By APATA OYENIRAN

The embargo and seeming bottlenecks placed on recruitment into academic positions, glaring nepotism and bureaucracy in the Federal government universities across the country may signal a dangerous dimension in learning and programmes offered by universities in Nigeria. OYENIRAN APATA writes:

Stakeholders have raised concerns over the increasing number of students/ lecturer ratio in what appears to be lopsided recruitment and embargo to fill existing vacancies that have locked progress in the academic environment.

There has also been an existing mistrust in recruitment patterns, policy and confirmed cases of inability of universities to replace and fill academic vacancies occasioned by death, retirement and outright exit from the system for greener pastures overseas.

Some lecturers who spoke to Saturday INDEPENDENT, and don’t want their names to be mentioned for obvious reasons said that nepotism and tribalism in the Ivory Tower in Nigeria need urgent attention. They said that nepotism in the current administration “is a joke taken too far and smells to high heavens. If care is not taken there is possible imminent collapse of academic excellence and the potential of federal universities contributing to National Development of Nigeria is greatly constrained”.

Some Serious Concerns

Saturday INDEPENDENT investigation at the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Federal University Oye, Ekiti; University of Ibadan, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife; Federal University of Technology, Minna; University of Port Harcourt and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi showed evidences that support the claim that there is gang-up against the academia in the federal universities located in the south.

A senior lecturer from a premier university in the south-west that spoke to our correspondent said,

“Most universities in the south have not recruited academic staff in the last three or five years. There is a particular university in the southwest that has not been able to replace over 500 staff that have retired, died or left the system since 2015. The workload of the academic staff continues to soar and that explains why the claims of excess workload of the university lecturers.”

Another scholar in his late 50s also lamented on the non-payment of salaries of some lecturers engaged since 2019.

“In a federal university in the South-Western Nigeria, some staff members who were recruited in 2019 and up till now have not received a dime in terms of salary. Some of them have departed to other greener pastures. Another university also in the south west recruited academic staff in the last eight months and up till now, they have not received a dime despite the fact that some of them are Headd of Department and are taking more academic load even than their counterparts in private universities.

“In the promotion of academic staff, there is a preponderance of senior academic staff in the northern federal universities as there are more young professors than we have in the southern universities. It is noteworthy that universities have the autonomy to hire staff and to promote staff based on their unique criteria but the criteria for the southern Universities are more stringent than those we have in northern universities.

“The bottom line is that professorship in Nigeria is rated equally and they receive the same salary across the universities. This is an economic disempowerment for the southern university academic and empowerment of the northern university lecturers,” he said.

As a result, the lecturers noted that federal appointments often go more to northern professors than the southern professors, which is a way to show the outside world that the university professors of the northern extraction are better than those in the south.

Another revered don with several laurels through researches in the sciences told Saturday INDEPENDENT that the Federal government has not been fair enough to the southern scholars.

“In the international arena, the ones that are promoted to represent Nigeria in the international arena are often used to judge the quality of Nigerian academics.

“But despite the higher numbers of professors in most northern universities, it is necessary to know that a lot of them are not known outside the shores of Nigeria. Some of them have not achieved any major breakthrough in academics to qualify them for professorship rather the accumulation of predatory and substandard publications.

“Despite higher number of professors in Nigeria, it is unfortunate that universities have not been able to play critical roles in our national development because academic excellence have been thrown into the dustbin and nepotism, tribalism and connections are the primary criteria for people to be recruited into the academic positions in many Nigeria universities,” the lecturers told our correspondent.

As of 2019, the source of approval for the appointment of an academia has since increased to seven, that is the Federal Character Commission (FCC), Office of Head of Service, Budget Office, Office of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), the National Universities Commission (NUC), the Federal Ministry of Education (FME) and office of the Auditor-General of the Federation.

Besides, a 2020 circular from the National Assembly ordered that no employment interview should be conducted without the approval of the National Assembly.

Experts have established that basing recruitment, appointment, and promotion on the federal character usually discriminate against merit and encourage the selection of mediocre that have little or nothing to contribute towards organisational goals.

Responding, Dr. Dele Ashiru, Chairman, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) University of Lagos (UNILAG) Chapter attributed the chaotic recruitment processes put in place by the Federal government to the denial of varsities autonomy that vested such responsibilities on the university.

Besides, he reiterated the bottlenecks and problems created by the introduction of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information Services (IPPIS), saying enforcing IPPIS is an infringement on the right to autonomy.

“The introduction of the IPPIS has created recruitment challenges in universities and this is a violation of the autonomy, which is the hallmark of universities all over the world. Before the introduction of the IPPlS, it was the responsibility of departments to assess areas of need in terms of development of curriculum etcetera and recruit competent scholars to take up such fields.

“Rationalisation of workers in the system is the thinking of those who think education should be commercialised and privatised. The appropriate thing is to allow the academic department to develop new programmes in line with challenges in the country, the question of rationalisation of academia should not arise at all,” Dr. Ashiru said.

Ironically, according to our investigation, some state universities are also in these precarious situations. The Chairman of ASUU, Calabar zone, Dr. Aniekan Brown told our correspondent that they are worried.

“It is somewhat of concern that only seven state-owned universities have their laws in conformity with the Universities Miscellaneous Provision Amendment Act of 2012 while 26 are partially compliant. In most universities, the non-demonetisation of the Act gives room for university administrators and governors to trample on the autonomy of the universities by usurping the powers of governing Councils and the Senate."

Autonomy Need To Be Strengthened

Professor Eyitope Ogunbodede, the Vice-Chancellor, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) in a memorial lecture organised by the University of Lagos Alumni Association, Lagos State branch, in honour of late Prof. Babatunde Sofoluwe said the introduction of the IPPIS has further undermined and encroached on the autonomy earlier enjoyed by universities. He said.

“It is unfortunate that the Vice-Chancellors that used to recruit the best of staff for their universities can no longer recruit the most junior staff without authorisation from several agencies of the government.

“Over the four years of my tenure, an external incursion into university administration increased by the day, a dismal signal of the possibility of total annihilation of the so-called autonomy of the universities. I see ominous signs and administrative bottlenecks that not only dampen the morale of Vice-Chancellors and the Principal Officers) but grossly diminish the enormous developmental and innovative possibilities in these institutions.”

Gone are the days when vice-chancellors used to recruit the best from anywhere in the world.

“OAU or UNILAG could not have been what they are today without such opportunities and the genuine autonomy enjoyed in the past,” he added.

Saturday INDEPENDENT also gathered that it is instructive that only Health and Security has the approval of President Muhammadu Buhari for any recruitment due to COVID-19 lockdown.

Given the above, there are indications that the lecturer/student may continue to widen as universities are being populated.

A 2022 global rating by the Times Higher Education (THE) showed that the student/lecturer ratio in Nigerian universities is high. The University of Ibadan had 22:6, UNILAG 19:7, UNILORIN 37:9, UNN 12: 2 and OAU 24:8. Conversely, the University of Oxford, the number one university by THE had 10:7, California Institute of Technology 6:3, Harvard University 9:5 and Stanford University rated 4th in the world had a 7:3 student/lecturer ratio.

The Way Out

Femi Subhir, a public commentator said every avenue should be explored to strengthen and improve the current level of autonomy in the public university system to avoid a complete mess of education at the tertiary level in Nigeria.

Ebube George, a scientist and innovator, agreed but said that the conscious action of not meeting ASUU’s legitimate demands by the federal government has also continued to make lecturers, teaching staff, Professors and the system extremely vulnerable to corruption.

“What an unpardonable de-representation of our fertile academic minds and knowledge workers. The culture of owing salaries to lecturers and underfunding of our universities must be criminalised by society and the defaulting political elites penalised.

“The notion that the funding of the National Assembly or any form of political funding, is more important than educational funding must be perceived as original sin and those responsible should be banned from holding any political office for life.

“Since the fish starts to rot from the head, economic extortion of lecturers and our revered professorial/ academic league in the universities, means that there is bound to be replicative and consequent extortion of the tutored (students) by the academic system and its managers, fraud unchecked begets fraud,” he emphasised. (Saturday Independent)

Update news