One of Nigeria’s most celebrated communications scholar and Dean Post graduate School, Bayero University Kano, Professor Umaru Pate has been elected Vice Chancellor, Federal University, Kashere Gombe State.
A well credentialed scholar, academic of international repute, Pate is the pioneer Dean, Faculty of Communication, Bayero University Kano. A Professor of Media and Society and an advocate of investigative journalism, Pate has won several international grants for the Faculty of Communication.
Pate’s stride includes the modification of Nigerian Journalism curriculum to address emerging trends in the industry.
The professor was very instrumental in securing a television license for the faculty of communication to operate a commercially viable television, an exceptional achievement among public universities in Nigeria.
Pate is committed to training and mentoring young journalists and academics from across the continent.
He’s authored many books and academic articles, presented several term papers across many fora in Nigeria and beyond.
Professor Pate before his appointment as the Vice Chancellor, was the Dean, School of Postgraduate, Bayero University, Kano and Chairman, MacArthur Foundation implementation committee.
Pate is a member of UNESCO Network of Communication Professors and he has been a household name in the media industry and the academia in Nigeria and beyond.
He is highly cited locally and internationally in the areas of peace and conflict, political communication, communication policies, media freedom, development communication, health communication, to mention but a few.
Since the coming of new media at the beginning of this decade, Pate has consistently and persistently been campaigning against FAKE NEWS- in view of potential danger to the unity and growth of multi ethnic and multi religious societies like Nigeria.
Before relocating to BUK as a Professor in the Department of Mass Communication, he served as a Professor in the Department of Mass Communication at the University of Maiduguri where he rose through the ranks beginning as a Graduate Assistant in 1988, an Associate Professor in 2002 and full Professor in 2007.
Professor Pate headed the Mass Communication Department in that University for a total of seven years. Pate holds a PhD, Master of Philosophy and Bachelor of Arts degrees in Mass Communication obtained in 1997, 1990 and 1987.
In November, 2017, Professor Pate was appointed by UNESCO headquarters in Paris as a Director representing Africa on the six persons Board of Directors of the prestigious International Network of UNESCO Professors in Communication (ORBICOM) with headquarters at the University of Quebec at Montreal, Canada.
Pate is an editorial advisor to more than ten communication journals in and out of Nigeria and serves as external examiner to over fifteen Universities in Nigeria and abroad.
Some of the Universities include: Lagos, Ibadan, Nsukka, Covenant, Jos, Babcock, Makurdi, ABU, Awka, Leicester (UK), Freetown (Sierra Leone) and Tehran (Iran).
He has been serving as a consultant to bilateral and multilateral agencies that include: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United States of Agency for International Development (USAID), British Department of International Development (DFID), National Agency for the Control of Aids (NACA), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Ford Foundation, NUC, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), Nigeria Stability Response Project (NSRP), Friedrich Ebert Foundation of Germany, Panos Foundation of Washington, the Trust Newspapers, INEC, NTA, FRCN, National Population Commission, the National Broadcasting Commission and several state governments. He has served the UN system in Afghanistan, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cameroon.
Prof Pate has variously worked with the news departments in Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) in Kaduna and the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) in Yola from 1981-1987.
Pate is a foundational member of the National Community Radio Coalition Committee since 1999 and the African Population Policy Council. He is also a member of the Policy and Strategy Committee of the Nigerian Institutes of Public Relations
Professor Pate is a widely travelled scholar that has, for example, in the last two years presented and published papers in Accra (Ghana), Helsinki (Finland), Dubai (UAE), Montreal (Canada), Instanbul (Turkey), Paris (France), Oslo (Norway), Gothenburg (Sweden), Jakarta (Indonesia), London (Britain), Freetown (Sierra Leone), Delhi (India), Lima (Peru) in addition to dozens more at several fora in the country.
He is a delegate at the Global Editors Forum held in Glasgow, Scotland in May this year as well as the Guest of the British Foreign Affairs Secretary, Jeremy Hunt at the just concluded Global Media Freedom Conference held in London this July.
So far, he has supervised and graduated twelve PhDs and 30 MSc candidates in the University of Maiduguri, BUK and the National Open University. He has also assessed numerous senior lecturers to become Associate and full Professors in different parts of the country and beyond.
Professor Pate is a senior councillor and ranking Kingmaker in the Adamawa Emirate Council where he is the Kaigamma (Chief of Army Staff).
He chairs the Board of Directors of Pulaaku FM Radio in Yola and serves on several other boards. In his career, he has applied and successfully won funding grants, at various times, from the Ford Foundation, National Agency for the Control of AIDS, the World Bank, OTI/USAID, UNESCO, Panos Institute of Washington, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Friedrich Ebert Foundation of Germany, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and MacArthur Foundation, among others.
Currently, he is managing a US$ 700,000 (N252 Million) grant he successfully competed and won for his Faculty from the MacArthur Foundation in 2017. He is the only scholar in Nigeria, among many others that competed and won the grant for his Faculty and University in the country.
Professor Pate has over seventy two national and international publications comprising of journal articles, book chapters, monographs and books published in different parts of the world.
At various times, he was published in books and journals edited by globally acknowledged communication scholars like Professor Ulla Carlsson, Prof Karl Nordenstreng, Prof Yves Theoret, Prof Ghislaine Azemard, Prof Betrand Cabedodoche, Prof Guy Berger, Prof Jerry Domatob, Prof Ike Ndolo, Prof Ikechukwu Nwosu, Prof Mike Temple, Prof Ralph Akinfeleye, Prof Lai Oso and many more scholars and professionals.
He is a recipient of numerous academic awards and recognitions from many institutions and organizations that includes the BBC World Service, Nigeria Institute of Public Relations, Society for Peace Studies and Practice, National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Nigerian Union of Journalists and the Federal University, Dutse, just to mention a few
