Early this week, the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Professor Emeritus Is-haq Oloyede organised an interactive session with senior media executives at NICON Luxurious, Abuja. It was in the course of the interactive session that adopted his presentation and announcement of datelines for 2025 UTME that he touched off some challenges going through the Nigerian universities presently.
For example, in response to a query on some reported irregularities particularly in admission of latest college students and administration of universities within the nation as we speak, Professor Oloyede particularly challenged the Nigerian press to deconstruct an incipient plague within the ivory towers: makes an attempt by college directors to localise Nigerian universities, which ought to ordinarily have a nationwide character. Oloyede who particularly lamented a state of affairs whereby some intellectuals and college directors who’re alleged to encourage nationwide character in management of the tertiary training are encouraging provincialism of their recruitment by way of the Governing Councils. He urged journalists to ask questions on a state of affairs whereby the primary seven senior officers of a federal college ought to hail from the placement of a college that’s alleged to entrench common values.
The previous vice chancellor couldn’t perceive why those that aspire to guide the College of Ibadan established as a College Faculty since 1948 ought to be asking for its Vice Chancellor to hail from Ibadan Municipal Native Council. I used to be there when all these questions on the state of college training cropped up this week. In the meantime, the previous Vice Chancellor of the college of Ilorin who hails from Ogun state would additionally just like the aristocracy of the Nigerian media to do some contextual reporting of unlawful admission of scholars into some so-called skilled programs they really feel can help within the ‘japa syndrome’, notably Drugs/Well being Sciences and Legislation.
He revealed that many of the Legislation graduates of sure universities which have admitted college students above the annual quota allowed by regulatory authorities couldn’t proceed to the Legislation Faculty and obligatory Nationwide Youths Service Corps (NYSC) scheme due to solely admission letters from the schools as an alternative of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB). He famous that in the identical vein, most college students who’ve accomplished medical and well being science research couldn’t be admitted into the medical professions due to irregularities of their admissions, which didn’t emanate from the statutory matriculation Board. He puzzled why some even extremely positioned dad and mom paved the way in which for unlawful admissions of their unqualified wards to check programs they’ll’t full, in spite of everything. He hinted at absence of political will to prosecute college directors who’ve been destroying destinies of our youngsters by bowing to rich dad and mom who curiously bribe college officers for admissions. He famous that a part of the results of the irregular admissions of scholars is that many of the beneficiaries all the time drop out due to poor foundations.
For me, the spotlight of Oloyede’s lamentation is his name on the authorities to make sure that Nigerian universities restore nationwide character to their administration. That’s the basis of many of the malaise within the college training system that authorities in Abuja and the 36 state capitals aren’t being attentive to in the meanwhile. Undoubtedly, radical restructuring of college training management problem (past funding) ought to be a part of the directive rules and priorities that the current administration ought to regard as an pressing nationwide project. It’s in public curiosity.
Will probably be recalled that the wind of convocation time blew me to the Sunshine state, Ondo on Thursday, December 7, 2023 the place I delivered the twelfth Convocation Lecture of the Adekunle Ajasin College, Akungba Akoko, Ondo State. The Vice Chancellor, Professor Olugbenga E. Ige, led me into temptation of writing 11, 544-word lecture. The lecture titled, “Internationalisation of Universities for World Relevance”, was fairly outstanding for varied contexts and contents.
On December 10, 2023, I started serialisation of a few of the excerpts of the lecture retitled, “Time To Restore ‘Universe’ To Our Universities”. In some historic excursions, I famous a correlation between federalism and internationalisation of college training and to the extent that each ideas aren’t new, in spite of everything. I claimed that we misplaced federalism we’re begging for now particularly in 1966 when the troopers of fortune struck down democracy and federalism by way of Decree No.34 and institutionalised the federal republic of the Nigerian military. I had added on the AAUA that it wasn’t nevertheless clear once we started to lose the ‘universe’ of the ‘common metropolis’ also referred to as the college, though I cited the lamentation of Professor Wole Soyinka greater than twenty years in the past when he curiously referred to as for closures of many of the universities for correct overhaul because the decline we’re deconstructing now was evident to the Nobel laureate then. However as I used to be saying then, “it’s clear that the ‘universe’ within the college has been markedly affected by a mix of things you will discover within the lecture.
As I had indicated then, the convocation lecture was not a seminal paper on the function of the college in a creating nation. Nor was it a analysis matter on the function of public intellectuals in growth. Somewhat, it was a thought-provoking dialogue level on why all our representatives in authorities ought to halt the “hole rituals” referred to as licensing of latest non-public universities and the federal authorities’s personal obsession with political mission referred to as federal universities in all of the states of the federation.
Though ASUU seems uninterested in speaking to the deaf within the training sector, the elders of the land shouldn’t ignore the warning of Professor Oloyede who simply referred to as out some college directors who’re presently playing with the future of essentially the most populous black nation on earth. The authorities overseeing the training sector for President Tinubu ought to word that training high quality is simply too necessary to be subjected to the whims and caprices of the retrogressive and provincial cabals who don’t care a hoot about no matter occurs to the college system right here. I imply the sellers amongst students who name themselves leaders and may do something to be vice chancellors even after they know that they aren’t certified.
These scoundrels within the college system are sycophants and stand for nothing. They’ll admit all of the morons who search admission so long as they’re from barons who can put them in workplace and energy within the universities. They only wish to be Vice Chancellors, Deputy Vice chancellors, Deans and so on. They aren’t honourable. What’s worse, the Guests to the schools have gotten extra careless and reckless of their selection of Professional Chancellors who’re Chairmen of Governing Councils. Why would authorities appoint anyhow politicians as Professional Chancellors of Universities of Medical Sciences, for example?
Within the lifecycle of this democracy we started some 25 years in the past, not many would recall that at a time the late Adamu Ciroma angrily resigned from the Council of a primary era federal college within the North when the bigots and hitmen there rejected a non-native from Niger Delta who had twice come tops by way of the choice committee of the Governing Council Adamu chaired then. The natives in a federal college insisted on a Muslim and a proper candidate from the far North.
Is it attainable in as we speak’s Nigeria for non-Yoruba professors to be beneficial by choice committees as Vice Chancellors of the Universities of Ibadan, Lagos, Ife, amongst different federal universities within the southwest area? Can the Governing Council of the primary full-fledged college in Nigeria, College of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) suggest any world-class professor outdoors the south-east area as Vice Chancellor? Can anybody outdoors Edo State stick out his neck to use to be Vice Chancellor of the College of Benin, a place Professor Adamu Baike from Kano as soon as occupied?
What of the good Ahmadu Bello College, Zaria, that had an expatriate as pioneer Vice chancellor? Can the Governing Council of A.B.U, Zaria dare to simply accept purposes from southerners and even Christians from the North who want to be Vice Chancellor?
Who will borrow a leaf from Nigeria’s premier College of Medical Sciences Governor Olusegun Mimiko, a doctor, arrange in Ondo in 2014? The pioneer Vice Chancellor was Professor Friday Okonofua, who hails from Edo State. The outgoing (second) Vice Chancellor Professor Adesegun Fatusi hails from Ogun State, due to the late Rotimi Akeredolu who like his predecessor, insisted on benefit. I perceive from well being science consultants and regulators that the usual of the Ondo State College of Medical Sciences is sort of constantly passable. Most dad and mom favor the college for medical and well being science training as a result of they’ve had two world-class professors who all the time appeal to good professors. The Chairman of the Governing Council of the College, Ayodele Olatunji Arowojolu is a retired professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology from the Faculty of Drugs College of Ibadan and College Faculty Hospital (UCH) Ibadan. It’s heartening to say that related development can be enjoying out in Unilorin whose present Vice Chancellor, Professor Wahab Olasupo Egbewole is a local of Ile-Ife in Osun State.
Let’s overview this traditional that almost all of us have acquired many occasions throughout platforms, which I additionally utilized in Akungba 2023. It’s on ‘why collapse of training is the collapse of a nation’. Recall that the next phrases posted on the entrance gate of a South African college sums up the issues we are actually going through:
“Destroying any nation doesn’t require using atomic bombs or using long-range missiles. It solely requires decreasing the standard of training and permitting dishonest within the examinations by the scholars”. The result’s that: “Sufferers die by the hands of medical doctors. Buildings collapse by the hands of engineers. Cash is misplaced by the hands of economists and accountants. Humanity dies by the hands of spiritual students. Justice is misplaced by the hands of judges. As a result of “The collapse of training is the collapse of the nation.”
This message will not be directed at President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his Minister of Training alone. It’s directed in any respect the 36 state governors and 774 native authorities council officers on this troubled federation. It isn’t about typing out the quotable quotes or phrases on marble on training in our varied rooms and places of work. It’s about how our leaders can handle priorities in a approach that can empower them to treat and put money into training as a weapon of nation and world competitiveness.
This treatise is about how and when to flush out corrupt professors and pretend students who’re serving to perverted dad and mom to confess retarded candidates who couldn’t go college certificates examination nicely for college training. It’s a time to kick out politicians within the academia who’re starting to purchase the majesty of the workplace of the Vice Chancellor. That isn’t how you can protect the ‘universe’ within the common metropolis (college).
TO BE CONTINUED…
