American University of Nigeria

By Sabiu Abdullahi

Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has defended the establishment of the American University of Nigeria (AUN) in Yola, Adamawa State, after an X user questioned his efforts to address the Almajiri crisis in northern Nigeria.

Atiku, who is the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate, said the university was established as part of his efforts to promote education and development in the northern region.

The exchange followed a post by Atiku in which he criticised President Bola Tinubu’s administration over the economic hardship facing Nigerian youths.

An X user, @Oluwabunmi63697, responded to the post with a photograph of Almajiri children carrying plates and asked Atiku about his record on the issue.

“Have you ever addressed this, sir? You were VP for 8 years, these innocent children are in your region and you couldn’t do anything to stop this calamity,” the user wrote.

In his response, Atiku acknowledged the concern and said the condition of children who beg on the streets should worry Nigerians.

“The sight of children begging on our streets should trouble every Nigerian,” he said.

The former vice-president explained that his decision to establish AUN in Yola was driven by his desire to expand access to quality education and create opportunities for people in the region.

“I established the American University of Nigeria as a practical investment in education and the development of the North,” Atiku wrote.

“If profit had been my primary motivation, I could easily have located the university in Abuja or Lagos, where the commercial advantages would have been greater.

“I chose Yola because I wanted to invest in my people, create opportunities, and bring world-class education closer to a region that had long needed greater access and development.”

Atiku also disclosed that AUN was no longer under his personal ownership. He said he had transferred the institution to its host community.

He said he had “signed a deed of gift transferring the ownership to the university host community”.

AUN’S SUPPORT FOR ALMAJIRI CHILDREN

Atiku also cited some programmes associated with AUN as part of his response to the concerns about Almajiri children.

According to him, the university runs a “feed and read programme” for vulnerable Almajiri children. The initiative provides them with daily meals while helping them acquire basic literacy and numeracy skills.

He further said AUN had used educational radio programmes to reach displaced children affected by conflict in the North-East.

“ AUN has helped more than 20,000 internally displaced children learn to read through educational radio programmes,” he said.

Atiku also recalled the support the university provided to young women who escaped from Boko Haram captivity after the abduction of schoolgirls in Chibok in 2014.

He said the institution offered scholarships to some of the girls to enable them to continue their education and rebuild their lives.

The former vice-president maintained that children should be in schools rather than on the streets.

“Whether in government or outside it, I have always sought to turn that conviction into practical action,” he added.

By Ahmadu Shehu, PhD.

Recently, my friend Dr Mohammed Dahiru Aminu took a step further in realizing his promised greatness. He joins PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as Manager in Sustainability and Climate Change consulting. PwC is one of the ‘big four’ accounting/management consulting firms and the world’s second-largest professional services networks, operating in 157 countries with over 742 locations. The annual revenue generation of the company is around $42.4 billion, which is greater than Nigeria’s annual budget.

Dahiru, as he is known and called by persons close to him, was born in Yola to Dr Aminu Raji’s family, a descendant of Modibbo Raji—one of the most prominent 19^th-century Islamic scholars in northern Nigeria and the most important scholar in the Fombina emirate. Dahiru earned a bachelor’s degree in geology from the University of Maiduguri and a master’s degree in petroleum engineering from London South Bank University. In addition, he holds a PhD in carbon capture and storage from Cranfield University.

Upon completing his master’s degree, Dahiru launched a career in academia as an Assistant Lecturer at the Modibbo Adamawa University of Technology before moving to the American University of Nigeria as an Assistant Professor of Petroleum Chemistry. Brief as it may seem, Dahiru’s academic career is a story of success. He is amongst the world’s first generation of PhDs in the emerging carbon capture and storage area and has produced consequential papers in the leading journals in that discipline. One of his papers, entitled “A review of developments in carbon dioxide storage”, published in Applied Energy—a leading journal within Energy and Environmental Science—is arguably the broadest published paper in the open literature on any aspect of carbon dioxide storage. Other contributors to the article were Professor Vasilije Manovic and Dr Syed Ali Nabavi of Cranfield University, and Dr Christopher A. Rochelle of the British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham, UK.

Because of the paper’s relevance within the field, it won an award as one of the most cited papers ever published in Applied Energy since the journal’s inception in 1975. The award was announced at the International Conference on Applied Energy (ICAE) in 2020, which was scheduled to hold in Bangkok (Thailand), but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the event was held in a virtual conference in December 2020.

Similarly, all chapters of Dahiru’s thesis, completed under a research program entitled “Carbon Dioxide Storage in the UK Southern North Sea: Experimental and Numerical Analysis”, were published in leading scientific journals as the International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control and Heliyon.

Dahiru has also been actively involved in community service and is a member of several advisory boards, councils, and committees. He is a member of the Roster of Experts of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Bonn, Germany; and serves as member and secretary of the Working Group on Solid Waste Management for implementation of the Nigeria Climate Change Response Programme (NCCRP), Federal Ministry of Environment, Abuja; amongst others.

Although Dahiru’s scholarly achievements in academia were remarkable, nonetheless, those of us who know him have always felt that the academic career path was a transitional phase. His expertise would be better harnessed for the more public good in the private or policy sectors, where he could apply his training and knowledge in a more instrumental setting. This move should also offer him greater visibility and voice in meaningful African conversations around sustainability and climate change.

Beyond academia, Dahiru’s profile reaches into the arena of public commentary and public service. He is one of Nigeria’s prolific and influential young public intellectuals. His writings and talks on national issues and sharp analyses and prognoses of Nigeria’s economic and developmental challenges are as informed as they are illuminating. He publishes opinion pieces in Nigeria’s leading online and traditional newspapers. He is also a visible and strident voice in Nigeria’s vibrant cyberspace. As Dahiru joins the world of consulting, where he will work on finding solutions to the problems posed by climate change as one of humanity’s greatest challenges, he will undoubtedly deploy his expertise and experience in a more hands-on approach, now more than ever.

Dr Ahmadu Shehu holds a PhD in Linguistics and writes from Yola, the Adamawa state capital. He can be reached on ahmadsheehu@gmail.com