Ghanaian Professor, Horace Campbell, has said that Nigeria is lucky to have National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) as the nation’s biggest institution.
The activist and erudite professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University, United States said this while speaking as a guest lecturer at the second Faculty of Social Sciences Public Lecture in Abuja, yesterday.
Speaking on the topic; “African University, Pan African Scholars And African Liberation: Focus On Linkages Between Reparation Justice And The Educational System,” Campbell said, “If you have a university like NOUN with half a million students then you have a big opportunity before you.”
He charged African institutions to take the bull by the horn by developing pan African based universities instead of creating European universities in Africa. “I’m using this opportunity today to call on Nigeria to be at the forefront of setting up the African Union liberation commission because the Africans have not carried forward the tradition of liberation that are supposed to be done for African unity,” he said.
The vice chancellor of the university, Professor Abdalla Uba Adamu said the university is expanding rapidly to be become one of the best institutions in the world. According to him, “The institution has recently enrolled about about 515,000 students across the country.”
On her part, the Dean of the Faculty, Dr Ganiyat Adejoke Adesina-Uthman said despite international organisations’ intervention in Africa to influence the direction of scholarly research in universities the continent still have some bad records.
