quickly. There is really no time.

Since your appointment as the Vice-Chancellor of LASU what have been your major challenges?

I actually grew up in Nigeria. I attended the University of Lagos. I did my postgraduate studies in Pathology. As far as my working career is concerned, I lectured briefly and went out of the country for about 14 years. I came back and joined Lagos State University based in the College of Medicine, Ikeja. I owe the state government profound gratitude. We were able to improve the place. We were able to achieve a status of making the medical school one of the first five in this country. I do not want to push it further. At the medical college, there were challenges. But coming to Ojo as the vice-chancellor, of course, there are greater challenges.