Universities must rethink funding to remain sustainable – ex-LASU VC - Punch Newspapers

In an interview with WALE AKINSELURE, Prof. Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello, who ended her five-year tenure as the ninth Vice-Chancellor of Lagos State University on Saturday, September 19, 2026, speaks on her administration’s achievements, challenges, unfinished projects, and vision for the university’s future When you assumed office in 2021, what were LASU’s major problems, and how far did you address them? The first major problem was that there was the piece of the graveyard in the university. People were not free; they were all choked up. Although there was no protest or anything, I sensed that people were not free. And I also saw that our students didn’t have toilet facilities. I made sure that those toilets were available. I made sure that we had toilet facilities for each faculty across the campuses, Epe Campus and Ojo Campus, but we had problems with IGR. We didn’t have enough money. We were in debt. Apart from owing money, there was no money to maintain the university environment. We used to have flood problems in LASU, and we decided to work on the drainage. So there were no more floods. We cleaned the drainage channels, and we no longer have that challenge. There were also academic programmes that were not accredited, or were about to be accredited, which we did. And I promised myself that every project started by my predecessor, if I could, I would finish. So, I put pressure on TETFund to finish all the projects. I put pressure on the ministry to finish all the projects, and that’s why most projects are finished, including the hostel accommodation. My predecessor started it, but we ensured that they were completed, despite the fact that there was a skyrocketing increase in the building cost. We also insisted that students must use the hostel as soon as possible. What were the lowest and highest points of your five-year tenure? My lowest point at LASU was when the students’ union protested in 2024. They were having a problem with CBT 18. There was a stampede. CBT 18 decided not to allow them to come in to do the exam, and I insisted that there must be a pen-and-paper exam. They agreed. We had the pen-and-paper exam. But when we, as management, sat, we thought we needed to pay off CBT 18. Everybody thought CBT 18 was LASU’s CBT centre, but it wasn’t. So we had to pay them off. But when we when we had when we decided that each student must pay N10,000, there was this protest. When you came out from the Senate building, we had thousands of students. It was a sea of heads, and they insisted that they were not going to pay that N10,000. We tried to persuade them. We came down to N5,000 and then N3,000. They did not agree. So I just said, “We are withdrawing that N10,000. Nobody is paying anything, but you are going to write your exam using pen and paper. That was the worst because I saw pain in the eyes of the students, and I knew that if I insisted and they turned back, they were going to destroy property. It was going to be something that would be very bad. And I didn’t want to answer queries from Mr Governor on how I managed the situation. And when the students were going, they were jubilating. The highest point was in 2025, when JAMB declared that we were the most subscribed university by UTME candidates in Nigeria; that was great for me. And this year, 2026, we maintained that number one position. And not only did we maintain it, but we were even awarded N25m for maintaining compliance with JAMB regulations. What challenges came with LASU becoming the most sought-after university, and how did you manage them? The first thing is the pressure on admissions. You need a whole holiday to deal with the pressure. That means, if you are doing your day-to-day work, you might not be able to do anything. So you need to take a few days off to work on the admission. We follow the rules and regulations of JAMB. Our admission is merit-driven- 70 per cent will be merit. Then we have 10 per cent for catchment, which is Lagosians. Although that 70 per cent still has catchment merit, then catchment general. Then we have another 10 per cent at the discretion of the Vice-Chancellor. Also, there is 10 per cent for direct entry. When we broke this down, we discovered that the majority of our students in LASU are admitted based on merit. That is the reason why we have a lot of brilliant, excellent students in the system. We have a lot of first-class and second-class (upper) students because the best of the best are taken. This year, you will marvel. We have students for our LASU screening. We have a lot of students scoring 90 per cent, 80 per cent. We have students scoring 92 per cent, 95 per cent. So when some people come to me and say that their children/wards did well, scoring 65 per cent, I just laugh. The best of the best students in Nigeria want to come to LASU.See more Punch stories on Google.Add Punch on Google You raised the university’s Internally Generated Revenue from N3bn to N13bn. What did you do differently? When I came in, I was going to defend the budget of the university. I was told that our dedicated revenue was N3bn; I was baffled. The present deputy chief of staff then queried that, with all the new programmes being introduced in LASU, I should be able to increase our dedicated revenue. And I said, I will try. He said Let’s push it to N7bn, and that was how we started. And by the end of that year, we had over N7bn. It gave me encouragement, so I set a target of N10bn the following year. And I had to tell my colleagues in the management that I’d already committed myself to N10bn. So, we brought in new programs with the SPT digital innovations. I challenged the DVC admin, who is the director of ICT. The digital aspect of our processes in the university brought in a lot of money for us. The ventures also brought in a lot of money. The consults from the diploma programs, all our partners, short-term courses, and so on brought in more money. We also introduced over 75 new postgraduate programmes. We explored all legal ways of bringing in money, and we made N10bn easily. And then, the following year, it went from N10bn to N12bn, and I was so scared of maintaining the growth. But then, when we got to the House of Assembly, they supported me, promising dedicated capital expenditure, and then the others. So they now gave me N10bn for one part, which is the one that we can spend on all the university processes, and then N3bn on capital, and that was a total of N13bn. I thought I would make N12bn, but we had to make N13bn, and we made it. But I don’t know if we are going to make it this year because we had to stop some programs. We reduced intake for the diploma programs, but it doesn’t matter. How can public universities achieve financial self-sustainability without relying heavily on government funding? Universities can achieve financial self-sustainability. If they can innovate and ensure improvements in the institution, money will come in. But then, if the money comes in, how do you spend it? Right now, LASU does not have financial self-sustainability. We may have increased our dedicated revenue, but we cannot survive. Our payroll right now is over N1bn per month. All the N13bn IGR does not cover our salaries. So, universities that want to attain self-sustainability will have to increase school fees into millions. Some secondary schools charge over a million per term, but in a university, you’re paying about N100,000 per year. You also have the universities maintaining the environment. You also have to pay bills: cleaning, electricity, security, diesel. We have an electricity bill of N140m every month. This is apart from over N1bn on salary. We also know what it costs to have inaugural lectures twice a month. There are so many other costs just for the day-to-day running of the university. We still have to augment salary payments with about N240m every month. So, any public university that wants to sustain financial independence will have to charge school fees of not less than N1m per student. You can’t have academic excellence without paying for it. I enjoin parents to ensure their children are well-educated by prioritising their fees. Good quality education needs money. What is LASU’s student-to-hostel ratio, and how did you tackle the accommodation gap The student population in the university is about 85,000, including postgraduate and part-time programmes. But at any point in time, on campus, we have about 12,000 students. And the accommodation is not enough for everybody, and it’s not peculiar to only LASU. It is our wish to accommodate all, but we cannot for now. So, some groups will be given priority, and it’s on a first-come, first-served basis. We have our own hostels, and we also have the ones that are jointly owned by Lagos State and our partners on a Public-Private Partnership arrangement. Right now, we are accommodating about 8000 students. Morning recap: Wike draws fresh battle lines with APC governors, Trump TV goes live, FG seals deal for 12 US helicopters, other top stories Return of ASUU strikes at state universities Illegal admissions, borrowed facilities: FG unveils new tertiary quality checks What strategy did you adopt to avert major industrial actions in the university? To lead LASU, you need the grace of God. You need to be patient. You need to be accommodating, and also you need to have an open-door policy. When I was at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, LASU was my case study on industrial actions. And the title of my project was “Incessant Strikes in the Nigerian University System, LASU, a case study.” So I deliberately studied LASU: what causes industrial actions? How do we manage industrial actions? And the recommendations from my project were what I carried out in LASU because members of all four unions filled out my questionnaires. I heard what they wanted, why they were always going on strike and what can be done to avert the strikes. And I implemented my findings to the letter. We have roundtable discussions. We meet with them frequently; they tell us their problems, and we were able to avert the problems from escalating to major strikes. What were your major research and innovation outputs as VC? We instituted a N5m competitive internal research grant for our academic staff. For the Lagos State Research and Innovation Council, seven of our staff from 2022 to 2025 were able to secure over N29m in grants from Lagos State. Staff in the School of Transport and Logistics and those of the Faculty of Management Sciences enjoyed the Volvo 100,000 SEK grant for the year 2023. Prof Akintola of Fisheries also won a number of grants in millions of naira. We secured a N3bn TETFund Centre of Excellence this year, and it is the only centre in the South-West. All our programmes are digitalised from admission to screening to certificate collection. You can go online to get your certificate within 10 minutes. We introduced an instant verification feature for the certificates so you don’t have to come back to us to verify your certificates. We attracted grants through research collaborations. We have a lot of collaborations locally and abroad. We have also started new courses that will help us with the research. Some centres are fully research-driven. Two striking points for me are that we have intellectual property protection for all the research done in this university. We also have a research ethics committee that will scrutinise your research and make sure that what you have is genuine and is worth showing off. Does LASU have an AI policy, and how is the university adapting to AI? We have an AI policy approved by the Senate, and every department has a copy. The policy emphasises the ethical use of AI and tolerance in terms of AI referencing. We encourage the use of AI, but it must be ethical and cited when used. It covers tools, perception and documentation. As a matter of fact, our university is the first in the country to have that policy because it was a decision taken at the Senate meeting of July 2022. And its usage has been deepened among staff and students, and it is binding. And that came after having a policy on plagiarism for both postgraduate and undergraduate students. And that has been implemented at the level of the ethics committee as part of what is considered before any clearance is given for any research. And that is what makes our outputs very original and continues to advance the research profile of the university. In addition, there should be regular review of the policy as AI develops. Are there things you set out to accomplish which you did not? I wanted a big Central Research Laboratory. I wanted a massive one like that of the University of Illinois, but it is still in the pipeline. We have a small one that we are renovating, but for the big one on my mind, I’m sure my successor will follow up on that. What would you like the Lagos State Government to prioritise concerning LASU? The first is that the state government should help complete the Innovation Hub, which will serve the environment. I want to see it completed and inaugurated. We also have one or two massive buildings that are still outstanding. If they complete it,  it will give LASU a better look. They should also help sustain the environment in front of the Badagry gate. You set out to make LASU West Africa’s best university. Did you achieve that goal? Yes. In years 2022/2023, we attain that feat of being the best university in West Africa using the sustainability green metrics, as adjudged by the Universatas Indonesia Green Metrics World Ranking, and in 2022, 2023. 2024, we sustained that first position in West Africa, and in fact, in sub-Saharan Africa, and this continued up to this year. We even went further to be given the vice-chairmanship on the table of the UI Green Metrics World Ranking. Wale Akinselure Olawale Franklin Akinselure is a journalist at Punch Newspapers with 12 years of experience covering education, politics, health, environment, judiciary, metro, and community beats. He specializes in producing insightful, wide-ranging reports that inform and engage readers. His reporting reflects practical newsroom experience, editorial insight, and a dedication to accurate, reliable journalism.

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