FUT Minna gets new VC

Five years after appointment crisis hit the Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger state, an indigenous Vice Chancellor was on Friday inaugurated by the school’s Board.
The new VC, Prof. Abdullahi Bala, who is the seventh,‎ vowed while accepting the appointment, to work assiduously in sustaining the progress and development in the University as already established by his predecessor.
The former Deputy Vice Chancellor Administration said shortly after his inauguration that his administration will be guided by three cardinal principles of obeying the laws of the land, good governance and global best practices that will take the university to its greater height.
Bala said: “We shall take decisions that are in the best interest of the university.
“We shall work hard toward assembling the best team to realize our set objectives.
“We have witnessed tremendous growth and development, especially in the last one and a half decades, in the areas of healthy staff and student population of about 25,000, with the university now ranked fifth among the specialized universities in Nigeria and 45th out of 4,245 universities in Africa.
“Also, inadequate financing has often been the bane of most developmental plans.
“Ours is unlikely to be different given the low allocations usually made by government to universities.”
Bala, however, assured that his administration will work towards improving Internally Generated Revenue to augment whatever the government provides, adding: “We shall also aggressively work towards blocking financial leakages.”
Earlier in his valedictory speech, the outgoing Vice Chancellor, Prof. Musbau Akanji, expressed confidence that his successor has the pedigree to move the university to greater heights.
Akanji, while thanking the Federal and Niger State Governments, the university community, the staff and the students for the harmonious working relationship in the last five years, said he was leaving the university a fulfilled man.
He said: “When I was sworn in five years ago, it was under a very tight security, with every where under lock and key, but despite that I was able to weather the storm.”