The Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVCNU), on Thursday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Kuhne Foundation to integrate logistics and supply chain into Nigerian universities curriculum.

The Secretary-General of CVCNU, Prof. Yakubu Ochefu, who said this in Abuja at a meeting with the foundation, added that seven universities had been selected to pilot the programme.

He said the MoU was aimed at strengthening the local capacities in logistics and supply chain management along the different higher education levels.

He said this also include developing competitive education programmes to meet international standards.

Ochefu said the universities are the First Technical University, Ibadan; Maitama Sule University, Kano; Lagos State University (LASU), Gombe State University, Gombe, among others.

He added that these universities had indicated interest to partner the foundation in offering the course.

“The MOU represents formalisation of a relationship between the selected Nigerian universities and Kuhne foundation.

“The foundation is part of the Kuhne group which is the largest logistics and supply Chain Company of the world, a global leader in logistics and supply chain company development to the world.

“This partnership that we have signed today represent their efforts at coming into the Nigerian space like they said, they have been operating basically in East Africa.

“Now, this is their first time in West Africa and the number justifies that investment.

“Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa when you translate that into logistics and supply chain, you will understand why the biggest player in the world wants to play in Nigeria,” he said.

Ochefu said the foundation had already engaged with the National Universities Commission (NUC), in the last one year to develop a curriculum for logistics and supply chain management in universities.

He said the foundation would support Nigeria in the training of manpower that would be able to teach the courses at the undergraduate level.

“What we have had in the past is transportation and as we all know transportation is the component of logistics and supply chain management.

“So, when they work with NUC to develop the curriculum at the undergraduate level, it is possible to teach logistics and supply chain at the undergraduate level.

“What we are doing here is to help train the manpower at the postgraduate level to be able to teach at the undergraduate level.

“However, we really don’t have qualified manpower for logistics and supply chain management to teach in the Nigeria university system.
“So, part of the training programme has to build that first for this seven universities and we will take it up from there,” he said.

The Country Director of the foundation, Mr Stephen Akuti, said that Nigeria must not be left behind considering the value of logistics and supply chain management to any economy.

Akuti said that the foundation had researched into why Nigerian universities do not offer logistics and supply chain management as a course.

He said that there was need for the country to key into the programme as it was the only means that could trigger economic development.

Akuti said that the foundation was ready to scale up its support for Nigerian universities in the training of manpower at the undergraduate level.

“There are a lot of value in logistics and supply chain education in the world generally and for the Nigeria education system.

“Basically, it is the way the world works, logistics and supply management in education works and we have been working in Nigeria for five years now.

“One of the things we’ve been doing underground is to research why this programme is not available in Nigeria educational system particularly at the undergraduate level.

“We’ve seen those reasons and so we are working with NUC and other stakeholders and today, we are signing MoU with CVCNU to move that level forward to bring those value to Nigeria,” he said.

The Vice Chancellor, First Technical University, Prof. Adesola Ajayi, commended the foundation for the gesture.
He said that the universities would domesticate the teaching of logistics and supply chain management as well as replicate it in other sectors like agriculture.

Prof. Samuel Odewunmi, who represented the Vice Chancellor of LASU, Prof. Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello, called for the inclusion of logistics and supply chain management into the school’s curriculum.

Prof. Ibrahim Umar, Vice Chancellor of Gombe State University, said though the programme may come with its challenges, the challenges would be profitable at the long-run.

He was represented by Dr Charles Zaure of the Gombe State University.

Umar pledged his institution`s participation in the programme.(NAN)