University of Lagos

JGN Onyekpe

The authorities of many universities in Nigeria are today obsessed with the aspirations for high-ranking  by metropolitan bodies. These bodies  determine the parameters  without any inputs from Nigeria and the rest of the Global  South. However, one major point that no one can afford to disparage is that many of the parameters and criteria used for the ranking  of universities are academic, as it should be. This means, in fact, that academic  staff and their  primary functions as teachers, researchers, and  consultants, and the level of infrastructure and facilities in place for academic work  are critical in the ranking of the universities.

Therefore, the fundamental questions are: How far can varsity  teachers and researchers in Nigeria go, how much can they contribute as their universities aspire, as they do, pessimistically and  unassuredly , to be ranked among the  world’s best universities where many teachers and researchers are eleemosynary scavengers? Without food, housing, healthcare, transportation, light, water, etc, how much can varsity teachers and researchers contribute? With slave incomes and stagnant wage policy  regimes, with inequitable and  criminally poor internal reward system, and without research  grants and facilities, what can they contribute?

Nigerian varsities should  aspire to be counted among the best in the world or in Africa at least. The varsities should focus on  global visibility.

Indeed,   but varsity authorities  must ensure that the preconditions are in place, first and foremost.  The aspirations would remain mere   phantasias and daydreams  for as long  as the varsity authorities and the government  treat  teachers and researchers   and other categories of varsity staff as apes and the early man of the Olduvai gorge, Tanzania.

It is time varsity  authorities in Nigeria repented of their numerous heinous sins in their internal dealings with their staff! They should not only repent and rapidly  become new creatures, that everything may  become truly new; they should  dismantle the fence on which they  sit and  watch as spectators while ASUU engages the government in its patriotic struggle  to save university  education, by attracting  more funds for the  authorities themselves, not ASUU, to manage.

University authorities and the government should  hold the bull by the horns and put the horse  before  the cart, by lifting up varsity staff from their current conditions  as beasts of burden, and then address the problems of poor funding, diversion of the little that is  provided, and inadequate infrastructure and facilities. Only then can the varsity  leaders be cured of their  somnambulism in their aspirations; only then can the varsities be said to be truly ready for ranking.

J G Nkem Onyekpe, fhsn.

University of Lagos, Akoka.