JGN Onyekpe
The authorities of the University of Lagos have continued to pride themselves on the slogan or mantra of the university being “The University of First Choice” and “The Nation’s Pride”. This slogan was the late Professor Oyewusi Ibidapo-Obe’s contribution, as vice chancellor, to publicise, promote, and sell the university. His prospective biographers and hagiographers especially should note this ‘achievement’.
But is dear University of Lagos truly and permanently The First Choice varsity? Is it truly the Nation’s Pride? Are these established facts? Where is the evidence? On which of the following indexes and parameters
and others is the University of Lagos ahead of other varsities? Equity, Fairness, Accountability , Reward System, Staff Welfare, Student Welfare, Documentation, Research and Development, Scholarships and Bursaries, Infrastructure, Facilities Management and Maintenance, etc. In which?
More often than not, self-assessment is mere exercise in self-adulation. Self-adulation itself is mostly self-deception.
The above remarks are only in passing!
The decision by the authorities of the University of Lagos to embark on online lectures until the hostels are renovated is not going down well with critical stakeholders in, and of, the varsity. Without being immodest, I have worked at this university for a little less than four decades. Indeed, many of those who have been in the management of the university in the last one decade, in different capacities in the three tiers- department, faculty, central administration- met me in the service of the institution. Therefore, I can counsel with the benefit of hindsight and without any fear of persecution that, today, online teaching cannot be effectively substituted for regular physical teaching. The authorities have made several references to the ‘success’ of the online classes of the academic session, 2019/2020, as a justification for their decision to use the same method of teaching in 2024/2025 session. But the 2019/2020 situation and the 2024/2025 situation are not the same. The online method of 2019/2020 was a response to the challenge of the deadly COVID 19. The entire world mobilised itself against the challenge. The adoption of online teaching method was the response of academia worldwide to the challenge. What is the situation in Nigeria today? Is there any similar challenge to the University of Lagos in 2024? Should renovation programme be elevated or regarded as a challenge that should turn regular full-time students to distance learners? The challenge in 2019/2020 was a threat to the survival of the human race globally and, hence, the world declared total war against it. There is no problem at the University of Lagos today, 2024. The renovation programme and the online classes tied to it are not organically related. The varsity is not at all in any state of emergency. The avoidable situation was
artificially created and grafted on the university. Therefore, it must be emphasised that, the suspension of normal physical classes because of renovation was tantamount to creating a problem where there was none. Comparing 2019/2020 and 2024/2025 further, the economic and social conditions of university teachers and students have become intolerably immiserizing today. If there was any assumption or thought that online teaching would be successful in 2024/2025 because it was successful in 2019/2020, the assumption or thought was delusional. Although the varsity authorities are sustaining their efforts on the provision of ICT, facilities are still grossly inadequate for the poorly remunerated, absolutely demotivated, and brutally demoralised academic staff, the teachers, who are expected to execute the policy. It must be noted that many of the academic staff of the university cannot afford a good mobile phone, let alone a good laptop. The lot of the students is not any better; students already irresponsibly and unconscionably left to their devices by the rascally ruling and thieving class and their inept government. When about 15 years ago the university authorities, without a thought, introduced computer based screening tests for its prospective matriculation candidates majority of who had never seen the computer, it was total disaster. Wise counsel prevailed and the authorities reversed themselves. In doing this, the authorities demonstrated one of the core attributes and virtues of good leadership, the willingness to recognise and jettison an unworkable policy or decision.
As recently announced by the authorities, the online classes would end on the completion of the renovation exercise. But the exercise is yet to start. Then, we are not unaware of the difficulties associated with the execution of contracts, difficulties with high potential of delaying completion.
Given that the online classes are scheduled to last only for few months, the metamorphosis would be hemimetabolous. But while the online classes last, they would be ridden with problems. And worse, learning would be a mere sham, indeed a mockery.
This is not how to remain the University of First Choice and The Nation’s Pride, or how to aspire to be so. Should the University of Lagos or any other university for that matter consciously make itself a laughing stock of the public? I hope there is no fifth column on an assignment to discredit the authorities, make them unpopular, and destabilise the university through wrongheaded policy advice.
I hope too, the online lectures policy is not cast in iron and steel, like the law of the Medes and Persians!
*J G Nkem Onyekpe, PhD; FHSN.
Professor of Political Economy and African History,
University of Lagos, Akoka.