Earlyface

>If the authorities of the University of Ilorin accede to
suggestions by members of the institution's Drone Team, it
is highly probable that the University will, in future, monitor
examinations conducted within the campus with drones.
The drones, developed by a team coordinated by Prof.
Sulyman AbdulKareem of the Department of Chemical
Engineering, added colours to the just concluded 40th
anniversary/31st convocation ceremonies of the University.
Other members of the Unilorin Drone Team include Dr. M.T.
Yakubu of the Department of Biochemistry; Dr Baba a of
the Department of Physics; Engineer Eric and Mr. Ahmed,
both of the Department Electrical and Electronics
Engineering.
In separate interviews with Unilorin Bulletin last Thursday
(November 12, 2015), the Co-ordinator of the team, Prof.
AbdulKareem, and another key member of the team, Dr.
Yakubu, said that drones can be used to monitor the
conduct of examinations in future as well as general campus
surveillance in conjunction with the security personnel”.
According to Prof. AbdulKareem, “the use of drones has
come to stay because where you don't want to endanger
human life, a machine, which a drone is, can go there and
still get the information you need”. He pointed out that
“drones, rather than infringing on human rights, actually
protect human rights because the man who wants to do evil
and knows that a machine can remotely capture his act, will
not likely do it”.
The Unilorin Drone Team Coordinator, who is the immediate
past Vice-Chancellor of Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin,
disclosed that some academic departments in the University
have started showing interest in the use of the drone. He
said, “I believe that apart from giving practical knowledge to
those in Geography, Electrical Engineering and Physics,
virtually any Department that may have a reason to capture
events beyond what is in front of the camera, which has to
be aerially covered, can use the drone.”
Prof. AbdulKareem urged the University administration to
challenge people to do more “because there are lots of
students who are eager to learn and who have ideas that
they can put into practice if they have good supervision. He
said, “I believe it is a matter of encouragement. Most
Nigerian universities should be able to do wonderful things
and make major breakthroughs”, noting that some students
were co-opted into the team to learn how to operate or fly
the drones.
The Drone Team Coordinator enjoined the newly appointed
ministers especially for the areas of science and technology,
“to see a need for us to self-develop, self-evolve, and self-
emancipate as a nation”. He said, “For a long time now, we
have relied on personnel from foreign countries to bail us
out of every technical problem we get into, but the issue is
that, we have so many Nigerians that are trained abroad
that are here and even those who have not left the country
that are equally talented that should be encouraged to do
wonderful things for the nation.”
Prof. AbdulKareem maintained that the new ministers
“should see their appointments as a chance of working with
the academics in the educational institutions to promote
what will be good for the nation, to make the nation as a
whole self-reliant on personnel that are available locally.”
In the same vein, Dr. Yakubu said, “We can also use the
drone to monitor what is happening on our borders; we
have a very vast amount of land, and we can use it to track
activities that are going on there. Invariably, we can use the
drones to cover the entire University and in getting
information to the appropriate quarters. ”
The Biochemistry Lecturer, who urged the University to
ensure that the use of drones on the campus remains
functional and sustained, advised that “it should not only be
used during the convocation as we did last time, but we
should put it to all-round use on campus.
Dr Yakubu said that drones can be used to monitor the
conduct of examinations in future; we can use it for
surveillance on the campus and when you look at all these,
it will be of advantage to the whole University”, he stressed.