The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has pledged more collaboration with universities in the country so as to transform Nigeria into a knowledge-based economy.
Prof. Adeolu Akande, Chairman, NCC Board of Commissioners, gave the assurance when he paid a courtesy call on Prof. Sagir Abbas, the Vice-Chancellor of Bayero University, Kano (BUK).
The NCC Director of Public Affairs, Dr Ikechukwu Adinde, made this known via a statement on Sunday in Abuja.
“The NCC superintends a sector that is knowledge-driven and therefore, it can only achieve its mandate with enhanced collaboration with institutions such as BUK.
“In the absence of the citadels of learning, one could only imagine what would have become of the communications industry.
“So, if we come to Kano, we need to come to the prime centre of learning in Kano and other universities across the state,” Akande said.
Responding, Abbas said that the school management had to cancel all its engagements in order to receive the board, in demonstration of the high regards which the university had for NCC.
“The NCC Executive Vice-Chairman, Prof Umar Danbatta, has served the university diligently, as lecturer, head of department, dean and director.
“He was also a former VC of Kano University of Science and Technology, but wherever he goes, you find him relating to his base.
“We hold him in very high esteem and we are always happy to see him and his team discharging the national assignment he is saddled with.
“Bayero University is proud to be associated with him. We have no doubt that the board and management of NCC will enjoy him more, as he begins his second term in office,” he said.
The vice-chancellor said that the university had received donations of computers, iPads and other interventions such as professorial endowments from NCC, adding that all the interventions had positive impacts on the university’s academic programmes.
Abbas, however, appealed for more digital assistance from the commission to support the university in its efforts to accommodate virtual learning in its system, in view of the current global reality where ICT was being used as a medium for lecturer-student interaction.
