Equally, Pate was the immediate past Vice Chairman of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) Advisory Group and a Member of the National Research and Development Standing Committee. Before relocating to BUK as a Professor, he had 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. He headed the Mass Communication Department in that University for a total of seven years. Pate holds a PhD in Media History (Unimaid. 1997), Master of Philosophy in Communication Studies of the University of Ghana, Legon, 1990 and Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication obtained in 1987 respectively.
This versatile administrator was in November, 2017, was appointed 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. In addition, he is affiliated to several national and international organisations as well as the current National President of the Association of Communication Scholars and Professionals of Nigeria. He is an editorial advisor to twelve communication journals in and out of Nigeria and had variously served as an external examiner to over fifteen Universities in Nigeria and abroad. Some of the Universities are: Unilag, Ibadan, Nsukka, ABU, Covenant, Bowen, Jos, Awka, Enugu State, Leicester (UK), Tehran (Iran) and Makeni (Sierra Leone). He had served on several federal and state governments committees and currently chairs the boards of Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) in West Africa and the Pulaaku FM Radio station in Yola. He has working relationships with Universities of Ohio and Alcorn in the USA and that of Al-Ain in the UAE.
