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By Tom Chiahemen, Senior Correspondent, Abuja

None of Nigeria's 75 universities fell within the first 50 bracket in the latest Webometric ranking of "Top 100 African Universities" released on Monday.

Five of the nation's "first generation" universities, which made the list of 100, however came far behind universities in such small countries as Malawi, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Burkina Fasso, Buaro, Uganda and Ghana.

The result of the ranking, released in Abuja through the National Universities Commission (NUC), showed Nigeria's premier university, the University Of Ibadan (UI), placing 57th, followed by the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile - Ife (69th), University of Benin (78th), University of Lagos (90th) and University of Jos (98th).

In the "Top 1000 Web-Ranked Universities," the United States and Canada produced a total of 129 universities within the Top 200 category and 455 within the Top 1000 category. The performance of other continents showed that Europe had 55 universities in the Top 200 and 358 within the Top 1000 category; Asia (seven in the Top 200 and 80 in the Top 1000 category); Oceania (six in the Top 200 and 38 in the Top 1000); Latin America (three in the 200 and 21 in the Top 1000) and; Africa (none in the Top 200 and six in the Top 1000 category).

One of the first reasons why Nigerian universities ranked so low on the Webometric measure, according to Executive Secretary of the NUC, Prof. Peter Okebukola was the scant attention paid to presenting the findings of research conducted by scholars in Nigerian universities in a Web-searchable form. "Our sin in this context is that such research outputs are not domiciled on the Internet, published in electronic journals or abstracted in a way that the Internet Lab search engineers can locate," he lamented.

He claimed that the universities that shoved Nigerian universities to the back row were "those with lesser research outputs but with better Internet showcase of their comparatively fewer publications."

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FG to licence 75 more varsities
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday said the Federal Government will approve additional 75 state and private universities, and commended Gombe State Governor, Alhaji Danjuma Goje, for establishing the state university.

Obasanjo, who is on a two-day visit to the state, said investment on education was a good one.

He said, the Federal Government would continue to encourage state government and private individuals to establish more private universities.

According to him, "our study has shown that we have presently 75 private universities, but we still need about 75 more adding that some of the so-called old universities are not living up to expectation.

Obasanjo said he was impressed after receiving brief from the Vice Chancellor of the Gombe State University, Proessor Abdullahi Madhi, adding that it was good to establish a unique private university with high standards than mega universities that are not recognised.

"We expect high standards in these private or state universities," he said, and advised the 500 pioneer students to count themselves lucky and endeavor to come out in flying colours.

He said the essence of their studyi is to learn how to contribute their quota to the Federal, State and their local councils and move the country forward.

Obasanjo said "not all of us can be president, but you should be ready to make your contribution to the Federal, State and your area. To whom much is given, much is expected."

Places Obasanjo is expected to visit include the N 1.25 billion Gombe Airport, Gombe State University, Specialist Hospital and School of Nursing, as well as the Emir's palace.

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