Recently, the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB) emerged as the only specialised University in Nigeria that was rated top on the World Academic Ranking alongside the Premier University, University of Ibadan and Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. From all indications, the University is determined to sustain the feat and make its dream of becoming a World Class University a reality in a not too distant future.
To drive the vision of becoming a World Class University and in furtherance of the commitment of the University to its tripodal mandate of teaching, research and extension services, the Management of the University has constructed a dam with a capacity of 7 billion litres. This giant stride was disclosed recently by the outgoing Vice – Chancellor of the University, Professor Felix Kolawole Salako during an interaction with journalists at the beautiful campus of the University.
Professor Felix Salako, a Professor of Soil Physics whose tenure as the sixth substantive Vice – Chancellor of the University ends on October 31st emphasised the multifaceted benefits of the dam to the vision of the University towards attaining a World Class status.
According to Salako, the water dam would boost irrigation, domestic and industrial needs of the University.
“The essence of the dam is to provide water for the University community. Though, we have boreholes in different locations on campus and the cost of these boreholes is huge. Also, the boreholes can fail any time, but with the dam, the problem of water on campus will become a thing of the past.”
Water is a vital tool in ensuring a safe, hygienic and healthy environment particularly with COVID 19 and other diseases. Beyond this, adequate and regular supply of water to the laboratories will go a long way in driving the vision of the University to a World Class Status.
The FUNAAB Dam which is a 2018 Federal Government Capital Fund Project is also expected to boost food production in the catchment area using irrigation system while the teaching component of the mandate of the University will also be enhanced as students have hands-on exposure on irrigation principles and practices.
Despite the COVID 19 and other challenges which stagnated most activities worldwide and locally, FUNAAB has successfully completed many projects and would have done more but for paucity of funds.
According to the Vice-Chancellor, numerous projects worth billions of naira were embarked upon by his Management team since his assumption of office as the Vice-Chancellor in 2017.
In the opinion of the out-going Vice-Chancellor, the University is not averse to a collaboration towards maximising the benefits of the dam stressing that such collaborations however must be a win-win approach.
Salako who was apparently happy that he would be leaving the University better than he met it on becoming the Vice-Chancellor in November 1, 2017 further used the opportunity of the media interaction to encourage the next Vice- Chancellor to strive to complete all the projects his Administration would be unable to complete due to paucity of fund stressing that he would continue to work assiduously till his last day in office as the Vice- Chancellor.
According to him, all uncompleted projects that he inherited have been successfully completed and his successor would be fair to the system by completing all on-going projects in good time.
In his words, ” I want to believe that any person who is taking over will complete what we have started. We have completed all the projects we met on ground because we believe that Administration is a continuous process”
The Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta has always been blessed with Vice-Chancellors who do not normally struggle with marrying into the vision of the forefathers in terms of academic excellence and aesthetic environment.
It is widely accepted that the campus of the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta is one of the best with architectural designs and aesthetic environment that could compare with any University anywhere in the world.
