.The VC (3rd from left) flanked by other management staff and a student (3rd from right) who won a global award recently
The President/Vice-Chancellor, Babcock University, Ilisan Remo, Ogun State, Prof. Ademola S. Tayo has said the institution’s management has zero tolerance for cultism, drug abuse and other vices among its students.
He said this over the weekend during the hosting of members and excos of the Education Writers Association of Nigeria, their spouses and children at the varsity campus on Sunday.
The Vice-Chancellor who was supported by his wife, his two deputies and other management staff, said the institution always carried out due screening on any student “who seeks admission into the institution, especially when their ages are above that of the normal students on their campus.
He said, “We are very careful in our recruitment exercise. If you are 28 years old and you are seeking admission into Babcock University, we want to know what you have been doing from when you finished secondary school, maybe you have been rusticated somewhere. We do what we call screening for our students before admission.”
The VC added that the students also has a support centre which attend to the psycho-social aspect and the emotional well being of the students, and this centre is manned by professionals.
Prof. Tayo further explained that the university has close-circuit television and drones which are used for surveillance on the entire campus, and there is no hidding place for miscreants or unruly students because we have children of the highest class in the society (Governors, Supreme Court Justice, e.t.c).
.Some members of the Babcock University management and the excos of the EWAN
While he stated further that the students’ welfare and creating an enabling environment for learning ranked high in the school, he explained that the management ensured that the electricity on the campus now run on Independent Power Project in the school providing electricity 24-hours.
He added, “Every month we pay ₦95m on electricity. The electricity we use is from our Independent Power Project, if you look at our hospital we have a Cardiac Centre, which costs billions of naira.
“To sustain it, you need energy. People don’t need to travel abroad any more because you can do PCR test at our hospital. It is recognized by Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and all Nigerian Airlines.
“If you look across the road, there is a new structure coming up, that is our MRI scan centre. It is the first in the whole of Ogun State and it costs us ₦1billion.”
He noted that the institution has continued to attract topnotch academic staff which had necessitated growth and scholarship among the students population making some of them to win global laurels, while the lecturers too had also got international grants for researches to improve the society.
Prof. Tayo who said the media luncheon was put together to celebrate journalists and appreciate their daunting task in building the nation’s democracy, despite under precarious condition in which they carry out their constitutional role, he called on media owners in both print and broadcast genres to take good care of journalists in their fold.
The don bemoaned a situation where some journalists became hit by hard times and those they had helped to prominence through their works looked the other way.
He said, however that, “Moreover, access to accurate, credible, and balanced information is critical to democracy, because it enables citizens to make well- informed decisions and choices.
“I urged the media to devote more attention to issues of climate change, insecurity, unemployment, inflation, poor or lack of health care, inequality, and hunger than on politicians
“I use this opportunity to call on government and media owners to do more than they currently do to enhance the practice and living standards of Nigerian journalists.
“It is high time that lifetime retirement benefits for journalists were put in place. This will ensure more commitment of journalist to their profession and enhance standard of practice.
“We read of journalists who after losing their job, or after retirement or due to health challenge groan under the gruesome weight of poverty, and no one, not even those they helped to become popular or successful, would look in their direction. This is not the way to reward the men and women of the pen who have diligently served the nation.”
