President Muhammadu Buhari, during the weekend, asked Nigerian universities to utilise their management skills to access international research and innovation grants and use their potential, even as Federal Government struggles to support universities in a COVID-19-affected economy.
Buhari, who talked at the 3rd conference of the Federal University of Petroleum Resources (FUPRE), Effurun, Delta State, stated that one of the biggest challenges faced by universities in Africa and Nigeria is grants, which he said was caused partly due to “the prevailing global economic adversities.”
The President, who was represented by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, stated Federal Government launched FUPRE as a specialised petroleum university in March 2007 as an institution of higher learning to teach middle and high-level skilled workforce and suitable expertise for the gas and oil sector in Nigeria and the entire world.
He further stated the government would not concede in its measure to confront challenges and authorised universities to “apply management skills to access multinational research and innovation grants and to exploit its enormous potential.”
The President, who also saw the installation of the paramount ruler of Remo land, Oba Babatunde Adewale Ajayi, as chancellor of the university, ensured FUPRE management that government would persist in delivering infrastructural, research facilities and equipment to promote teaching, learning and research, thereby improving growth and development of the university.
He criticised management for applying accountability and prudence in managing financial and material resources made available to the university as it develops creative methods to position itself as the one-stop training centre of excellence.
He further charged the university to take more measures to become a worldwide-recognised centre for attaining proper knowledge in the petroleum and allied sectors of the Nigerian economy.
More than 1400 students partake in the ceremony. The breakdown shows that 1201 are first degree holders, 101 are postgraduate diploma holders, and 107 are Masters’s Degree holders.
