The AUN-Atiku Institute (AUN-AI) clocked seven years this September. President Margee Ensign established the then Atiku Center for Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Development on September 17, 2014, to support and drive AUN's mission as a Development University.
"The Atiku Center will identify and coordinate all the University's development projects", President Ensign announced to the audience gathered inside the Robert Pastor Library and e-Resource Center. It is the only project the AUN Founder and former Nigerian Vice President, His Excellency Atiku Abubakar, GCON, allowed to be named after him, she added.
Seven years later, the AUN affiliated institute has quickly established itself as a dominant change agent in Northeast Nigeria, positively impacting lives, rebuilding communities and livelihoods. From a Center to an Institute, from a vision to a dominant regional force for change and development, from humble beginnings to dizzying heights of international donor trust.
On September 27, 2021, President Ensign directed a complete reintegration of the AUN-Atiku Institute (AUN-AI) with all aspects of the University's work, following approval by the Governing Council, per the imaginative blueprint at its beginning.
"Full integration will enrich research, teaching, and service at AUN and further enhance the quality and impact of Atiku Institute (AUN-AI) programs,” according to the statement signed by Professor Jacob Udo-Udo Jacob, Dean of Graduate Studies and Research, who heads the 11-member Oversight Committee appointed by the President to preside over the Atiku Institute and fast-track its full integration with AUN.
The Oversight Committee will report directly to the President and has been tasked with understanding current projects – including their scope and timelines; determining ways that current projects can be integrated into teaching, research, and community work; evaluating any new projects and recommending to the President which projects we will bid on; and, evaluating current employees and oversee hiring for any new projects.
The Oversight Committee is also charged with overseeing project spending, while the coordination of all marketing communications for the AUN-Atiku Institute, including web and social media presence, will be integrated with the University's and overseen by the AUN Marketing and Communications Department.
All AUN-Atiku Institute events will likewise be coordinated through the Office of University Events.
For the AUN-Atiku Institute, it is an inevitable return to the founding vision, as succinctly articulated by its pioneer Director of Research and SBE faculty member, Professor Alfredo Ocampo:
"A principal role for the Atiku Center is that of applied research and grant writing to support the Center and the University's activities".
The Institute can now fulfill that mission as a research laboratory where AUN students, undergraduates and graduates, alumni, and visiting researchers can apply themselves to researching developmental issues in the region while learning the rudiments of grant writing, Project Management, data gathering, and evaluation as well as implementation and report writing.
Professor Ocampo listed the projects which the Center was established to support: The Adamawa Peace Initiative, Science Technology and Math (STEM) projects in secondary schools in the entire Northeast region, the Yola EcoSentials, and poverty elimination.
"All required community development courses and volunteer activities will now be coordinated through the Atiku Center", said Ocampo, the soft-spoken national Poet of Columbia.
In its early stages, the Atiku Center coordinated all of AUN's developmental initiatives which impacted lives in the local communities. These included the Feed and Read program for vulnerable boys and girls, Peace Through Sports, Waste to Wealth, Create With Thread, ICT training for youth, digital sharing (Library on a Flash – LOAF), and financial literacy classes for members of the community. The USAID-funded Technology Enhanced Learning for All (TELA) became a major success story in educating out-of-school kids and the New Foundation School program was initiated to address the community reintegration and peculiar educational needs of the Chibok schoolgirls. AUN, in collaboration with the Adamawa Peace Initiative (AUN-API), launched an ambitious humanitarian and livelihood support program for IDPs numbering over 300,000 at the peak of the insurgency between 2014 and 2016.
The ambitious and visionary model agency, conceptualized by President Ensign to drive the University's numerous community engagement outreaches and provide a ready laboratory for faculty and student community-focused research, has since blossomed into an institutional force preferred by international donor partners to power aid and development in the Northeast region.
During these seven years of impactful existence, the Atiku Center, now the AUN-Atiku Institute (AUN_AI), has grown by leaps and bounds, coordinating donor aid and development projects to the tune of $12million, according to the Center's Administrator of Grants and Contracts, Dr. Audu Liman.
In 2014, the then Atiku Center rallied to assert its intent as a thought-leader in development ideas and narratives. It boldly announced the role to the larger national audience through the annual Atiku Center Lectures from which it generated fresh ideas and set the agenda in development issues enriched with national and international perspectives. The respected Latin American intellectual and development activist, Professor Martin Burt delivered the Center's first lecture in 2014, titled, "The Poverty Elimination Approach". Subsequent resource persons include Rwandan peace activist and community peacebuilder Ms. Felicite Rwemarika, whose topic was "Peace Building Through Sports"; while Professor Vrajlal Sapovadia delivered the 3rd Atiku Center lecture with the title: "Strengthening Nigerian Family Businesses to Promote Socio-Economic Development".
Nigerian financial investment advisor and Rhodes Scholar Mr. Ike Chioke was the guest speaker for the 4th lecture: "Review of APC Manifesto in the Context of Current Economic Realities". Arman Navasardyan, who spoke on "Humanitarian Coordination Architecture and Importance in the Context of Northeast Nigeria" was the 5th lecturer; Columbian politician Professor Edinson Delgado whose topic was "Economic Development and Global Leadership: A Colombian Perspective,” was the 6th.
The last lecture in the series, the seventh, was delivered on September 22, 2016, by two U.S. experts on African affairs, Carl LeVan and Matthew T. Page, who spoke on "Improving U.S. Anticorruption Policy in Nigeria". The two speakers would later visit the Atiku Center's Feed and Read camp on the North Campus where young girls participating in the program delivered stirring recitations in English to show off their vastly improved language skills.
Presently, the AUN-Atiku Institute (AUN-AI) is implementing three major donor-funded intervention programs in the region. They are the USAID-funded Strengthening Education in the Northeast Nigeria States (SENSE), an early grade reading intervention targeting 5000 teachers, 200,000 learners, and 100 education managers across Adamawa and Gombe states. SENSE took effect from March 2019 and ends in March 2022.
The AUN-Atiku Institute (AUN-AI) is also executing the Building Resilience Through Sustainable Agriculture project funded by the German Development Agency, GIZ, and the Livelihoods Empowerment for IDPs, funded by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).
History is a kind and attentive teacher, and the AUN-Atiku Institute (AUN-AI) has benefited from the continuity of numerous development initiatives of AUN. This is mostly true in the critical areas of education and livelihood support. The inspiration for donor confidence in the funding of SENSE can be traced to the successes of STELLAR and TELA. The Students Empowered through Language, Literacy, and Arithmetic (STELLAR) was AUN's foremost and most fundamental educational initiative that aimed at helping pupils in Adamawa's public schools stay and succeed in schools while beefing up foundation learning. STELLAR was the precursor to the hugely successful USAID-funded Technology Enhanced Learning for All (TELA) and the ongoing SENSE.
The goal was to raise academic achievement through a combination of one-on-one, after-school tutoring, the creation and dissemination of reading materials, and the use of technology to enhance learning outcomes. Thanks to the STELLAR project, AUN students have been able to learn firsthand the realities of the Nigerian elementary school system.
Under STELLAR, AUN students taking part in the compulsory Community Development Course (CDV 101) tutored pupils in public schools in Yola and Jimeta in math, English, and reading. Under the supervision of faculty, AUN students wrote and published children's books and literature in local languages. AUN students wrote Apps to further the learning objectives and used tablets to teach pupils in languages and arithmetic. Through STELLAR, pupils in neighborhood schools gained an opportunity to access free educational apps on tablets.
The Technology Enhanced Learning for all (TELA) was by far the most significant intervention funded by USAID. TELA provided much-desired access to educational learning to over 22,000 vulnerable kids, including those enrolled in formal schools but with poor performance records. SENSE has extended the gains of STELLAR and TELA and improved the learning environment in Adamawa State.
Reported by Dan Okereke