UNIBEN Like Motor Park with Uncultured Youths, Says Salami, Outgoing VC

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The outgoing vice chancellor of the University of Benin (UNIBEN), Edo State, Lillian Imuetinyan Salami, a professor of Food and Nutrition, at the weekend compared managing students of the institution to a motor park with highly uncultured youths.
Recall that Salami had suffered some indignities in the hands of the students who, on September 15, 2023, seized him while protesting a hike in school fees. The angry students took Salami from the vice chancellor’s lodge and forced to trek with them to the main campus gate to address them. However, when she became exhausted, she appealed to them to be allowed to use a vehicle to complete the journey after which a Toyota Hilux was provided but with two of the tyres deflated so that she would not escape.
Speaking at a thanksgiving service and book launch to mark the end of her five year-tenure as the 10th Vice Chancellor of UNIBEN, Prof. Salami identified inadequate funding, lack of personnel, and incessant strikes by staff as part of the challenges public universities in Nigeria face.
She also commended the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) policy of President Bola Tinubu, which she described as work in progress that still needed to be better administered to meet the needs of more indigent students who may not be able to meet their education needs financially. She said it was an avenue to bring those who don’t have the means to pursue their academic dreams on board.
In her memoir titled “So Much to Say”, Prof. Salami said, “Overseeing the University of Benin could well be compared with that of the motor park with some highly uncultured youths. The few who were from obviously decent well- mannered homes were often overwhelmed by the majority. At the slightest reason, even when such was unreasonable, they would head to the road to block the highway, preventing vehicular movements, causing traffic gridlock running into miles.
“The irony is that passers-by and parents always saw it as of benefits to them. Little or no wonder that reports reaching management often were that the students were instigated and energised by staff and those who regarded themselves as stakeholders or concerned groups. The fact is that the latter groups are not students but disgruntled individuals who in most cases had business in the University”.
Salami listed among causes of protests by students during her tenure, inadequate electricity provided by BEDC while the school used generators to provide limited hours of light, the death of a student who was admitted at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, as well as murder of some students within and outside the campus by suspected cultists.
She said,” NELFUND is trying to bring in equity, equality to everybody and for me, it is a process that is still in the works; we have not gotten there. There are a lot of things we are trying to get in place, trying to bring those that are outside into the system. We are still working on how to get more students to key into the system. We need to step up our game to bring a lot of people into the system.”
On her efforts to make the University of Benin a better institution than she met it”, she said “With all humility, I think I have done my best to rap it up. My prayer is that the University can grow higher than we met it. The challenges are the same as with other tertiary institutions, like funding, lack of manpower, constant strike by academic and non-academic staff.