The Accountant General of the Federation, Alhaji Ahmed Idris has vowed to continue to support Yusuf Maitama Sule University, Kano (YUMSUK) for the institution to continue to wax stronger as he already secured an intervention from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for it.
The Accountant General made the disclosure when he received the management of the university on courtesy visit led by its Vice Chancellor, Prof. Mukhtar Atiku Kurawa at the Treasury House, Abuja, recently.
While congratulating the Vice Chancellor over his appointment, he commended Prof. Kurawa for his efforts in uplifting the standard of the institution, describing it as young but fast growing due to resilience and doggedness of the new Vice Chancellor.
According to him, running university is capital intensive, as such it needs a lot of resources, saying that for establishing university, structures are needed to be put in place, in addition to academic excellence.
He recalled that part of the requests from the university to his office included provision of hostels, a clinic and a multi-purpose laboratory, assuring the management that he would continue to give modest contribution to the university.
A statement by Abdullahi Abba Hassan, the Head, Information, Publications, Protocol and Public Relations Unit of the university quoted Idris saying: “Out of all the higher institutions in Kano, I consider your university for my greatest support.”
As a member of the Board of Directors of the CBN, who is entitled to development intervention in all parts of the nation, the Accountant General told the team that he would continue to use the position to attract development to the institution.
While noting that the challenge with the nations’ universities is funding, he challenged their leaders on revenue generation.
“Be innovative, think out of the box to devise means of generating revenues, for instance, through capacity building and consultancy,” he said.
He used the occasion to congratulate the University for receiving approval from National Universities Commission (NUC) to commence postgraduate programmes.
Earlier, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Kurawa had expressed appreciation to the Accountant General for what he has been doing to the university.
“Your support for CBN intervention is appreciated,” he said, recalling that already Needs Assessment Team has come and assessed the needs of the university.
The Vice Chancellor said the university presented three projects for the intervention. They are student’s hostel, university clinic and multi-purpose laboratory.
In addition to the CBN intervention of developmental projects secured for the university by the AGF, Prof. Kurawa also explained that the university has recently received a consignment of books from the Accountant General worth over N3 million as his donation to development of education in the institution.
He told him that NUC has approved commencement of 34 postgraduate programmes in the university, adding that recently, the institution had received resource verification teams for more postgraduate programmes.
In another development, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Kurawa has visited the Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Prof. Suleiman Elias Bogoro in Abuja, the Capital Territory.
During the visit, Prof. Kurawa thanked and appreciated the efforts of the TETFund Executive Secretary for the projects being executed in his institution.
He invited Prof. Bogoro to come and commission the projects executed by the TETFund in the university, calling for more interventions from the organization.
Responding, Prof. Bogoro expressed delight with the visit, hailing the Vice Chancellor for his leadership qualities.
While assuring for more project intervention in the university, he assured to fix time for commissioning of the projects.
The Vice Chancellor also visited the Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Malam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi where they discussed extensively on IT infrastructure development and human capacity building for the university.
Similarly, at the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), the Vice Chancellor also visited its Director General, Prof. Abdullahi Mustapha, with a discussion on collaboration between the university and the agency on area of advancement of biotechnology for the promotion of socio-economic development.
