Category: Niyi Akinnaso

This is not an offering to the gods. Rather, it is an offering to the Nigerian media, known in some quarters as the critical media, because their default stance is negative criticism, which stems from the pervasive notion that fault-finding and condemnation are the best ways to keep the government on its toes. It is as if you have to look for something bad or an official blame or even abuse in order to be considered a good journalist or columnist.

In recent years, this parochial interpretation of the role of the media in society has led to the use of acerbic, sometimes uncouth, language in describing politicians and their activities, focusing on what is wrong in every sphere of society. This has led to the neglect of the broader role of the media in informing, educating, and entertaining the public as well as keeping people actively involved in society and politics. In-depth analyses of policies and important issues are few and far between. So are helpful recommendations and suggestions for improvement. Where such attempts are made, they are often enveloped by negative criticisms, which often diminish the value of the suggestions.

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The result has been devastating for Nigeria and its people. For one thing, the perpetual negative stance of the Nigerian media has sold Nigeria to the outside world as a country where nothing works, where the government and designated officials do not know what to do, and where nothing good can come out of the country and its people. International organisations and foreign observers rely heavily on the Nigerian media in forming their opinion about the country and its people. This was particularly evident during the last general elections. The media chorus of INEC’s failure to transmit the results of the presidential election to its portal in real time became the litmus test for assessing everything INEC did during the election. Whatever mainstream media had to say about the election, social media went much further by presenting false and fake information as fact. The overall effect on the populace is the acceleration of trust deficit in government, its institutions, and relevant government functionaries.

It is not surprising, therefore, that, aided by persistent criticisms from the media, trust deficit is already setting in on the new administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, despite the initial positive reception of the removal of fuel subsidy and the multiple exchange system. In recent weeks, the media have spent more time criticising the policies than in explaining why they are necessary and what should be done to make the policies work better.

Fortunately, Tinubu is a President who listens and engages in necessary self-correction. We saw this in the speedy way he responded to criticisms of cash distribution as palliative. We also saw it in his redirection of ECOWAS to focus on diplomacy rather than armed conflict in resolving the military takeover of government in Niger. However, several issues remain that deserve urgent attention.

One, apprehension is growing over the delayed inauguration of cleared ministers and the assignment of their portfolios. It is believed that the President’s hands are now so full that a functioning cabinet could lighten his burden considerably. It is also argued that the cabinet of possibly 50 or more people will be too large for effective debate of issues and for our national purse in these austere times. It will be useful for the President to provide some justification for the large number when the ministers are inaugurated.

Two, one of the recommendations in the President’s Policy Advisory Council Report is the need to establish a Presidential Performance Delivery Unit (PPDU), which may have already been established. This is an important unit that will monitor the activities of different ministries and appropriate officials relative to the mandate given to them by the President. The PPDU should be headed by a Director-General, preferably a technocrat with experience in performance evaluation and quality assurance. The DG should report directly to the President and should be recruited from outside the government, rather than from within the ranks of ministers or civil servants. The unit should be inaugurated before, or as soon as, the cabinet is inaugurated.

Three, the aftermath of the removal of fuel subsidy and multiple exchange rates recur frequently in criticisms. Petrol price has been going up and so is the rate of exchange, the latter leading to further depreciation of the Naira. These intertwined issues touch directly on people’s lives, affecting the costs of food, transportation, and services. Fortunately, the President has stepped in on both issues. It is hoped that this intervention will produce desired results.

Fourth, it is equally praiseworthy that the President has succeeded in redirecting ECOWAS from bellicose to diplomatic overtures in resolving the conflict in Niger, by taking the initiative of reaching out to Niger’s military junta. War is often devastating to the warring parties. Besides, a war in Niger will be messy for Nigeria, partly because of a shared long border, which will open the door for the influx of refugees, and partly because foreign mercenaries will certainly complicate matters.  That’s why war should be used as a last resort in resolving this conflict. A President who came into office wearing a blue badge of hope should not be found wearing a red badge of blood shortly after inauguration.

If I have said nothing new in this piece, it is because I wanted to show that that the media has a duty not only to condemn what is wrong but also to acknowledge what is right and even assist the government in achieving its development goals. This offering is necessary at this time, because, regardless of the opposition to the election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Vice-President Kashim Shettima and no matter how we may hate them as politicians, two things are clear: (1) they are they are currently Nigeria’s leaders and (2) their success is our success as a country and as a people, while their failure is also our collective failure. Let’s shoot for success.

So much has been written for public consumption and so much has been said in private conversations about Professor Kole Omotoso—writer, playwright, essayist, dramatist, and advert personality—since his passing on July 19, 2023. Kole was eulogised for his academic integrity, humanity, a keen understanding of the human condition, and an unending desire to lift people from Sisyphean helplessness to self fulfillment.

The title of this essay was lifted from Professor Wole Soyinka’s tribute to Kole yesterday, July 8, 2023, during a memorial celebration of Kole’s life. The event held at Vodacom World in Johannesburg, South Africa, the mobile telephone company for which Kole made the iconic Yebo Gego commercial that launched him into public consciousness throughout the country.

It was a very solemn occasion with the hall graced by Kole’s immediate family members and close South African friends, most of whom had one thing or the other to say about Kole. However, tributes from close friends from Nigeria were also read. As the event was streamed live, many joined in from various corners of the globe.

Kole came alive in the tributes, which highlighted his essential traits and enduring legacies: He was revealed as a loving father, mentor, and friend to his children; as a loyal friend to close ones; as the face of one of the most popular billboard and television adverts in South African recent history; as an academic and author of many books, including the popular Just Before Dawn (1988); and as an old man, who searched for words as he recovered from a stroke.

Kole’s three adult and accomplished children—Akin (award-winning film maker); Yewande (architect and popular author); and Pelayo (Engineer and university professor) took turns to start-off the tributes.

Akin read from letters he wrote to his father from his days in Command Secondary School, Ibadan. In each letter, he updated his father about his life experiences, such as falling ill with malaria or finding a new craze in basketball. Besides, he often requested one thing or the other, such as a bike or T-shirts for all three kids.

Yewande employed a stream-of-consciousness technique in her recollections, moving back and forth between the present and the past. The emotional load on her of her father’s plight in his last days came through in her voice and words as she recalled her father’s recovery from stroke: “He struggled for words, words that lined up along his tongue as a professor and playwright”. Then she briefly went back to talk about following him to a poetry festival in 2009, where she enjoyed watching him and his colleagues bustling with joyous laughter. It was an impression deep enough to make her want to be a writer. The emotion came back again as she bid her father Good-bye with a sob.

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Pelayo, professorial in voice and carriage, recalled things his father bought for him, from Chess to QED, a book on Quantum Electrodynamics, and Kindle, the popular Amazon reader. He recalled the lessons their father taught them with emphasis on the words “not just to show up but to stand out”.

There was also a memorable message fro Taiwo and Olamiposi, Kole’s stepchildren fro a late marriage to Bukola. They recalled Kole’s influence on their lives and support for their education.

In emotion-laden voice, Bukola, their mother, spoke about her brief but memorable relationship with Kole. She would forever remember the time they spent together. It was as well that she was able to join him shortly before he died, thanks to the Adamolekuns.

In Soyinka’s tribute, read by Yewande, he commended Kole’s artistry in his signature book, Just Before Dawn, and suggested that it should be read by Nigerian schoolchildren. For the umpteenth time, Soyinka blamed Nigerian rulers, ever self-conscious of their guilt, for not only banishing Kole’s book on publication, but also banishing history from the school curriculum to prevent schoolchildren from learning about their past.

In a video, Professor Ladipo Adamolekun provided a crispy synopsis of Kole’s life history as it intertwined with his own experiences since 1957, when they met in the same secondary school. For nearly 67 years, they made steady progress in their academic careers, meeting again at Ife as lecturers. In between and later, they never lost touch with each other, even when Ladi went to join the World Bank and Kole went to lecture in South Africa. On retirement, they came close again, within driving distance of each other as they were when they were in secondary school in the fifties.

There also was an emotional tribute, laden with native songs, by workers in Pioneer House, which provided care for Kole in his last days.

One of the high points of the day was the rendition of Kole’s favourite hymn, “Abide with me”. It was a very popular devotional hymn in IONIAN (Anglican) secondary schools, one of which I attended as well. Incidentally, the song was composed by a Scottish Anglican cleric, Henry Francis Lyte, as he was dying from tuberculosis in 1847.

It will be mistaken, however, to misinterpret Kole’s love of this hymn as a surrogate of his Christianity. He was not religious in that sense. He simply loved the poetry of the lyrics, and the comfort the words gave us as little kids in those days. The song contains lines, such as: “The darkness deepens/Lord with me abide/When other helpers fail/and comforts flee/Help of the helpless/O abide with me”. The final lines are particularly interesting and appropriate for the occasion: “In life, in death, O Lord/abide with me”.

The programme drew to a close with a threesome rendition of passages from The Prophet, one of Kole’s faviourite books. It is a famous book of 26 prose poetry fables written by Kahlil Gibran, a Lebanese-American poet and writer. The main character in the fables is Al Mustafa, the prophet, who was leaving the city in which he had lived for 12 years. As he was about to board a ship to carry him home, he was stopped by a group of people. His discussion with them about life and the human condition formed the various chapters of the book. The various topics discussed are of eternal value.

For reasons going back to my childhood, Kole’s death gripped me like the first death I experienced, that of my favourite uncle when I was about five. This essay may well be another way for me to unwind from the grip.

Kole. O dabo o. O di gbere. Vale. Au revoir. Bye-bye.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu might have given the best speech of his presidency so far last Monday, July 31, 2023: Simple and accessible language; necessary plea for patience and understanding; and the appropriateness of content—the doling out of necessary economic measures that would provide a healing balm on the festering economic sores of the nation and its people.

The speech was a catalogue of economic measures to cushion the effects of the painful, but widely acclaimed removal of fuel subsidy and the preferential exchange rate system, both of which benefitted only a handful of people.

Below are highlights of the new economic measures rolled out on Monday, all aimed at cushioning the effects of President Tinubu’s bold intervention on fuel subsidy and multiple exchange rates:

N75 billion to be made available to 75 manufacturing enterprises at 9 percent interest rate per annum, payable over five years.

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N125 billion to energise small and medium-sized enterprises and the informal sector.

N200 billion allocated to agriculture and the agriculture value chain, including N50 billion to cultivate 150,000 hectares of rice and maize and N50 billion to cultivate 100,000 hectares of  wheat and cassava. In addition, 225 metric tonnes of fertiliser, seedlings and other inputs will be provided to farmers keyed to food security agenda.

200,00 metric tonnes of grains would be released to households from strategic reserves to moderate prices.

Infrastructure Support Fund was also approved for states to enable them to effectively intervene and invest in critical areas of the economy, including education, healthcare, and rural access roads to ease evacuation of farm produce to markets. N100 billion of the Infrastructure Fund will also be used to acquire 3,000 units of 20-seater CNG-fuelled buses to be made available to participating transport companies at an interest rate of 9 percent per annum, payable over five years.

Above all, the President also announced that an upward review of the national minimum wage for workers is being worked out in collaboration with the Labour unions. He assured the nation that budget provision will be made for the implementation of the agreed new minimum wage.

Several observations could be made about the speech. One, at least for once, we have a President, who listens and is willing to make necessary self-correction. There is clear evidence in the speech that the criticisms of the previously announced palliative measure of distributing N8,000 to 12 million vulnerable families across the country was taken to heart.

Accordingly, he quickly ordered a review. Within three weeks oand appealed for understanding: “Sadly, there was an unavoidable lag between subsidy removal and these plans coming fully online. However, we are swiftly closing the time gap. I plead with you to have faith in our ability to deliver and in our concern for your well-being”.

Two, it is clear that, on the one hand, the removal of fuel subsidy is working and yielding desired results in terms of savings. According to the President, over N1 trillion was saved within two months of the removal. Although the President made it clear in his speech that the savings “will now be used more directly and more beneficially for you and your families”, critics are now asking, “Where is the money, and how will it be spent?” However, on the other hand, fuel subsidy removal has led to an almost 200 percent hike in the pump price of petrol.

Two, similarly, the removal of the dual exchange rate yielded both positive and negative results. True, the multiple exchange rates favoured by the Emefiele-led Central Bank, and skewed in favour of a select few, has been eliminated, the official and black market rates have gone up significantly. As a result, commodity prices have gone up significantly.

At the end of the day, both measures have led to a hike on inflation. It is significant that the President also promised to intervene when and where necessary.

Three, although the President’s focus was to alleviate the sufferings following the removal of fuel subsidy and and multiple exchange rates, there are other areas of the economy, such as electricity tariff, over which consumers are very anxious. Consumers need assurances in these harsh economic times that DISCOs will not carry through their threat to increase electricity tariff for some time.

There is no doubt that the President’s speech was generally well received, even by some chronic critics. The major reservation is with the implementation of the various measures, bearing in mind the failures of the various social protection measures established by the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.

For effectiveness of implementation of the economic measures recently announced by President Tinubu, a three-prong approach may be necessary. First, the beneficiaries of the funds and items listed in the speech should be identified throughout the country. For the sake of time, this should be done by states and local governments. However, Governors and Local Government Chairmen as well as Party Chairmen should be warned not to be partisan in the identification exercise. Indeed, the exercise could be conducted by representatives of various political parties in each state.

Second, it may be useful not to crowd the various measures in one hand or in a single ministry. Rather, each measure should be handled by the relevant ministry.

Third, there should be a performance evaluation body, whose duty is to monitor the implementation of the measures across ministries. Such a body should be independent of the ministries and the civil service and it should report directly to the President on a timely basis.

Section 77(3) of the Electoral Act stipulates that political parties must submit their comprehensive register of members to the Independent National Electoral Commission 30 days before their presidential primaries. According to the evidence tendered by the lawyers of Tinubu and Shettima last week and accepted by the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, Obi’s name was not in the LP members’ register for Anambra State or anywhere, which was submitted to INEC along with a letter dated April 25, 2022 addressed to the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission. Evidence was also provided that Obi left the PDP on May 26, 2022, and became the LP candidate two days later on May 27, 2023.

True, the court has not ruled either way on these matters, but the evidence is very clear. Similar evidence was used in the recent ruling by the Asaba National Assembly Election Tribunal to nullify the election of an LP candidate, Ngozi Okoli, on the grounds that she was not duly sponsored by the LP as she was not a member of the party as at May 28, 2022, when the primary was conducted.

Now that the PEPT has admitted the evidence that Obi was indeed not a member of the Labour Party within the stipulated registration deadline before the party’s presidential primary, it would appear that, like Okoli’s nullified candidacy, Obi’s 2023 presidential run was based on manipulation and deceit, which, in turn, permeated his entire campaign.

For Obi, deception and manipulation easily became reality. For example, during the presidential campaign, Obi went to Egypt to attend a Bankers Conference. He came back to tell Nigerians that he had gone there to study Egypt’s successful transmission of electricity throughout the country. It was this alternate reality that Obi sold to the Obidiots, who saw Obi as a soothing balm on their frustration. He would change consumption to production and create jobs for millions of Nigerians, he told them, without any indication as to how he would do it.

Obidiots, in turn, took deception to another level by creating alternate realities and conspiracy theories. In the process, they attacked and demonised political opponents and anyone who disagreed with them. Using various social media platforms, they engaged in disinformation, misinformation, fake news, and trolls. What is worse, they distorted and falsified evidence presented to the Tribunal in order to justify Obi’s conjured victory.

During the campaign, Obi expanded his world of deception to the transactional use of ethnicity and religion. He capitalised on the Igbo chronic feeling of maginalisation and the Christians’ anger at the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the All Progressives Party candidate and running mate. He presented his election to Igbo leaders as their project and to Christian leaders as a “religious war”. He even promised to compensate them if the war was won.

To complicate matters for Obi and Obidiots was a sleuth of unrealistic and misleading opinion polls by Atedo N. A. Peterside (ANAP) Foundation, which consistently projected Obi in the lead.

It is against these backgrounds that Obi and Obidiots’ statements and actions regarding the proceedings of the PEPT must be understood. It all started when once it became apparent from the tallies of presidential election results submitted by the LP polling agents that Obi was going to lose the election, he and his supporters pointed to INEC’s failure to transmit the election results in some polling stations to the INEC Results Viewing (IReV) portal as a conspiracy against them. Nigerian newspapers and media houses chorused the noise and a number of foreign observers, including the European Union, foreign newspapers, and media houses bought the noise.

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Without a doubt, INEC dug its own grave by failing to keep its promise to transmit election results live. However, various Election Tribunals, including the Osun Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, have ruled that INEC is free to choose its own administrative procedure for transmitting election results and that the IReV is neither a requirement of the Electoral Act nor of the Constitution.

After the election and the declaration of the All Progressive Congress candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as the winner, Obidiots and their sympathisers engaged in various protests, including plans to disrupt the inauguration on May 29. Their attack on the judiciary in advance of Obi’s petition was championed by the LP Vice-Presidential candidate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, who warned former President Muhammadu Buhari and the Chief Justice of the Federation not to allow, or participate in, the inauguration of then President-elect Tinubu on May 29, 2023 on the grounds that they would be aborting democracy, because (in his own alternate reality) Tinubu did not meet the constitutional requirement to be declared President. Fare enough, Baba-Ahmed was widely condemned for his vituperations.

Once they submitted their petition to the PEPT, they championed the call for live transmission of the proceedings. Their aim was to use it a vehicle to further throw dirt in public view on President Tinubu as defendant. The court, of course, declined their request.

Further conspiracy theories were unleashed after the close of hearings by the PEPT. The LP Chairman falsely claimed that the APC was already preparing for a possible re-run presidential election, because the ruling party knew that the tide was tilted against it in the ongoing legal challenge to the presidential election results. He called on millions of Obidiots to get ready. This must be understood by security agencies as a call to Obidiots to prepare for protests or worse, if the judgement went against them.

Then came various attempts to discredit the judiciary. They included a widely circulated fake story that President Tinubu had a conversation with some Justices of the Supreme Court, including Chief Justice Olukayode Ariwoola. This spurious allegation was amplified by the PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar, who claimed that that President Tinubu was planning to influence the judges. Obidiots and their supporters further claimed that the Chief Justice and some other Justices of the Supreme Court had appointed their close relatives as judges.

Not done, another fake story was circulated widely on Twitter indicating that Justice Boloukuoromo Ugo, a Judge on the PEPT, had allegedly resigned, because siding with President Tinubu against Obi “would mean the death of Nigeria’s democracy”, recalling Baba-Ahmed’s condemned statement. Another far-fetched story claimed that former Rivers State Governor, Nyesome Wike, met with some judges in Malaga, Spain, persuading them to tilt the judgement in Tinubu’s favour. All the fake stories were denied by the relevant court.

What is worrisome about these fake stories and conspiracy theories is their circulation by mainstream media and major newspapers as if they were to be believed. Yet, they have serious negative implications for our democracy, for the judiciary, for the rule of law, and for national security. They must be condemned in very strong terms.

Over the past week, the case of Mmesoma Ejikeme, who faked a Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board’s score of 362, instead of her true score of 249, dominated the headlines. By the time the young lady eventually confessed to the crime, two distinct groups had emerged with different reactions to the story. One group, the fall guys, elevated emotion and fiction over reason and facts; displayed ethnic bigotry; and rode on society’s trust deficit in public institutions to distrust and discredit JAMB. The group includes Mmesoma’s father, Romanus Ejikeme; a former Minister of Educaation, Dr. Oby Ezekwezili; Mmesoma’s school Principal, Mrs Uchechukwu Edum; some church pastors, including the pastor of Mmesoma’s church; some Igbo leaders; and a whole host of Obidiots on social media, one of whom suggested that His Excellency, Dr. Peter Obi, will scrap JAMB once he got his mandate back.

The other group, the good guys, put reason and facts over emotion and fiction; carried out proper investigation; and eventually bust Mmesoma’s fraud. The group was led by JAMB, which insisted from the beginning that Mmesoma was peddling a fake result and that the Board’s updated portal could not be hacked. The Board was eventually vindicated by Mmesoma’s confession. Other members of the group included former Minister Osita Chidoka, who owns the CBT Centre, where Mmesoma took the JAMB exams. He examined the results of other students from the same Centre and immediately noticed and disclosed the fraud in Mmesoma’s fake result. Then there was the Dr Chukwuma Soludo-led Anambra state government, which set up a committee that thoroughly investigated the matter and confirmed that JAMB was right that Mmesoma faked the result she had been displaying. It was to this committee that Mmesoma confessed to her fraud.

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However, bad as Mmesoma’s case may be for academic integrity, it is only part of the universal trend in admissions fraud. Examinations fraud complements admissions fraud as student-focused crimes. Two other types of fraud in higher education today are credentials and publications fraud, both perpetrated by university lecturers, professors, and administrators. Credential fraud is universal, while publications fraud is concentrated in the developing world.

Here, I turn the searchlight on credentials fraud, by highlighting a few findings from a new book, titled Fake Degrees and Fraudulent Credentials in Higher Education, edited by Sarah E Eaton, Jamie J Carmichael and Helen Pethrick, and published by Springer in January 2023.

The authors’ findings after world-wide investigations revealed that the fake degree industry has grown astronomically in monetary value from one billion dollars in 2015 to 22 billion in 2022! There are over 100 diploma mills in the United States alone, which issue fake degrees. However, it would appear that the headquarters of the practice is in Pakistan, where many fake journals also publish articles in local print shops for a fee. Between the US and Pakistan, many patrons have purchased fake degrees from the Americas to Europe, from Africa to Asia, indeed, from everywhere. It is believed that one or two sitting governors may have patronized one of these diploma mills. Today, it is estimated that over 4 billion people have patronized fake diploma mills or fake journal publishers.

Axact, located in Pakistan, is believed to be the largest single diploma mill in the world. According to a former FBI agent, who led the investigation of Axact, it was revealed that it sold more than nine million diplomas and transcripts drawn on fake universities, claimed to be located in the United States. The names included “University of Atlanta”, “Almeda University”, “Gatesville University”, and “Belford University”, which grew out of “Belford High School” that provided transcripts and high school diplomas. They are all non-existent.

In another chapter of the book, attention was drawn to a celebrated case in Nigeria in which the National Universities Commission found more than a hundred fraudulent lecturers and professors. They were unmasked in 2019 by the requirement that they upload their qualifications to a national portal. The practice should continue and so should the requirement be extended to publications, especially by those seeking promotion from Senior Lecturer upwards. A consortium of professors should assess those publications from time to time. The number and spread of fake publications, not to speak of their quality, may shock the nation.

However, patronage of fake diplomas is not limited to workers in higher institutions. It is even more extensive beyond the ivory tower.  The increase in patronage is believed to be coming from government and corporate employees seeking a short cut to promotion or pay raise; growing student international mobility; and an increasingly competitive global job market.

Credentials and publications fraud have serious repercussions for academic integrity. Professors mount the lecture rostrum, claiming to know and teach what they do not quite know or understand. The result is a confused group of students, who struggle through the course, learning little or nothing they can remember or use later. There is also the erosion of trust in academics and the academia that accompanies cases of credentials and publications fraud perpetrated by university teachers. This trust deficit can only be exacerbated by other crimes, such as sex-for-grade and corruption as well as by perennial union strikes. Trust deficit, infrastructural inadequacies, and falling academic standard are the key factors driving parents, who can afford it, to engage in educational tourism for their children.

It is high time federal and state governments as well as proprietors of private universities turned attention to academic integrity in the nation’s higher institutions, by investing more in oversight and quality assurance as well as infrastructure and teaching aids, including investment in technology. By the same token, university Vice Chancellors have a major role to play in ensuring the drive toward excellence in their respective institutions. 

The argument is not whether or not the National Universities Commission has the power to do what it has been doing to the universities. The truth is that the NUC has legal cover for what it has been doing. Section 10(1) of the Education (National Minimum Standards and Establishment of Institutions ) Act, Cap E3, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004, empowers the NUC to set the minimum standards for all universities and conduct the accreditation of degree courses. With this kind of power, the NUC is only one step away from designing the curriculum for such courses.

The question, however, is whether or not the NUC has truly designed curricular offerings for university courses, sidelining the University Senate, whose primary function it is to oversee the university’s academic functions, including course offerings, examinations, and the approval of degrees to be awarded to deserving students. There was a lot of noise last week that the NUC has done precisely that.

On reading about the objections raised by the Academic Staff Union of Universities to the NUC’s Core Curriculum and Minimum Academic Standards for the Nigerian University System, I sought the advice of some Professors, who currently teach in one premier Federal University or the other. I wanted to know the reactions of their Senate and the faculty in general to the CCMAS documents. I also read the official response of the NUC to the objections. Not done, I read through many of the CCMAS documents online at nuc-ccmas.ng.

There are several striking findings, using the CCMAS document for the Social Sciences as reference point. First, what the NUC has developed is not anything near the 70 percent curriculum content being touted by ASUU. Rather, what the NUC has produced is a template for each course, featuring basic topics; core concepts; competencies to be acquired; expected learning outcomes; modes of student assessment; grading of courses; and student evaluation of courses. In order to underscore the ownership of the course by the course lecturer, the NUC adds: “It is pertinent to note that this CCMAS Document is expected to guide institutions in the design of curricula for their Social Sciences programmes by stipulating the minimum requirements. Institutions are therefore encouraged to take due cognizance of the CCMAS while bringing necessary innovation into the content and delivery of their programmes towards achieving the overall goals of Social Science education and training in the country”.

Second, the template was constructed by a consortium of university professors, drawn from various disciplines; professionals of various stripes; top civil servants; and other stakeholders. Then reviewers were drawn from various universities. At least two Professors from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, participated in reviewing particular programmes in the Social Sciences. During the construction of the CCMAS documents, the NUC Board Chairman was no other than Emeritus Professor, Ayo Banjo, an illustrious scholar and former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan.

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Third, the Senates of some universities, including the University of Lagos, have reportedly considered and approved the CCMAS document, while others are still mauling over the infraction of their authority. ASUU on their part is right about calling for a bottom-up approach, rather than what they describe as the NUC’s “top-bottom (read top-down) or take-it-or-leave it model”.

What ASUU has failed to acknowledge is that the real problem with Nigerian universities is the materialistic orientation of faculty and staff. Too much is going on in the search for money, including money for grades, money for the supervision of long essays, and money for virtually any favour that students seek. It is all too easy to draw from the rank of professors and administrators for a few thousand Naira to do anything, including undermining university autonomy. Inadequate and irregular salary payments are often blamed for their actions. NUC and the Joint Admissions Matriculation Board are two centralising federal institutions that have the Naira to throw around to achieve their objectives. Yet, these are institutions that exert controlling power over the universities.

There is no doubt that the centralising tendencies of federal institutions are becoming overbearing for the universities. For example, there is an ongoing pressure on the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital to dance to the tune of civil servants from the Federal Ministry of Health in Abuja, who scuttled the processes set in motion by the Hospital Management Board. As the story developed, it also appeared that the leadership of the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria has been exerting its influence on the Ministry officials on behalf of the candidate they are said to be interested in. It is yet another sad story about my alma mater and the foundation of my professional career.

There is yet another development that may have nothing to do with the NUC. It is reported that some applicants are being dumped on certain departments in a number of universities for interview as lecturers, contravening the processes by which lecturers are recruited. How many of such “dumped” applicants have been hired remains unknown. It is suspected that there is a clique behind the practice, which charges the applicants some unspecified amount. It is yet another sad encroachment on our beleaguered universities, including, again, my beloved alma mater.

Finally, there is an important lesson about transparency and inclusivity that the NUC may have to learn from JAMB. These are among the chief strategies used by JAMB to draw the support of the universities, the media, and the general public. Nothing prevents the NUC from inviting various departments to streamline the template for their courses, which the NUC could then use as the starting point for constructing the CCMAS documents in about the same way by which JAMB constructs the cut-off marks for admission, by drawing upon input from university vice-chancellors, polytechnic rectors, and registrars.