By Mahdi Waziri Isa & Japheth Adavize
The Vice-Chancellor of Gombe State University, Professor Sani Ahmed Yauta, has said the 37th Annual General Assembly Conference of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, CVCNU, has emphasized the need for financial autonomy and stronger collaboration between universities and industries to address immediate societal challenges.
Speaking to Education Monitor on the sidelines of the conference held at the University of Ilorin on Monday, August 18, 2026, Professor Yauta said CVCNU serves as the coordinating body for all universities in Nigeria.
“The Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, CVCNU, is saddled with the responsibility of coordinating the activities of all the universities. Vice-Chancellors come together to make sure that we help the universities. We talk with each other on how the universities can develop, and then we now contribute to the development of our nation,” he said.
He identified financial autonomy as a major takeaway from the deliberations.
“It has been agreed that universities need to have a kind of financial autonomy so that they can be able to sustain themselves. Universities are expected to source apart from government subvention. We are supposed to make sure that we create avenues for the universities to generate their income,” he stated.
The GSU VC said the conference also addressed leadership challenges and the need for strategic partnerships.
“We also discussed leadership issues that are bedeviling the nation and also the university system. A call was made so that people, more especially the Vice-Chancellors, can be able to understand leadership and how to carry people along and how to move the university forward,” he said.
On university-industry linkages, Professor Yauta said: “Linkages between the universities and industries were stressed and then Vice-Chancellors are urged to make sure that they collaborate with one another and then they link up with the industries within and outside their localities so that they can be able to solve the immediate problems we have as a society.”
He added that “the industry should come to the university and the university to see how they can be able to help them to solve some of the issues that they have.”