Adagbo Onoja

By Adagbo Onoja.

Yesterday, (August 1st, 2015), the Federal Government came out with a statement exempting university councils from the dissolution of boards of all extra ministerial agencies. One’s initial reflections when the university councils were not mentioned or exempted when all the boards were dissolved was that this government must have decided to count itself out of the agreement which made the case for university councils to exhaust their tenure unless something outrageous happened along the line. Coming from the Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU), there must be a strategic logic in favour of the larger society in such an argument. It is on the basis of such an assumption that one sees a good omen in the FG’s statement yesterday in terms of FG-ASUU relations. For, the government could have equally argued that an agreement is not a law and that it is not bound by it. We have had that sort of situation before and this reversal is, therefore, something commendable.

However, we must proceed to interrogate the idea of university councils at this point in time. For, the truth is that, for sometimes now, the question has been: When President Buhari eventually constitutes a cabinet, appoint ambassadors, members and chairpersons of boards of extra-ministerial agencies, would that master list also contain university councils? In other words, was the regime of ‘change’ going to tolerate or severely amend or completely sweep away the ‘university council’ regime as we have experienced it in Nigeria in recent times?

I argue that this is still an important question to pose at this point in time because the university system nestles at the heart of the trouble with Nigeria, however one conceptualises trouble. If we had universities, we would probably not have the version of Boko Haram we have had. We might still have had one variant or another of that sort of problem but most likely in a different and less complicated form than the Boko Haram we have encountered. In other words, the university system is the first place for the president to look at especially as security is one of his priorities. The logic here is that our children will come for us one way or the other if we do not educate them properly because they can only operate within the boundaries of what they know. It is possible to avert this. One way of doing that is to shield the university system from budgetary fluctuations as well as the siege mentality or crassness which has enveloped the larger society. A major step in that direction is either by severely amending the practice of university councils or doing away with it entirely within the context of a change process by which the country can be repositioned in a more fundamental way than has been glibly talked about so far. It helps if this particular aspect is personally supervised by the president.

Buhari

If the members of university councils were going to follow the exemplary approaches personified by Gamaliel Onosode, Aisha Babangida or Ango Abdullahi, if we must mention names, that would have been okay. But that is not the case. In more than 98% of the councils, the drain on university resources is unspeakable in terms of the sundry commitment universities are compelled to provide for chairpersons or members of council. My contemporaries in the student movement of yesteryears would be shocked to see Professor Ango Abdullahi’s name on a list of exemplars in this regard just as they would most likely be surprised to learn that Aisha Babangida did very well as a council member of some university years back. It speaks to the contingency and fluidity of ‘reality’. No one would have forgotten ‘Ango Must Go’ drama in Nigeria’s history too soon but I can also not fail to reckon that if he didn’t put his foot down recently in a university related assignment, society would have been a woeful loser. Looking back too, it makes sound sociological analysis to infer that there might not have been the kind of security challenge in the North East today if the Nigerian State had been as perceptive as Abdullahi in that wise. That is, however, an issue that is best left at that.

But an even more fundamental problem with our practice of university councils is loading it with people who have absolutely nothing to contribute to a university or the university system. By contribution, I do not mean anything academic. After all, the idea of a university council is more about university-society nexus rather than essentially academic. There are certainly some traditional/community, religious, and even business leaders whose membership of any council automatically amounts to a big blessing. But in a country where a fresh PhD holder would start with one of the national newspapers in responding to a question asking him to name a few leading authorities in his field, any concept can be amended, edited or re-defined. Concepts do not have static meanings. So, why do we need bloated university councils, majority of whom have tastes and idiosyncrasies antithetical to the very idea of a university and at a particularly difficult time for the country like now?

I am afraid; the president might have spent more time looking for the most suitable materials to go to ministries such as finance, petroleum, FCT, foreign affairs and the likes. Of course, these are important realms of governance. But the one position he can be granted even up to December 2015 to find the most informed, skilful and critical enough person to head MUST be the Minister of Education. That is the minister whose ministry I doubt that Joda’s report has given the president anything even up to the tip of the iceberg in terms of the challenges buried there. I am not talking of corruption. I am talking of some non-descript, little things that, however, makes the university system thick in relation to service to the society. In that regard, we are at a very appalling level that only very few people like Mallam Y.Z Y’au and Asisi Asobie have, in recent times, been able to give a precise idea of the degree. Many Nigerians have no idea of the depth of the decay in university culture in the country. The few that do have sent out their children to other countries. The many that do not or do but haven’t got the resources to send out their children have to take what is available. But everyone, including the world out there, is waiting, praying and hoping that the impending Minister of Education would be that very unusual Nigerian who, under presidential cover, can speedily achieve change of tectonic magnitude via-a-vis the current educational situation in Nigeria, especially as it affects the universities and how university councils compound it.

Someone might ask about what sort of universities we are talking of and why the emphasis on the universities but not on primary schools. Taking the first part first, I would say the answer is simple: several decades back, a student from a peasant family from the remotest corner of the provinces would surface as a first year student at say, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria or Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. By the time s/he is in the third year, s/he hast transformed to a point where s/he can stand on the podium anywhere in the world, take a position and defend it. Everyone would not agree with him or her but no one would fail to note that there is an argument on the floor. The import is that when s/he graduates and gets into the federal or state or local government bureaucracy, police, judiciary, armed forces, diplomacy or whatever, s/he can hold her ground in a qualitative manner because s/he has been trained or groomed in the capacity to problematise, conceptualise, research and think on his or her foot. So, s/he knows what challenges are and how best to address one in the best interest of the system. This is not what we have today when PhD holders do not know what an authority in an academic field refers to. It is frightening.