A Review of Professor Okecha’s Book
By Moses Oludele Idowu
Title : The Nigerian University System: Downswings and Way Forward
Publisher : Sterit Consult, Abuja
Pagination: 200
Price: N5000
Reviewer : Moses Oludele Idowu
A Nation’s Slide into Educational Disarmament
“Beyond the fanciful gates are horrible classrooms; slums called lecture theatres; dry taps, empty chemistry laboratories, engineering departments equipped with tools donated by Adam and Eve; libraries full of outdated books and journals; dearth of municipal facilities…In some institutions, staff and students use the surrounding bushes as toilets…”
If the above had been penned by an outsider we should be justified to consider it a libel against the Nigerian University System. Alas, it is taken from a book written by a man who had known no other job except teaching, who had worked in no other places except the university and who knows the university more than the palm of his own hands. Steve Okecha is a scholar of the finest breed, one of those remnants of the last order of dying generation and specie of the rare breed of teachers who saw the university in its glory and also witnessed the decay.
He is a professor, the brother of a professor and the husband of a professor. So we need to listen to him because he knows what he is talking about when he speaks on the Nigerian University System. He has taught a whole generation of students both at graduate and postgraduate levels one of which became the president of Nigeria – Musa Yar’Adua.
He enjoys his retirement today in a village around Iruekpen in Edo State but he is not happy about the State of the Nigerian University. When having read my viral article on the ranking of Nigerian Universities he placed a call to me and in a brush manner quipped: “Stop wasting your time about ranking, the Nigerian University System has collapsed.” If knowledge is a weapon and education is the means by which we get this weapon then, sadly,
Nigeria is on a voyage to educational disarmament.
If an enemy has done to Nigerian University System what Nigerians themselves have done- both policy makers, politicians, lecturers themselves – we would be right to consider it an enemy action. That is the irony of it: Nigerians themselves destroyed the university.
Steve Okecha has placed us and future generations in his debt by writing a book, a very provocative book detailing his experience as a teacher, scholar, external examiner, Head of Department, Dean, Provost of school and even once as acting Vice Chancellor. He wrote the very blue print that led to the formation of Delta State University when he was still at Ekpoma; yet even for all these he was disallowed from being a Vice Chancellor due to tribalism – one of the vices discussed in this book as bane of genuine scholarship in the university today.
_The Nigerian University System: Downswings and Way Forward_ hereinafter referred to as simply _Downswings_ is made up of 14 chapters. Chapters 1-4 deal with structure and content of education; chapters 5-8 dwell on issues in the Nigerian University System today and chapters 9-14 dwell on the ills, plagues afflicting the university and the way forward.
Even though we have never met in person we are in agreement that the “idea of the university” as propounded and conceptualised by John Newman or even Masefield is now lost in Nigeria. I had written this elsewhere in an article, strangely he too made the same conclusion in this book. That was in fact the reason he got in touch with me.
The Day of Glory
Although the Nigerian University System is now ailing from every direction there was a time when that university revel in a blaze of glory. This book also noted this. Those were the days when journals of Nigerian University were highly regarded world over like the _Ibadan Journal of Historical Society_ and _Savana_ of Ahmadu Bello University Zaria. Those were the days when the Senate of University of Ibadan refused to grant the desire of the Visitor, General Gowon to confer a doctorate on visiting Ethiopian leader Haile Selasia not even with the appeal of Chairman and Council. Those were the days when Professor Ojetunji Aboyade then VC of Great Ife stood against the Military Government by refusing to submit any name of radical lecturers for sack during the misguided 1978 purge.
Those were the days when Professor Ade- Ajayi refused to obey the Government to sack the Students Union preferring to lose his position instead. No Vice Chancellor can do that today.
Likewise in the 1960’s some scholars of the then University of Ife decided to resign than submit to the tyranny of the Akintola- led government which they considered illegitimate. The Sam Alukos, Hezekiah Oluwasanmis, etc. Those were men of honour, scholars of the highest grade.
That is not possible today due to so many reasons. The decline of Nigerian Universities has started.
Autonomy
One of the issues addressed in _Downswings_ is autonomy of the university. The author rightly observes that since the 1970’s “there had been an alarming infringement on the autonomy and academic freedom in Nigerian Universities”.
He defines autonomy as that “freedom granted each university to manage its internal affairs without undue interference from outside bodies, persons, or most especially from the government that sustains it financially.”(p.37) Thus, real autonomy involves “democratic self-government through committee system…that all members of the academic community shall have right and opportunity without discrimination of any kind to take part in decision-making affecting academic and administrative matters.”(p.38). By that definition no private university can have or experience real autonomy and even most state universities too lack it.
This chapter also discusses the various Declarations of right to academic freedom which every scholar ought to know. The Lima Declaration on Academic Freedom and Autonomy of Higher Education, the Kampala Declaration on Intellectual Freedom and Social Responsibility (1990), the Dar-es- Salam Declaration on Academic Freedom. Article 1 of the Kampala Declaration says: “Every person has the right to education and participation in intellectual activity.”
Article 3 states that “no African intellectual shall in any way be persecuted, harassed or intimidated for reasons only of his or her intellectual work, opinions, gender, nationality or ethnicity.”
The sad reality today is that even the scholars themselves are in violation of this Declarations. I have heard stories of staff victimised because of opinion expressed which a Vice Chancellor, himself a scholar, believes is adversarial or mutinous.
Cases of violation of university autonomy has been documented in the book. The appointment of a sole administrator for ABU Zaria by Sani Abacha junta,(p.46) the forceful extraction of an apology in newspaper from Vice Chancellor of Delta State University by the House of Assembly (p.49), the enthronement of a Special Intervention Team (SIT) to replace the Council of Ambrose Alli University in 2021 by Godwin Obaseki, a Team headed by of all people, an NCE holder – all these are direct assaults on the university autonomy and academic freedoms. It is sad that Obaseki who is a product of University of Ibadan and a lawyer who should understand university culture did this
to a university under his watch as a governor. This is part of the problem facing the university. More on this later.
The Decline
Just yesterday a post surfaced that is currently trending online detailing the tales of woes of many past postgraduate students from Nigerian Universities ranging from exploitation, to sexual harassment and intimidation, extortion etc. A woman named Annie U posted: ” I abandoned my Master’s program because my supervisor wanted to have sex with me. I told him I’m a married woman. He said and I quote, “That’s even better! I like them married. If anything happens, we’ll both keep our mouths shut.”
How about that?
Ene P has this to say: ” The best thing I ever did for my life and mental health was to abandon my Master’s program halfway. My blood pressure was always high. They killed my zeal to study and do research. Nigerian Universities? God forbid!
Autonomy
Udeh O says that “in ESUT students have to buy brand new suits for their supervisors” while another anonymous student said “the money I spent on my supervisor was enough to buy a piece of land in GRA”.
Those are just a sample of some students, some others are too gory to repeat here.
How has it come to this? How has a great shining light becomes a long- distant glimmer in the dark? Why and how did the Nigerian Universities decline to this terrible state where students have to pay for external examiners and supervisors? If a student pays an examiner can his opinion still be objective? Can we trust the integrity of that process and the sanctity of that degree?
A notable professor said sometimes ago that 70% of those teaching in our universities today are not “university materials.” He might have been proved right.
It is a long story but the decline of the university has started; only we don’t know where or when it would end.
_Downswings_ examines the genesis of the decline of the Nigerian University to Gowon’s humiliation of the university teachers in 1973 when he ordered all teachers on strike to pack out of their quarters or return to work. The then Association of University Teachers( AUT), the predecessor of Academic Staff Union of University ( ASUU) had embarked on a strike action to press for improved condition of service. Unfortunately the teachers could not call off the bluff because most of them had no houses to pack to. They had to swallow the humble pie and returned to work. The myth of the university had been punctured.
Years later in December 1975 the Murtala- Obasanjo junta derobed a whole Vice Chancellor of a whole Premier University and an eminent scholar for that matter, Professor Thomas on the Convocation day – of all day – for reasons that had no connection with wrong doing or misappropriation of funds. It was a slap on the face of university autonomy. It was the same military that appointed administrator to head universities.
Thus the military contributed in no small measure to derobe the university of its myth, invincibility and aura. The politicians only continued from where the soldiers stopped. And now the decline is continuing in the hands of the university administrators and teachers themselves with indiscriminate award of doctorate degrees, lowering the standard among other things. “In a desperate move to secure funds and endowments, Nigerian universities have, these days resorted to conferring honorary doctorates on shady money- bags: traders and politicians, who thrive on high- scale fraud and corruption.” (p.57)
One major way decline has come to the university is when senior teachers crawl and beg politicians and even the military in power for appointments in political offices. This has led to “the demystification of the university system”(p.56). Most of the academic staff that went into government didn’t end well. Some were disgraced and shown the way out because of their uncompromising attitude. Bolaji Akinyemi, Professor of International Relations was tongue- lashed by Maryam Babangida who never even possessed a degree right in the presence of her husband without stopping or upbraiding her. Because Akinyemi had insisted that the standard operating procedure is for the Ministry of External Affairs to invite the wives of diplomats for a dinner and not the First Lady, an office unrecognised by law. That was his error. He was too idealistic, too academic forgetting that he was operating under an imperial presidency and he got the trashing of his life.
Professor Tam David- West’s fate was even worse. He was replaced with another person and removed without being told and thereafter jailed for drinking tea and collecting wrist watch- of all things. Professor Omoruyi had a bitter fate. He was shot after removal – he had known too much about the annulment of June 12 election and he is considered dangerous to be alive. Or Professor Nwosu who conducted the fairest election in Nigerian history and was punished for it. These are great scholars and honest men who served the wrong people in government, people who had no regards for scholarship or erudition or learning. All these have led to the demystification of the university. A professor ought to carry himself with honour and dignity even if materially poor. I was sad the day I saw a professor, wife of a professor representing the wife of a military governor in an occasion.
All these are bound to ridicule and bring down the glory of a university system. The way you sell yourself is the way they will buy you. A professor is highly respected in South Africa, Ghana, Kenya but not in Nigeria, especially in the Southeast.
A serious cause of decline of the university is the proliferation of universities in Nigeria. On the twilight of his failed and wobbling administration Muhammadu Buhari established 14 public universities. Just like that. It is the reason all universities are inadequately staffed, inadequately funded and poorly governed.
Because the university was not properly funded the scholars themselves devised means to make money. Hence the birth of satellite campuses across the nation where “unqualified first degree, HND and NCE holders taught undergraduate and even postgraduate students.” (p.62) This is how many of your politicians got possession of “their black market university degrees” with which they are using to misgovern this nation today. It is not uncommon today to find teachers in schools who can’t even write a sentence correctly, yet they have degrees from “reputable” universities.
A corper who is supposed to be a graduate of Geography could not spell the word “Geography” at the Orientation Camp. The Camp authority now had to inquire whether the candidate actually graduated from the university.(p.116) These are the products of the satellite campuses, most likely, the future mass illiteracy bombs that will detonate against this nation someday.
Strike actions compound the decline of the university. During strikes many teachers – usually the best – leave for better places abroad. Some die due to hardships as result of not receiving salaries for months.
Often time on returning after strike “a semester’s 13- week lectures are compressed into two weeks”.(p.63)
It is now sad but yet true that “some VCs willingly recruit female students in their institutions on request for the governor’s garden parties.” How about that? I wish I had seen this manuscript ahead of publication, I would have advised the author not to include certain details especially in a book that will be read by the whole world. Today our universities have not only declined in quality and learning but also in culture and morals.
One of these reasons is the caliber of people recruited and the mode of recruitment. The Vice Chancellor is the academic and executive /administrative head of a university. Sadly today the appointment of this important office has become a tug of war during which bribery, nepotism, charms, cultism, voodooism, lies etc., are deployed. Professors are resorting to intimidating tactics, tribalism, engagement of prayer warriors etc to just curry favour to win the coveted prize.
There is the story of a woman who engaged a former general and Head of State, a friend of her late father for help. She got the job hands down. Another engaged the influence of his in-law, a powerful politician. Even a couple, friend of mine once enthroned a Vice Chancellor in a second- generation university using their influence with the emir of the city where the university is sited. Okecha is therefore right when he said that the “exalted post of Vice Chancellor has been considerably devalued and bastardised over the years.”(p 66). Only in private universities today do you still see appointments to the office solely on merit. It is that bad. The process is so skewed in such a manner that a merit- driven person can hardly succeed.
Okecha cited his own shot at the office at the Delta State University. Even though he was, according to him, the most qualified he never got the job. 12 professors were invited for interview by the panel. He came with a big Ghana- must- go bag containing all his publications ready for any question. He was more experienced than all the others but he failed to reckon on the genius of Nigerians for evil and deconstruction. He was deliberately placed on the last. Thus by the time he was called by 7.00 pm as soon as he entered power went off and the place turned dark so the panel won’t see his publications.
They couldn’t ask him any question except banters. He never got the job. Later it was learned that the military governor insisted that a professor from his own tribe must be installed and the panel only worked to the answer.
The havocs scholars do themselves is one reason why universities are declining. Is it any wonder that Nigerian Universities are being continually out-ranked yearly? Nigerian Universities have progressively lagged behind in all the four major global ranking systems: the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), Times Higher Education World University Ranking (THE), Webometrics Ranking of World Universities and QS World University Ranking. Usually 6 performance indicators are used namely: teaching ( learning environment), research, citations, international outlook, industrial income, publications. For example in the ARWU ranking of 2005 no Nigerian University made it among the best 500 universities in the world. Africa had four universities among these 500 and all are from South Africa (p.83). The January 2007 Webometrics Ranking revealed that the top 8 universities in Africa are all in South Africa.
Of the top 100 universities in Africa based on this ranking had only 4 from Nigeria compared to 21 from South Africa, 16 from Egypt, 10 from Morocco, 8 each from Kenya and Algeria. The four Nigerian Universities are OAU (44th), UI (65), Uniben ( 79th), Unilag (96th). But ranked at the global level it was worse. Ife (5834th) Ibadan (6809th), Benin (7318th) and Lagos ( 7601st). Again the 2023 Webometrics Ranking shows that no Nigerian University featured among the best 1000 universities but South Africa had 8 universities. University of Ibadan that ranked best among Nigerian University came 1138th position.
The author sees a direct correlation between funding and improvement in ranking. And rightly so too. For instance in 2012 South Africa spends 25.8% of budget on education according to World Bank sources, compared to Nigeria’s 5.8%. Kenya spent 23% within the same period.
Here is the irony which confirms what I said earlier that the university men themselves have contributed to the decline of the university in Nigeria. One of the lowest spendings on education occured in 2011 when a paltry 1.69% of the budget was devoted to Education. Yet both the President and Vice President, Yar’Adua and Jonathan under whose watch this happened were university teachers. Conversely, the highest budget education ever enjoyed since 1960 was 17.59% and it happened under Gen. Sani Abacha – a man most lecturers love to hate. Isn’t it ironical that a military dictator funded the Universities better than two academics who found themselves in government? What then is the claim or justification of ASUU against the ruling class when her own members in government didn’t perform better?
Both Yar’Adua and most especially Goodluck Jonathan brought some ridicule to the university by the way they governed. It was then PhD began to be referred to by some wags as Port harcourt Diploma, a reference to Jonathan who owns a degree from university of Port Harcourt. The grand scale corruption and larceny of that government coupled with its perceived cluelessness forced Nigerians to seek for change which unfortunately led to the Buhari – Tinubu APC hell- hole from where they are now struggling to extricate themselves.
This leads to another important issue discussed in the book: the professoriate. It is not surprising that professors were not spared in this book. He observed rightly that professors have contributed their own to the trouble, the lack of a culture of honour that has bedeviled this nation. He noted that since 2007 all the election umpires have been professors, yet save for 2015 the elections were never seen as free not to talk of fair. It is equally pertinent that it was a professor and a former Vice Chancellor to boot and later a senator “who fought relentlessly for Obasanjo’s third term.”(p.127) It was also a professor named Maurice Iwu who conducted one of the most ignoble elections in Nigeria history, so bad in fact that the chief beneficiary of the election repudiated it. And most of the professors who served in government except for Nwabueze, Akinyemi, David -West, Omoruyi, Nwosu, how did they fare? Borishade was still being tried by EFCC for the heist at Aviation ministry under his watch before his death, another who was a former VC was named in the Haliburton scandal. All these have brought odium to the professoriate. But the real cankerworm is deeper and within. _Downswings_ calls into question the quality of even the professoriate class in many places because most Nigerian- based academic “cannot publish scientific papers in reputable journals in Europe and the United States owing to dearth of research facilities in our universities.” It also disdains most of the local journals as “worthless, oyoyo journals” edited by very young and inexperienced academics. “Can you imagine a Lecturer II, a greenhorn serving as editor -in- chief of an academic journal?” he asked with a tone of annoyance.
Sometimes this occurs on the margin of fraud with plagiarism – another vice now rampant in Nigerian Universities. “The papers unfortunately are listed for promotion, and the journals die after the editors have fraudulently become professors.” (p.129). Foreigners have now discovered this need for vanity among Nigerians and are now cashing in big on it. Phoney international journals published by fake institute of science and technology in India and publishing only Nigerian academics. Nothing is rejected or corrected.
Okecha said he saw one of such journals where only six papers were published based on soddy research and all the six are Nigerians. At least it is an “international” journal and it is fit and usable for promotion.
Same for textbooks and hand-outs that are turned out like batteries without editor and peer- review and for which students are compelled to buy. Those who buy are rewarded and those who refused are penalised. It is that bad. Only Ife- ASUU has banned handouts among their colleagues.
Okecha has the worst attack for the so – called accreditation of NUC regarding it as a sham. Some departments hire support staff, borrow books, recruit inexperienced academics – only for accreditation. Some VCs he insists, give bribes. In 1990 he was part of the first set of NUC team that conducted accreditation to Unilag and they did a thorough job.
Throughout they never even met the VC so as not to be compromised. Today accreditation is conducted and finished within a few hours or at most in a day. It is all working to the answers. Do these accrediting teams ever visit the libraries of universities? And they are satisfied with them? It is rare to find a recent journal in many libraries of Nigerian universities. So, how and what do they teach if they are not part of the current of intellectual opinion in the world? And NUC does not know this or pretend not to see it?
Racketeering is now common at different levels of the university system. Chapter 10 of the book is devoted to the racket now ongoing in most universities in Nigeria. A registrar of a University told him directly of an experience. A girl appeared before him to collect her certificate. She was told to write on the duplicate: “original copy collected by me.” She could not. She began to shiver and mutter some incoherent words. She could not write a simple sentence but she is a graduate of a Nigerian University.
At the rate it is going one day your certificate won’t mean a thing or matter but people would insist you should prove your certificate with your knowledge and what you can produce. Degrees are now being purchased in Nigerian Universities. That is why someone is a politician representing his people in Abuja and at the same time he was undergoing a program and a possessor of a degree after two years from the same Abuja universities. The recent syndicate uncovered at Lagos State University where nothing less than 104 persons had been issued degrees that they didn’t work for was in the news. Eko for show. Politicians are the greatest beneficiaries of this.
Even those who remain in the regular course how do they fare? Projects and seminars are now held just to fulfill all righteousness. They are mere ceremonies. Students rarely do projects again, they simply plagiarise existing works from the archives or go into another university to copy. A student left Nsukka to University of Lagos just to poach a fine past project and she copied it word for word to go and submit to her conniving supervisor. These are the Delilahs that the Nigerian Universities are producing into the space. Was it not Plato that said: “When honour is lost everything is lost.”
Even postgraduate theses are not different. “Plagiarism and downloading of other researchers genuine findings as theirs, are a common practice among many postgraduate students.”(p.119). I am a witness to this.
A doctoral student of a university I won’t embarrass by naming “wrote” a paper which was published in a journal based entirely on my work and research. I was so angry. How can you write a paper on a job you never did? So I placed a call to his professor that I will tarnish him and his university publicly before the whole world. He too had checked and found I was right. The offending student began to send people to beg me and friend of my wife to plead and he came himself personally to beg. I decided to drop the case and let go. That is the state of our universities today.
My good friend Professor Oshun, pioneer Vice Chancellor of Joseph Ayo Babalola University told me an experience when he went as external examiner to a certain university I won’t name not to embarrass her. The very first thesis he opened was a plagiarised version of his PhD work at Exeter!
These are postgraduate students who would become the future Senior Lecturers and Professors and Vice Chancellors and on which the honour and prestige of scholarship and the glory of the university system will rest. So you can see there is big trouble ahead.
Okecha noted that he once was an examiner to a postgraduate student whose thesis was written, both the Abstract and Introduction, in pidgin English. Yet this was presented for external examiner to assess. What then was he to assess?
Which leads to another vice in our universities today. Many lecturers are afraid of even their students because of cultism. They dare not fail them or penalised them. And some are far richer than their teachers because they are into things that a teacher can’t get into. Conditions of service and remuneration of teaching staff is poor to be honest. It is an abuse of scholarship that Nigeria pays university staff what they presently earn.
Professors are poorly paid just as other cadre in the rung. A clerk in NNPC and even a driver if he is a permanent staff, earns more than a Professor of Medicine who is the highest paid in the professoriate. Same with Central Bank. What crimes did the University commit against the ruling class? How fair is that to the university system and staff? Can we then blame the academics for.resorting to unorthodox means to raise money by undercutting the system that has so singularly impoverished them?
Various recommendations are made in this book about the way forward for Nigerian University to recapture its lost glory. I am not sure this generation is prepared for the surgical operation necessary for that corrective action.
This is a provocative book, a very important book. I will recommend that NUC should get a copy of this book into the Reference section of every university library and inside every VC’s office. Every Vice Chancellor should read this book before assuming office and take note of.the 23 suggestions and recommendations made by the author to.guide him.
One or two errors in the book owing to editorial oversight. At page 32 it says there are 170 universities as at 2023 but there are actually 264 according to Punch of 9th June, 2023. At page 67 James Wilmot should have been Patrick Wilmot, the socialist lecturer who was deported at ABU in 1986 by Babangida. Then I think the advise at the end of each chapter would have been better at the end. Two chapters could have been devoted to these as the way forward for the university system.
Then there are things I don’t agree with in the book. The choice of Nsukka as the first university in Nigeria and Ibadan as the fourth simply because it was still tied to London and it was only in 1965 that it gave out certificate in its own name is contentious. I think Ibadan is the first university and, probably, also the best, but I cannot argue that here now due to space constraints.
Two, the claim that Al- Azhar University and University of Al Quaraouiyine, Fez, Morocco both founded in 970 and 859 AD respectively are the first universities is contestable and even debatable. The reason being that they were not founded as universities when they were founded but as mosques that later became madrash not as universities.
They were not universities in the conventional understanding of that term either as universitas magistorium or even as universitas scholarium. Only the University of Bologna founded in 1088 met the conditions of a university at its founding. The idea and even culture of a university as we know it today was a Western-European and even Christian conception. I have no space to argue this here and it is not necessary either. I would encourage the author to read recent debates along this line.
_Downswings_ is a wake-up call that there is fire on the mountain. That Nigeria is sliding badly on the voyage to educational disarmament but it is not all bad. There is also genuine scholarship in a section of the university. Sure, the good old days may be gone forever but the situation is not beyond remediation if we begin immediately.
Nigerian Universities were once a beacon of hope, a terror to even the military government. Those were the days of the Ife Collective daring the military government to a debate on the economy. Those were the days when missiles fired from the university towers; when the Awojobis in Lagos, Bade Onimode and Tam David- West from Ibadan; when Bala Usman – Patrick Wilmot – Modibo Tukur radical school of Zaria; Claude Ake sounding from Calabar and Festus Iyayi and Omoruyi from Benin. These were scholars of world class known in their field all over the world. Which military would not quake before these men?
Today there are no more missiles, neither are there even towers to even hoist the missiles for the required propulsion and firing range to reach and rattle Aso Rock. Compare the ModibboTukur- led ASUU of the 1980’s or the Jega- led ASUU of the 1990’s or Dipo Fashina- led ASUU of 2000’s with the ASUU of today. There is a decline even in ASUU leadership.Then, they spoke even to national issues concerning the whole nation. Now ASUU’s preoccupation is with the university and conditions of service of teachers, like the last brigade of a worn- out army on retreat defending frantically the last patch of territory before final collapse.
Our universities may never have such men again but we can still have robust and sound scholarship and recover “the idea of the university.”
Thank you patient reader, thank you for your patience.
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December 7, 2024
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