Prof. Elijah Adebowale Ayolabi

Prof. Elijah Adebowale Ayolabi is the Vice Chancellor of Mountain Top University, Prayer City, Ogun State. He is an alumnus of the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) where he obtained a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc) degree in Engineering Physics in 1989. He later obtained both his Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Geophysics from the University of Ibadan. A geophysicist, who has executed several environmental, engineering and exploration studies for reputable organisations, Ayolabi is a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants and the Nigerian Mining and Geoscience Society (NMGS). He also belongs to other professional bodies among which are the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE), Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) and Council of Nigerian Mining Engineers and Geoscientists.

He is a recipient of a number of scholarships, awards and honours among which are NAPE Outstanding Earth Science Lecturer Award (NOELA), 2020 and Thambo Mbeki Leadership Award for Excellence, 2015. In this interview with AYOYINKA JEGEDE, he speaks on issues around university education in the country.

According to the National Universities Commission (NUC), over 58 private universities were established from 2015 till date including Mountain Top University (MTU). How have you been faring?

Mountain Top University was established in 2015. We were given operational licence in March 2015 and we opened for activities in August 2015. We did our official opening in December 2015 and had a total number of 177 students during our first matriculation exercise.

We thank God that the Spirit of the Lord brood over this place and today there is no way anyone will enter here and not see that the Spirit of the Lord is actually at work because a lot of transformation has taken place between 2015 and now. As you can see, this is a growing university and expansion is almost on a daily basis.

We are growing daily and today our population has increased from 177 at inception to 1,600 currently. As we bring in more programmes, definitely the population will continue to increase.

Mountain Top University was ranked 11th based on the last ranking done by the NUC. We still remain the 11th best in the country. Among all the private universities, we are the sixth. We are the fifth in the South West geo-political zone.

Thus far, the Lord has been our strength and has been helping us. Thank God for the support from the Chancellor and the proprietor, Prof. Daniel Kolawole Olukoya, as well as the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries and all the friends of the university, who have been strong pillars of support from 2015 till now. Mountain Top University is envisioned as a dynamic centre of excellence in the liberal tradition for the production of top-rate, morally sound graduates of distinction, who will be globally competitive for outstanding impact on the Nigerian societal and global development.

We started with 15 programmes, which cut across two colleges – College of Basic and Applied Sciences, otherwise known as CBAS and the College of Humanities, Management and Social Sciences (CHMS), which is about three in one college. It will be split with time as we grow.

Also, our university runs postgraduate programmes in many disciplines and part-time programmes are also available. We also have a research centre known as the Centre for Genomics Research in Bio-Medicine. We are also doing very well in terms of providing research facilities and state-of-the-art equipment for teaching and research.

Thus far, with the help of God, we are faring well. When compared with those that were established at the same time with us, I am not sure any of them can compete with us. We have kept to being the best and we will continue to be the best and surpass those who have been in existence before us.

What is the state of infrastructure at the university?

By God’s grace, today we have the best of facilities when it comes to teaching and research. Virtually all our departments are equipped with state-of-the-art facilities, which can compete favourably with other institutions in the developed world. This is in line with the mission of the university.

For example, in Music Department, we have all the necessary musical instruments that are second to none in this country. Our Chancellor, Prof. D.K. Olukoya, has a lovely flair for music. Also, the church, Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries, is known for her dynamism and involvement with music. This has positively reflected on the activities of our Music Department and today we have the best of facilities. This cuts across other programmes.

Similarly, our Geophysics Department is well established. There is hardly any university in Nigeria that can boast of the kind of facilities that we have in Geophysics. This has earned us international recognition and our students can compete favourably with anyone, anywhere in the world today.

In addition, we have received support from private organizations. For instance, Schlumberger oversea gave us software support of 6.1 million U.S. dollars. Also, IHS and Paradigm Geophysical Emersion have been giving us yearly software support that is to the tune of four million U.S. dollars, which is available for the training of our students, aside from the modern equipment available in the departments and laboratories. This applies to Microbiology, Biotechnology, Biochemistry, Food Science and Technology, Computer Science, Cyber Security and Software Engineering. They are all equipped with state-of-the-art facilities for teaching and research.

What distinguishes Mountain Top University from other private universities?

We have a number of things that are peculiar to us. Number one, we have a programme known as Every Student a Musician (ESM). What that implies is that any student passing through Mountain Top University must have learnt to play one musical instrument before graduation and this really has been yielding massive positive results. Every student in MTU knows how to play at least one musical instrument in addition to their degrees and during holidays, they go to event centres or churches to play for them and this has become a source of income to our students. In addition, it is also a way of improving on their Intelligence Quotient as this really has been helping.

We also have an entrepreneurial centre where our students are trained to become employers of labour, to know how to think out of the box, create their own jobs as well as become solution providers.

At the centre, we have a vocational unit which provides opportunities for all our students to learn and master at least two vocations. This means that any student graduating from MTU would have learnt how to play one musical instrument, will have a degree to go with and will also have two vocations to go with. It also means that if the certificate does not immediately bring the desired result, the vocation must bring something. Our students must be able to use their hands to create wealth for themselves and if that doesn’t work their musical knowledge will work.

In actual fact, years ago, we went for a competition and our students won N1 million on playing of musical instruments. This has been working well and has made our students to be peculiar and unique. We are unique in our approach to things and we are much delighted in practical approach to things and identifying the problems and providing solutions. This is one of our distinguished features.

In addition to that, in MTU, we ensure the spiritual transformation of our students. It’s not only academic training alone, we also provide them sound moral training as well as spiritual transformation such that if they acquire their certificates, they would have also been built up morally. People like that eventually become Daniel for our country.

We train our students to bring the desired transformation that this nation actually needs at this point in time. Our environment is internet-enabled almost 24 hours of the day. We have 24 hours Smart Library for students which they can access from their rooms because they all have tablets that can navigate through the Smart Library. Our lecture rooms are air-conditioned, have smart boards and are internet-enabled. Operational smart boards mean that we can get anybody to teach from anywhere; all we need is to hook up to the internet with the smart board and the lecturers and students can interact.

What’s your staff strength like because most private universities do not have staff?

“Private universities do not have staff” is not an accurate statement; “they don’t have enough staff” will be a more accurate statement. There is no university that doesn’t have staff but having staff is different from having sufficient staff and there is no university in Nigeria today that has enough manpower in terms of academics to run their programmes. One way or the other, we all depend on one another to run. However, there are some minimum benchmarks you must have before NUC gives you approval.

As far as we are concerned in MTU, we have surpassed those minimum requirements. We ensure that we have full time staff in all our departments and in some critical areas where adjunct staff are needed, we can easily get them from our neighbouring universities. We have about 120 academic staff members, including 10 professors.

Most private universities are termed as ‘glorified secondary schools’ and can’t be compared to government owned universities. What’s your view on this?

There are number of academic staff that you must put in place for any university to get approval from NUC to run its programmes. This shows that they are more than glorified secondary schools.

In any case, if you compare private university with public university, and if you remove TETFUND from public universities, you will see that most of the private universities are better than them. Government should also grant access to private universities to secure TETFUND grants for research and development. That will go a long way. If TETFUND is open to private universities, I can assure you that a good number of private universities will do far better than public universities.

Government should also look at the aspect of providing student loans to all students who are interested in getting university education, irrespective of whether the students are from public or private universities. This will also improve the enrolment with some of the private universities.

In terms of structures, you are expected to have the required laboratories for science-based programmes, required equipment, teaching staff must be available; you must have a minimum of six before you start. You must have a Professor, a Reader, a Senior Lecturer, Lecturer I, Lecturer Il and so on.

How are you coping with the hard economic situation in the country looking at the enrolment in private universities?

As of today, the tuition fee for a science-based course is N520,000 while that of art-based courses is N460,000. But that is not sufficient to run the system because power consumption alone takes several millions out of our resources. For now, we still depend on the support from the proprietor that is the Chancellor, and friends of the university, who from time to time provide needed support.

We also ensure that we maximise what we have and ensure probity in whatever we do. There is no room for wastage. We are also looking for cheaper alternatives in terms of power supply. Hopefully, if we can beat down the cost of power, that will help us a lot to manage the tough economic condition in the Nigeria.

Where do you want the government to come in to support private universities?

Government should provide a level playing ground for all the universities including private universities in terms of support from TETFUND, knowing fully well that our products are the same. Even to some of us in private universities, our products are far better than some of the products from public universities.

JAMB registrar recently said enrolment figure in all private universities is not up to enrolment in one federal university. What’s your take on this?

The reason for the dichotomy is that in government universities you don’t pay fees; it’s almost zero. However, in private universities you pay fees. Therefore, many people will prefer to go to where they will not pay. Bulk of the people that attend private universities are those who understand the value of education, those who know that to get the best you just must pay for it one way or the other; that’s why the difference will always be there. May be when the public universities too start charging fees, that gap will reduce; but for now, in actual fact, most of the applications year in and year out are in favour of public universities. I am not sure private universities have taken more than 10 percent of their admission quota all together because people prefer to go to where they will not pay.