In my undergraduate days, I had a very bad relationship with my lecturers. I was reluctant to get closer to any of them because of the preferential treatment they gave to those who were close to them. I hated anyone being given a special attention which I believed then could lead to conflict among students and decline learning process.
I hated the biased practices by some of the lecturers. In situations they were to issue disciplinary measures, most of them retracted when their “favoured students” were involved. I had this misconception that being close to your lecturers is detrimental to the learning process.
Again, due to the large student population in class, it was hard to interact with lecturers. But in my final year, I became close to one of my lecturers who turned out to become my project supervisor. How it happened remains a mystery to me.
It was then I realised the advantages of being close to one’s tutors, especially in tertiary institutions. He guided, counselled, advised, and reprimanded me. This made me see him as a father and mentor. He always reminded me that he wouldn’t give me any preferential treatment. According to him, we are friends outside the classroom. He is still my adviser as a graduate student.
Unarguably, lecturer-student interaction is an important component of tertiary education system. A healthy relationship between the lecturers and students does influence students’ academic, personal and social integration into higher education. This could be attributed to the fact that lecturers’ contact with students in and out of the classroom is very important in motivating them for academic improvement.
It has been observed that this lecturer-student relationship is predominant in private varsities than public universities, which are the attributes of excellent students’ performance in the former.
Lecturers interact well with students in private institutions. In a university setting, there is a great diversity in terms of socio-cultural, political, religious and racial backgrounds among students and lecturers. In private universities, the bond is tightened between the students and lecturers leading to an increase in academic productivity.
In public schools, most lecturers make themselves unapproachable. Most don’t even have visiting hours, while those that have don’t keep them . Many lecturers believe that students’ discussions with them should only be on academic concerns, forgetting that lecturer-student relationship could also help in students’ career development.
The fact that effective lecturer-student interaction can impact positively on quality education has encouraged many private varsities like Benson Idahosa University in Benin City to embark upon rigorous programmes geared towards enhancing such interaction.
At Benson Idahosa University, staff members identify their professional and moral responsibilities to protect the interests of students, to respect the intimacy involved in the staff-student relationship and to accept the duties crucial in that responsibility. Relationship between teachers and students is also commendable probably because some of the lecturers also passed through the university.
In varsities, such interactions occur at various places, including the classroom, laboratories, open spaces and offices. But wherever it occurs, both parties should ensure it helps in academic and social development.
It is highly regrettable that most lecturers in public varsities now spend more time attending to irrelevant concerns, conducting researches and developing publications. They give no room for students’ interaction.
When lecturers treat their work with levity, it discourages serious students from establishing good relationship with them. The more a lecturer knows about his students, the easier it is for him to impart knowledge into them.
Again, lecturers in private varsities are usually evaluated by their students at the end of each session. This evaluation is not just beneficial in understanding the areas of possible improvement for the lecturer but helps foster lecturer-student relationship.
This is a practice that seems not to have been embraced in some public schools. In these assessments, students often point out the flaws of their lecturers. This practice, in a way, gives the lecturers reasons to improve, especially in their classroom and outside-the-classroom interactions with students.
It is evident that enrolment in tertiary institutions has doubled in recent times, but this should not undermine lecturer-student relationship. No doubt, some lecturers are friendly and excellent in lecturing and accommodating.
Lecturers can equally learn a lot from students if they interact with them. This relationship should be symbiotic, because one needs the other.
In the presence or absence of lecturer- student relationship, a lot depends on the individual and on how willing the student is to get a quality education and make a remarkable impact in the society.
Students need to be focused, hardworking, honest and devoted to their studies, while lecturers on the other hand should approach their job with dedication as it is one of the most revered jobs in the world.
THE organised labour is set for a showdown with operators of private educational institutions, especially private universities.
According to Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) President Ayuba Wabba, labour unions are preparing to enforce constitutional provisions to unionise workers in the institutions.
Wabba dropped the hint while on a visit to national secretariat of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) in Abuja.
He accused private universities of exploiting workers and denying them the right to be unionised.
Wabba frowned at government penchant to disobey court orders and refusal to implement collective bargaining agreements freely entered into with unions, especially those in the education and health sectors.
He said this is a call to anarchy in industrial relations.
The NLC President argued that as an integral part of the society, operators of private universities must respect the laws of the land, which allow workers to form and belong to trade union of their choice, adding that the refusal to allow workers unionise is because of the exploitation going in the sector.
Wabba said: “I am aware that we have had some contestations in organising the private universities. The private universities are an integral part of our university system and so, we must, as a union makes deliberate effort, with the support of NLC, to try and unionise those private universities.”
Blaming government for the constant crisis in the nation’s educational sector, the NLC president said government must learn to respect agreements it freely entered into, including respect for court judgements and other judicial pronouncement, especially in cases referred to the court by government.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is fighting to bring private universities under its umbrella to stop what it calls “exploitation” of teachers. But the universities are not ready to play ball. ADEGUNLE OLUGBAMILA, OLUWATOYIN ADELEYE AND MOJISOLA CLEMENT-OMOBOWALE report
The battle did not start today. The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has for long tried to bring private universities under its wing, to no avail. Now, ASUU is determined to achieve its aim to save teachers, whose rights, it claimed are being trampled upon by their employers.
ASUU National President Dr Nasir Isa Fagge accused private universities of compromising standards; denying their workers salaries and other academic benefits. Many of them, he claimed, have no staff development programme, adding that they poach intellectuals who have been developed through public fund.
Fagge said: “One thing I know is that private universities are not operating in tune with the Constitution which ensures for every citizen a right to freedom of association. Many private universities deny their staff that fundamental right. ASUU is willing to challenge this and get this addressed in favour of workers in private universities. I also know that private universities rely to a large extent on manpower developed using public resources. Most of them do not have effective staff development and as such there is a dearth of intellectuals in private universities which rely on public universities for manpower.”
Fagge put part of the blame on the National Universities Commission (NUC) which he accused of not committing prospective private university operators to staff development and welfare before licencing them.
“There is a regulatory body (NUC) which I do not know what they are doing about private universities.
“NUC should not be granting licences to private universities unless they find evidence that they have effective staff development programmes so that they don’t parasite on the manpower that have been developed through public resources,” Fagge said.
The universities also fought back, saying ASUU cannot on that account, impose itself on them.
Fagge recalled that private university was the initiative of former president Olusegun Obasanjo, alleging that it was designed to kill ASUU, but the idea boomeranged.
“The genesis of private university started with former President Obasanjo who felt ASUU was a snake and therefore needed to be killed and its pieces distributed across the country,” Fagge claimed, adding:
“When Obasanjo failed to do that, he decided to grant licence to private universities. All these measures are in tune with the privatisation syndrome which ASUU was against and has recently been confirmed as a scam by the National Assembly committee that investigated the privatisation exercise.
“Of recent, they (private universities) are agitating that they also want to benefit from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) which is public money. I do not see where a private investor establishes a private business and expects government to pump public money into it.
“Private universities were actually designed to take over public universities. Unfortunately, the investors initially thought along that line; but since that is not forthcoming, many of them are now face to face with reality. Most of them are just moving on collecting money and commercialising education and then giving students results. We now see many first class graduates being produced by them annually compared to public universities; that is enough to show you whether things are being done correctly or not.
Our fate, by teachers
A former university teacher, in Ogun State sacked alongside 15 others last August told The Nation how the founder/Chancellor has been using divide-and-rule to suppress workers’ right. The most disturbing aspect, said the teacher, who claimed he was owed 10 months salary arrears before his sack, added that most workers in the institution numbering about 70 are being owed.
“The founder has this fraudulent way of paying us,” the source said.
“For instance if he owes about 10 months arrears, he can choose to pay me half the month of June, and then another colleague half of August salary. If he chooses to pay in full, it cannot be the same month for everybody. When we saw the hand writing on the wall, some of us wanted to raise the alarm; but others feared consistent threat of job loss by management if we ever spilled the beans,” he added.
Human capacity development in the university is also nil, said another source from the institution.
“There is nothing like grant to go for seminars or conferences. Even if you want to sponsor yourself there is no way you would be allowed because of the workload. Sometimes it is the Vice Chancellor (VC) that comes to our aid by pleading on our behalf.
“For instance, we have about 25 students in our department. We are only three and yet each of us teaches up to eight courses a week, including some courses outside our department like GNS which is a unit course on its own. The founder, rather than employ more, decided to circumvent standard.
“Our office is a makeshift and two of us have to cram ourselves in the dingy room,” said another source from a private university in Oyo State.
“It was when the NUC accreditation team was coming that the proprietor hurriedly patched up some of the buildings to make them look a bit presentable. In fact I remember that two days before NUC arrival, two of us hurriedly travelled to Ife (OAU) to purchase some books for certain departments which is also a prerequisite for accreditation.”
Prof Edmund Bamiro, Dean, College of Humanities, Redeemers University said it all borders on the statutes of each university:
He said: “For now, it is almost impossible for such a union to be formed, and this has to do with the statutes that establish the universities. It is until those statutes are changed by the proprietors or founders of the universities that those unions can be established. The way the laws are structured now, unions would not be allowed in private universities. However, this would be a welcome development as people would be able to bargain for certain things.”
Dr Pius Adebisi a part-time Political Science teacher at Joseph Ayo Babalola University (JABU) and Registrar of Federal College of Agriculture, Akure said:
“The first thing is that constitutionally, there is freedom of association. So I want to argue that lecturers in private universities, like all other human beings in Nigeria, should enjoy that freedom without limitation. The union, even in private universities, would be of benefit to the system. I have done research on trade unions and management of tertiary institutions in Nigeria and I discovered that even trade unions can contribute a lot to the management of tertiary institutions. The unions can be used to resolve issues amicably, to communicate effectively between management and members of the staff at large and even to enforce discipline among staff, and attract development to universities.
What the law says
A lawyer and expert in labour law, Daniel Onwe, told The Nation that the Constitution provides that workers have the right to freedom of association. Owen explained that the provision is in accordance with International Labour Organisation (ILO) rules.
“Even the fact that they (private universities) are privately owned does not mean they are still not bound by the Constitution. Whenever there is a wrong; there must also be a remedy, “Onwe said.
When told that by virtue of the appointment letters, workers in private universities are forbidden from participating in any association, Onwe responded:
“Yes! Those limitations may be in their condition of service. Truth however is that the Constitution is supreme and superior to any other law and agreement such that if any law is found to be inconsistent with the federal law, the provision of the federal law will prevail.
“But it also calls for some level of boldness of workers in those institutions. If you don’t rise to enforce those laws, it may not be easy. It’s a price one has to pay because freedom does not come without a price.”
‘Workers not caged’
The Chairman of Committee of Vice Chancellors of Private Universities, Prof Isaac Adeyemi, absolved the institutions of caging their workers. According to him, the fact that private universities don’t have unions does not mean there are no avenues provided for them by management to register their grievances.
“Of course we know all private universities do not join unions; however at individual university level, we create avenues through which workers can air their views,” Adeyemi told our reporter on phone.
He continued: “The first avenue is the Senate. The second is the Congregation in which all members of the staff in the university participate, while the third is the Expanded Management Meeting. At individual university, these meetings are held quarterly or at different times.
“Besides, there is a direct contact between the vice chancellor and workers. This is possible because staff strength in private universities is not as large as public institutions. So it gives room for cross fertilisation of ideas.
Adeyemi asked workers who complian that they are not granted research funds to revisit their condition first, before raising eyebrows.
Adeyemi, who is the Vice chancellor of Bells University of Technology in Ogun State, said prospective workers in private universities could read and understand the condition of service, and can also ask question on any grey area, adding that once they sign the document, they have no ground for complaint any longer.
Adeyemi said public universities were once in private universities’ shoes until the arrival of TETfund, which most workers in public universities now tap for research grants, seminars and infrastructures, among others.
“I must acknowledge the fact that some but not all private universities owe their workers, while some are struggling to pay. But let me also add that this is not intentioned. We have our challenges especially in this current harsh economic climate.
“People also claim that our fees are high but it may interest you that some of our students also owe fees. We spend a huge sum on power, security and even maintenance and other expenses. On the average, this may take us up to 15 years or more to fully normalise those challenges. We are addressing the issue among ourselves; but that is not to say ASUU can come and force their way on us. I will also advise operators of private universities to be open to their workers and engage them whenever they are in any financial predicament. A worker’s idea or suggestion could get them out of it, who knows?”
NUC’s position
The NUC denied shielding private universities that breach their workers’ rights.
NUC Director of Information Mr Ibrahim Yakassi said workers in private universities are also intellectuals who know their rights, adding that they do not need NUC to tell them what is right or wrong.
“There is a law and it is the general law that says: if you employ certain number of people in an organisation, they are free to have an association. If their employer rejects the idea, they can then go to court to enforce it. That is not the business of NUC. That law is general and must be respected.
“You said some of those workers are being owed salary arrears, how would we know if nobody comes forward to tell us? Maybe they love to keep silent and suffer. As far as NUC is concerned, we have not heard cases of workers coming to NUC to complain that their right of association is being challenged or they are being owed salary arrears. So to us, all these are mere allegations.
“If those allegations get to us, I can assure you that NUC would act. Don’t forget that some of these workers also signed the condition of service of their employers and therefore should know the conditional ties in the document before signing them.”
Redeemer’s University (RUN) Vice Chancellor, Prof Debo Adeyewa, has described as unfair the exclusion of private universities from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund).
TETFUND is the agency that disburses the Education Tax Fund collected from registered companies to public tertiary institutions. It generates its fund from tax collected from registered companies in the country.
Adeyewa spoke at a briefing held at the institution’s Ede campus during which he announced the school’s breakthrough in the development of a rapid diagnostic test kit for Lassa fever.
He said since there is no company excluded from paying tax so also no private university be excluded from being a beneficiary of their tax payment.
He said: “Since there is nothing like a private person who is excluded from paying tax, so why should tax paid by all of us be ploughed into public tertiary institutions alone while leaving their private contemporaries to develop at their own pace without any help from its government?”
He added that TETFUND can help the country thrive if it ploughed money into varsities that have made research a priority.
“A lot of private schools will take over. That is what World Bank has been doing. Research will transform the economy,’’ Adeyewa said.
The Coordinator of the research, Christian Happi, a Professor of Genetics and Molecular Biology at the university, said private universities will thrive and make good headway even without TETFUND intervention.
He said research in Nigeria is not encouraged because companies and agencies who can fund it are not making it a priority even though there are several agencies in the country that can support it.
“You could bring the latest research facilities to Nigeria and yet research will not thrive because research has not been made a priority in most public varsities. So, funding is not really the problem but how we prioritise,” he said.
Redeemer’s University, which prides itself as a research-focused institution, also made a breakthrough during the Ebola epidemic.
The Vice Chancellor of Al-Hikmah University, Prof Mohammed Ibrahim has urged governments all levels to grant special subventions to private universities in the country.
The professor of community medicine also called on the federal government to allow private universities to benefit from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund). Ibrahim spoke last weekend in Ilorin during the 5th convocation of the institution.
He said Al-Hikmah University produced 817 graduates with 17 persons in the first class category.
He added that the decay at the tertiary level of Nigeria’s educational system makes it imperative to address the funding and infrastructural requirements of the country’s universities.
Ibrahim said: “I would like to call on our governments at all levels to wake up to the challenges posed by the declining quality and funding of education in Nigeria; the quality of teaching and research also needs to be given serious attention if our universities are to remain enviable citadels of learning and scholarship.
“The overwhelming significance of the supportive role of private individuals and organizations in providing quality education to our youths cannot be overemphasized. Considering the enormous amount of financial requirement to fund university education, and non-profit vision of education as social service, it is highly imperative and therefore my plea and prayer to governments at all levels to consider granting some subvention to private universities in the country.”
Prof Ibrahim said the new graduands are from the university’s six colleges and 54 diploma programmes.
Breaking down the number of graduands, the vice chancellor said “217 are from our college of humanities and social science; 236 from the college of management sciences; 318 from the college of natural sciences and 18 from the college of education.
“Of this figure 17 (2.1 percent) in first class (honours); 183 (22.4 percent) are second class (honours) upper division; 313 (38.4 percent) are in second class (honours) upper division; 273 (33.4 percent) are in third class (honours) division and 31 (3.8 percent) with pass degree.”
A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Anthony Adefuye, has raised alarm on the proliferation of private universities in the country. He said proprietors of the private schools are driven by profit rather than the purpose to impart knowledge.
The former lawmaker spoke during the Political Science Students Association (POSSA) Day at St. Augustine College of Education in Akoka, Lagos.
Adefuye said while the number of graduates in the country had been increasing, there are no jobs available for them. He advised parents to be careful of sending their children to universities where they would be turned to educated illiterates.
He said “Most of the private universities we have today are established to collect your money. They have vast land, but with a few building on it. Most of these schools cannot produce students that can face the real challenge of the world. We have to be very careful.
“We must not be deceived by the noise they make about the universities. When we turn out too many students, everyone knows the principle of demand and supply in economics; we have so many graduates without good jobs.”
He praised the college students for their academic excellence, saying he was ready to employ graduates of the institution.
The students honoured Adefuye and former Lagos Deputy Governor, Alhaja Sinatu Ojikutu, for their brand of politics and leadership.
The POSSA president, Miss Onyinye Alozie, said, the association honoured the former Deputy Governor as Best Political Role Model, noting that it was during her time that Lagos was named Centre of Excellence. She described Ojikutu as an “Amazon who focuses mainly on giving back to the society”.
tHE Proprietor of Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin, Kwara State, Chief AbdulRaheem Oladimeji, has urged the Federal Government to allow privately-owned universities have access to the Education Tax Fund (ETF) and Tertiary Education Tax Fund (TETFUND).
Oladimeji said such financial assistance would cushion the effects of heavy running cost being shouldered by proprietors of private universities in the country.
The business tycoon told reporters in Ilorin, the state capital, at the maiden edition of Inter-university Qur’an Recitation and Memorisation Competition hosted by the university.
He added that these funds were drawn mainly from the organised private sector (OPS) of which the owners of these private universities are contributors.
Denying private institutions the benefits accruing there from would be unjust, especially considering the roles of these universities in bridging the gap in the yearly university admission search by millions of youths, he said.
Oladimeji appraised the entrepreneurship programmes of Al-Hikmah University and expressed the hope that graduates of the university would develop their potentials and skills acquisition drive which the institution offers them to be job providers, rather than job seekers.
Assistant Editor SEUN AKIOYE and SAMUEL MALIK in this joint investigation, report on the activities of some self-acclaimed prívate universities whose legality has been questioned by the National Universities Commission (NUC).
In the prosecution dock at the Federal High Court, Akure, Ondo State, stood Dr. Martins Olurankise. Standing opposite him was Ayobami Blessing, witness-in-chief in a case Justice I.M. Sani heard on February 10, 2014. Olurankise and Blessing were fairly familiar with each other; the former as a vice-chancellor and the latter as a student. Now they found themselves at opposite ends of the law.
Eight years earlier, Olurankise was living in dreamland as the Vice-Chancellor of the Akure Campus of Open International University, Sri Lanka. The institution had more than 2,000 students registered for various courses.
Open International University Colombo Sri-Lanka, Akure Campus, was not any other university. Its admission process was not cumbersome. You did not need the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board Examination (JAMB) to secure admission into it. All you needed was to pass the special entrance examination of the school, pay the required fees and you would become a student. What is more, you would be given a degree certificate from a foreign university. The prospects were simply too enticing to resist.
Blessing thought she had been blessed after passing the school’s entrance examination and meeting other entry requirements. She was admitted to study for a degree programme in Nursing and Midwifery.
Blessing told the court: “I met the requirements and admission was given. The admission letter showed the name of the school, the course offered and the signature of the Vice Chancellor, which helped to convince me that the school was authentic.”
Her conviction, she said, moved her to pay the various fees required to tie down a place at the institution. “I paid the sum of N5,000 for acceptance fee and a receipt was issued. I then paid the sum of N2,000 and N12, 500 as part of the tuition fees. I also paid the sum of N17, 500 for which a receipt was not issued. I later paid N5,000, making it a total sum of N22,000, for which a receipt was given,” Blessing told the court.
The fees, she explained to the court, were classified as tuition and miscellaneous fees for the 2006/2007 academic session.
The school opened and classes resumed, with students studying courses like Medicine, Pharmacy and Nursing.
The next session, Blessing paid N5,000 as part of the tuition fee and got a receipt. She paid another N15,000 which was also receipted.
In 2008, however, Blessing’s dream of continuing her studies in the school crashed. The institution was invaded by operatives of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC), accompanied by officials of the National Universities Commission (NUC).
The agencies were acting on a petition addressed to the NUC by the Ondo State Ministry of Health, to which the institution had written that it was running academic programmes in Pharmacy, Medicine and Midwifery.
Olurankise had written to the Ondo State Ministry of Health, introducing his school and the courses it offered, including B.Sc in Medicine, Pharmacy, Nursing and others. It was in a bid to request that the ministry should offer students of his university opportunities for practical training in health facilities in local government areas in the state. Olurankise successfully placed some of his students at medical facilities operated by Akoko South West Local Government Area.
But that was as good as it got. He was arrested by operatives of EFCC and the institution was shut down. One year later, Olurankise appeared before the Federal High Court to face allegations related to fraudulently obtaining money from unsuspecting students.
A disturbing trend
A joint investigation by The Nation and ICIR would later show that there are many others in the country, running illegal tertiary institutions and fleecing hapless students. A major problem bedevilling admission into tertiary institutions in the country is acute shortage of places for qualified candidates.
In addition to this, many candidates are denied admission because they lack basic requirements, notable among which are earning a certain number of credit passes in the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) examination required for university admission and scoring the required marks in the highly competitive Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) examination.
But a disturbing, albeit recurring decimal, has been the number of students who are qualified for admission but are unable to get places because of shortfall in admission slots. Recent figures from the NUC indicate that the country has 142 universities. Of these, 41 are Federal Government-owned, 40 are owned by state governments, while 61 are privately-owned.
The total number of universities, many experts believe, is grossly inadequate for the number of eligible admission seekers, which has been rising yearly. For instance in 2009, a total of 911,653 candidates applied to sit for the JAMB examination. This number increased to 1,092,324 in 2010. In 2011, it was 1,493,604 and in 2013, it reached an all-time high of 1,735,729. Also between 2013 and 2014, there were roughly 1.67 million candidates who sat the JAMB examination.
Admission places are simply not available in the same proportion. For instance in 2013, the number of spaces in the universities was 520,000 (29.96 per cent) of the students seeking admission.
Most of the universities dealt with this issue by exceeding their permissible admission quotas. According to the NUC report of 2011/2012, University of Lagos’ (UNILAG) admission quota was 6,500, but it admitted 7,527; Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, had 6,688 places but ended up with 7,397. University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) had 5,970 places, but admitted 8,267.
Available statistics also show that only about 20 per cent of post-secondary school students seeking admission into higher institutions get admitted. The shortage of admission places in the federal and state universities makes the privately-owned institutions the only alternative.
However, it is not an alternative open to everyone, as the huge fees charged by the schools constitute an impediment. This, naturally, compels many applicants to keep hoping for places in government-owned universities and creates opportunities for proprietors of unapproved universities to mine applicants’ eagerness for degrees.
They simply establish universities and advertise them as being affiliated to foreign tertiary institutions. Most times, the overseas affiliates are in Asia, a continent where verification is difficult.
“The problem is with the system. Apart from the fact that we do not have enough universities, there is also this craze for a university degree. In Nigeria, you almost cannot make any headway if you do not have a university degree, and we have relegated technical certificates to the background. That is the gap fraudulent individuals seek to fill by establishing schools that would feed the desire of students that are left out,” said Oladele Olaleye, an educationist said.
Another educationist, Mrs. Funso Apoeso, believes that the lure of easy admission requirements is the main attraction to these universities.
“In such institutions, you discover that the admission requirements are always lower than the ones in approved universities. And if someone has tried to gain admission but was constrained due to these, such a person will easily fall prey to such scams,” she said.
In 2006, the NUC went after these ‘gap-filling’ institutions by establishing the Committee on Closure of Illegal Universities (CIU). The committee, which has since shut a number of illegal universities, publicly listed 64 universities as illegal and unapproved institutions in 2013. The NUC said the schools flouted the Educational Act, CAP E3, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004.
Operating in the shadows
Adebola (surname protected), a staff of the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), remembers exactly where and when he met Olurankinse. “We heard the advertisement on the radio where he was calling for students and lecturers. There were posters all over Akure. I got in touch and he asked me to come for an interview,” Adebola said.
The ‘interview’ held at the Ondo State Library at St. Peters Junction, Oyemekun Road, Akure. It had a three-man panel that included Olurankise. In the end, Adebola was given the school’s posters and flyers and then a shocker: his employment would be based on how many students he brought into the new school.
“My marketing skills aren’t good so I did not bring any student and thus no employment for me,” Adebola said with a smile.
Blessing got Olurankise’s phone number from one of the posters and was admitted to the school after paying the N5,000 acceptance fee. About 2,000 other students also paid about N10,000 each into the coffers of Open International University, Sri Lanka, aside the tuition and other fees.
In the course of a two-month investigation into the operations of these illegal universities, most of the schools on the NUC list and visited had two things in common: they operated on the outskirts of town, possibly to avoid the attention of relevant authorities, and had no structures of their own. They operated from rented apartments or already existing schools.
For instance, Apa University, which reportedly folded up years ago, existed in Utonkon in Ado Local Government Area of Benue State. Getting to Utonkon and back from Otukpo, a major town, on a motorcycle cost about N1, 000, and the location makes it very difficult for relevant authorities, like the NUC, to regulate it.
Apa University had no structures of its own and operated from Government College, Utonkon, a school with decrepit facilities.
Akor Okpe, a victim of Apa University, told our reporter: “The hostel was not good and had small rooms. Students fixed the doors themselves. The sanitary condition was so terrible that students defecated in the bush, and there was no good library to suggest we were in a school, a private school. Even lectures were not regular.”
Also, it takes about two hours from Makurdi, the state capital, to get to Adoka, where Samuel Adokpela University allegedly existed. On arrival in Adoka, the only school seen with the name Adokpela was a secondary school, with residents saying there was never a university there. The university had simply ‘vanished’.
Another ploy of the operators of unaccredited universities is to claim an affiliation with little known universities abroad. This way, they deceive students into believing that they are studying for internationally recognised degrees. It makes sense, therefore, that instead of the students spending millions to travel abroad and undergoing the stress of obtaining visa, the same international degree could be obtained here in Nigeria spending a fraction of the money.
In Ekiti, St. Clement University, Iyin Ekiti, seemed to have folded up and the operators disappeared into thin air. However, one Atinuke, who claimed to have been a victim of the school’s admission racket, said her dreams were shattered after they saw the name of the school among the ones listed by the NUC as illegal and confronted the management.
“The next day, no lecturer came to the lecture rooms. We saw only a few of the administrative officials and within the week, the campus was only filled with students that would mill around discussing their fate. Some would cry and we were unable to console one another. It was like that until one after the other, we dispersed from the institution, seeing that there was no one to hold by the collar,” she said.
In the eastern part of Nigeria, investigations also revealed that many of the universities on the NUC list have gone underground. In Mbaise, Imo State, nobody could recollect seeing Fifom University and the United Christian University, which are on the list of the NUC as illegal. In Abia State, nobody seemed to have heard about the Volta University, Aba. In Oyo State, Acada University in Akinlalu, near Ife, was also nowhere to be found. A resident of the village said he had heard of the school, but it had closed down.
•The site of the Borough College London, Igboho, Oyo State.
There is also the celebrated case of Borough College London, Igboho Study Centre, which has been attracting attention since The Nation did an exhaustive report on the activities of the school. Currently, the school is still shut while the NUC said the operators must return to follow the accreditation process before it could be re-opened.
According to Folu Olamiti, the resident consultant on Media for the ICPC, the operators of the school have two options: “They can either redress any defaults and thereafter resume operations or seek legal protection of their rights if they believe that they are executing their activities with the approval of applicable state and federal legislation. As a last resort, they can forcibly reopen the institution and face criminal charges.”
However, the NUC has an explanation for some of the above scenarios, according to the Chairman of its Committee on Closure of Universities, Prof. Adebisi Balogun. He explained that the universities may have folded up due to the clampdown from his committee.
“The list of universities you found there are compilations over a period of time. Because of our activities, some of those schools have packed up and gone underground. You may not find them where they were listed. At the time we captured those lists, they were actually in operation,” Balogun said.
Impatience
According to investigators at the ICPC, some operators of these schools fell foul of the law for lack of patience. Once they applied to the NUC for permission, they did not wait for approval before beginning to run the schools.
Sunday Adokpela University, our investigation revealed, falls into this category. Having applied to the NUC for permission to operate a university, it went ahead and sold forms without waiting for NUC’s approval.
The school sold forms for pre-degree programmes and gave admissions to students, but then realised that the university was going to take time to start. So, it decided to convert the admissions to polytechnic programmes under the incorporated name of Sunday Adokpela Polytechnic. But since the polytechnic itself was not yet operational, the school approached Fide Polytechnic in the state for permission to administer its programmes to the students and after their graduation, they would be given certificates in the name of Fide Polytechnic.
Students were not happy and some of them decided not to continue because what they wanted was university education.
The ICPC is currently prosecuting some individuals and institutions for operating illegal degree programmes and exploiting students. According to the commission, one Prof. David, operator of a university in Abuja allegedly collected over N100 million from students for the award of honorary doctoral degrees under the pretence that the school is based in Belize in the Americas.
Another operator falsely assumed authority to offer admission and in the process obtained more than N8 million from students by deceiving them that the school was affiliated to Ambrose Ali University, Ekpoma, to offer degree courses.
Barrister Moses Awe, deputy director, Legal Department, and secretary of the Committee on the Closure of Universities, said the motivation for the establishment of illegal universities is greed and the act an economic crime.
“It is an act of obtaining money under false pretence from gullible students,” Awe said.
This is the case that is hanging over Olurankinse. He has been charged with fraudulently obtaining money from unsuspecting students by false promise.
Legal encumberances
The ICPC and NUC operatives who shut down Evangel Christian University came unannounced. One Saturday, classes had begun and it seemed things would go on swimmingly.
Grace, a woman who witnessed the raid, said the school management was caught unawares. “Many of them were running everywhere looking for escape routes, with many fleeing through the window and leaving the hapless students to their fate,” she recalled.
According to the NUC, when operatives shut down any institution, they are always on the lookout for the proprietor or the vice-chancellor as the case may be. These men usually run away whenever they sight operatives of the ICPC.
But NUC and ICPC have been able to prosecute and get convictions in some cases. For instance, Francis Ada Agbo was convicted in Keffi and sentenced to three years imprisonment. Also, Mr & Mrs Nwachukwu of Temple University, Abuja, were convicted and sentenced to six months imprisonment.
But there are others who have either escaped justice or have been able to use the law to their advantage. For instance, the lead prosecutor in Olurankinse’s case, T.N Ndifon, had complained about deliberate tactics by the defence counsel to delay the prosecution of the case.
For Lawrence Kayode Dare, counsel to Olurankinse, his team has a solid defence against the allegations against his client. In a telephone interview, Dare said: “Our defence is that my client is just an employee of that institution. It is not his responsibility to register the school and he didn’t collect any money from the students. None of all the payment receipts tendered was signed by my client. He is not the owner of the institution; he was just employed as a regional Vice Chancellor.
“You work with The Nation. Is it your responsibility to ensure The Nation is registered with the appropriate bodies? And if certain adverts are carried and payment made to the cashier, can you be liable?
“We asked the prosecution if they knew that the parent body is in Colombo and they confirmed that the parent body exists. They should have enquired from the parent body if Martins is an employee of the school,” Dare concluded.
But the case may have hit a dead end. At the last adjourned date of April 11, 2015, the court did not sit on the case and there is currently no date for continuation of the trial. With the lull in the case, there are fears that it may die naturally.
Students’ gullibility
Unaccredited institutions offer the easiest route to a university degree for candidates who do not have the minimum entry requirements of five credits, including Mathematics and English Language; those who consider the JAMB examination an irritation or those who have attempted it without success.
The institutions lure candidates with the assurance that they have nothing to worry about, while the students follow without asking the necessary questions. Even if they do ask, the schools usually come up with convincing answers.
“Seven professors came to assure us that we had nothing to worry about and that the school would be accredited because they had been to the NUC and the process was already on,” Daniel Ojile, a victim of an unapproved university in Benue State, said.
Ojile had become desperate for admission, and when news went round that a university was coming to Idoma land, he was excited. He was offered admission into the school’s preliminary studies and after a year, got admission to study Medicine. Two years later, his world came crashing down.
“We waited for the accreditation and after two years, when I was in 200 Level, we learnt that the school could not secure accreditation and that it would be scrapped,” Ojile, now a final year student of Microbiology in the University of Abuja, recalled.
Awe would also blame some of the students for not being diligent enough to seek information about the universities. He also believed the problem is not that of access to universities, with the Federal Government’s recent approval of specialised universities and over 150 schools students can choose from.
“Nobody has a reason to patronise them. But you would see students with two credits getting admission and a Third Class graduate teaching them. I would blame it on the students. We have a website where they can check for all the information they need. You would be shocked to find that some students even want it like that,” he said.
NUC and the law
As much as the NUC wants to fight the running of illegal universities, it is hampered by lack of prosecutorial powers. Even when arrested, there is no law with which the NUC can charge operators of illegal universities. Currently, there is no law that criminalises the running of an illegal school apart from the Educational Act, CAP E3, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004, which stipulates the requirements for the establishment of private universities in the country.
“This is why we have partnered with the ICPC, which has the power to prosecute people who have committed economic fraud,” Awe said.
Implications of attending a degree mill
To many of the victims, the opportunity offered by the unaccredited universities might have been hard to resist, but the implications of attending and graduating from one of such universities are dire.
“The perpetrators of this evil act see themselves as the last hope of the masses. And before the students become aware that they were being fleeced, they would have been in the university for one or two years, with a lot of money already spent,” Ojile, a victim, said.
One easy way of attracting students by these fake universities is to offer them respite from JAMB which, unknown to many students, is the gatekeeper between schools and the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme.
•UTME students about to write exam at a centre… What hope of placement for them?
JAMB is the only body that is responsible for admission into tertiary institutions through the University and Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), which qualifies a candidate for admission into a university, polytechnic or college of education.
According to JAMB, while a school may organise preliminary programmes for those seeking admission, such programmes are not substitutes for UTME.
“Some schools, which have their regulatory bodies’ accreditations, run preliminary programmes, remedial studies or whatever they want to do (and) we do not care,” Fabian Benjamin, JAMB’s head of public relations said.
“What we do (care about) is that when these candidates go through these programmes, they still have to write the JAMB exam. The point here is that whatever you are doing is like a coaching class for them.”
Benjamin said schools cannot impose candidates on the board simply because the candidates perform well in the preliminary programmes, and that if a defaulting school thinks it is smart and offers admission to students without its knowledge, repercussions await such students.
“If you have to participate in the National Youth Service Corps programme, you must have a JAMB admission letter. And for you to have that, you must have sat for and passed the JAMB exam. To have sat for JAMB and gained admission, you must have got the minimum entry requirements,” he said.
The way forward
According to some experts, the NUC should do more than just shutting down illegally operated universities but also address the roots of the problem. Prof. Olusegun Osinowo, chief operating officer of Sophie Academic Services, Abeokuta, said the government must address the issues of serious shortfall in the number and quality of university lecturers.
He said while there are about 150 universities in Nigeria, the high fees being charged by private universities put them beyond the reach of most admission seekers. Osinowo said the NUC must adopt a more liberal attitude towards part-time programmes and the operation of 24-hour campuses (night study).
“Virtually all Nigerian universities currently operate for between eight and 10 hours daily. The facilities remain idle for the rest of the day. The introduction of night study on these campuses has the potential of increasing enrolment by 50 to 100 per cent, with minimal additional investment in solar panels or diesel generators, pending improvement in power supply through the national grid,” he said.
TWO new private universities – Edwin Clark University, Kiagbodo, Delta State and Hezekiah University, Umudi, Imo State – were yesterday awarded provisional licences to operate, thereby bringing such universities to 61.
Provisional approval for the universities to operate is intended to create room for effective mentoring and qualitative growth within the first five years of operation.
During the period, the universities will be affiliated to older generation universities for academic and administrative mentoring to be moderated by the National Universities Commission (NUC).
The Minister of Education, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, who issued the certificates, said: “Substantive licences can only be issued to well-managed institutions after the three years of probation, following their respective performance and growth within guidelines stipulated by the NUC.”
He said the problem of access to university education continued to be a serious challenge, calling for concerted effort from the private sector. But, the minister warned that this should not been seen as investment alone, but a contribution to the growth of education sector.
The minister said prior to this approval, Nigeria had 138 universities, servicing a population of over 170 million people, compared to other countries with smaller sizes in population, but with over a thousand universities.
“Private universities have contributed to the opening up of admission space for the swelling population of candidates seeking university education.
“The growth of private universities has created an environment for health competition that stimulates improvement in quality service delivery in the system,” he said.
The Executive Secretary of the NUC, Prof Julius Okojie, during the presentation, reminded the proprietors of the institutions that a daunting task lies ahead as “infrastructure and human capacity must be in place before approval was made.”
He said it makes no sense to be awarded licences only for the institutions to fizzle out.
As the first private university in Osun State, Joseph Ayodele Babalola University (JABU), Ikeji Arakeji holds its fifth convocation tomorrow, the Vice-Chancellor, Prof Sola Fajana, has disproved the notion that private universities are established for profit.
He said the country’s private universities are rendering social services like their public counterparts.
The don who bemoaned the federal government’s attitude of invoking heavy taxes on private universities, stressed the need for the government to support them to further develop the country’s education sector.
At a briefing to herald the fifth convocation of JABU, which is owned by the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC), Fajana once again called on the National Assembly to amend the laws that established the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) to favour the private universities.
Presently, private universities do not benefit from the fund, which is a contribution of two per cent of the profits of private companies.
“The private universities in the country are not profit-making institutions. They are established to support the government. The private universities, like the public ones, provide social services, hence the need for the government to support them,” he said.
On the high fees charged by the private universities, the vice-chancellor explained that it takes a minimum of N800,000 to train one student. He said that any private university that charges more than that amount may make profit.
Despite the high cost of training, Fajana identified low enrolment rate as the major challenge confronting the university. Though JABU has the capacity to admit over 1,500 students per year, but the quota is not filled.
Fajana disclosed that the CAC management releases N30 million monthly to run the institution, describing the church as kind.
For thriving where many others struggled with huge bank debts the vc described JABU as a miracle.
Prof Fajana said apart from recruiting over 70 additional academic and non-teaching members of staff, excluding these in the junior cadre, the governing council also approved the promotion of over 35 non-teaching staff and 40 academic staff.
Fajana disclosed that 1,044 students would graduate tomorrow, among whom are 19 First Class holders, while 279 made Second Class Upper, and 614 made Second Class Lower. The remaining 126 made third class.
He said the university would confer a honorary doctorate degree on Mr Goddy Ibru, the Chief Executive of Sheraton Hotels in recognition of his meritorious contributions to national development.
