The President and Founder of University of Abuja Alumni, U.S., Mrs Ekeleoma Chuku, has appealed to all the graduates of the university in the USA for support.
Chuku, who made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in New York, said the association was about giving back to the society.
Chuku spoke to NAN after the association had hosted the Vice Chancellor of University of Abuja, Prof. Abdul-Rasheed Na’Allah, in the U.S. to discuss progress in mobilising support for the university.
“I’m reaching out to all the alumni in the U.S. to come and join us in the vision we have. It is all about reaching out to our alma mater.
“We know the situation in the university when we were schooling, so we should not pretend that it is rosy; if we had a better learning environment, better infrastructure, classrooms, we would have done better.
“We don’t want those coming behind us to suffer the same things we suffered when we were at the university,” she said.
According to her, the passion to give back to the institution where she did her first degree, Post-Graduate Diploma (PDG) and master’s degree, made her to establish the association in the U.S.
The president said the educational system in America motivated her to see how she could improve on her alma mater by canvassing and looking for donations to support the educational environment and resources of the university.
“We are reaching out to organisations that partner with universities to give support to our objectives, which is giving out scholarships to indigent students.
“We also want to help in infrastructural development such as building lecture halls, hostels and other infrastructure that are lacking in the university.
“We have plans on ground to reach out to donor agencies, who do charity works; it’s about giving back and helping humanity and that is the drive of everything that is going on today in U.S,” she said.
Chuku, however, commended the vice chancellor, who is a proactive administrator, for keying into the objectives of the association.
She said Na’Allah had bought into the association’s ideas because it tallied with his objectives too, to enhance the learning environment in the University of Abuja.
“We are partnering with King Baudouin Foundation and other organisations in the U.S. to see ways of harnessing opportunities that abound in the U.S. to help in reaching out to the university.
“We want to harness the opportunities so that they (students at University of Abuja) can have better environment to compete globally. We are happy that we made steps to achieve success towards that direction,” she said.
According to her, King Baudouin Foundation has made commitment by helping to harness these opportunities, by helping to reach out to other agencies for partnerships.
The president said the foundation would help the association source for some of these organisations that would help the alumni, noting that the foundation had been in business of supporting alumni all over the world.
“We believe because they have achieved success with other alumni, it’s going to achieve success with us.
“This is a giant step we have made with the presence of our vice chancellor in U.S to support our course,” she said.
NAN
