Professor Abiodun Ajibade
In this interview with TOS NEWS’ Adebayo Fajinmi, Professor Abiodun Ajibade, founder of Horizon International University, Ekiti state and Centre for Knowledge and Technology Development Foundation reveals causative factors of poor education in Nigeria’s public universities
TOS NEWS: As an intellectual, what can you identify as the problems bedeviling university education in Nigeria?
Prof: Funding is the major problem. The United Nations Educational, Science and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) came up with a laudable reccomendations that would have brought us out of the wood over the years. After a rigorous research, the organisation said 26% of our national budget should be channeled into the education sector. But because there is greed among those who are in power, they find it difficult to implement the recommendations since 2012. This has brought academic institutions to their knees. Therefore, I consider very timely this ASUU strike. But beyond that, I am expecting a time when we shall declare state of emergency in the sector in order to get ourselves out of the wood. If you are expected to release three trillion naira but what you are giving is two billion naira, what effect would that have?
TOS NEWS: Since 1988, the major weapon of ASUU has been using to press home its argument is strike, but this has brought little or no result. Don’t you think the union needs to deploy a new approach?
Prof: People are seeing it as strike but I am seeing it as total lock-up. If your children are in your custody, you would train them better rather than sending them to the university and then come back home with empty heads and they may not even return.
TOS NEWS: Part of ASUU’s demand is that Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) should be replaced with Universities Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS). But the federal government said the platform is meant to curb corruption in public education. Is the government not doing the right thing?
Prof: If you are talking about corruption, they are the people in charge. In University of California, they are paying their professors $192,826. By your calculation, how much is that in naira? Nobody is fighting against IPPIS, let them continue to use it. But they should pay us the way foreign universities are paying. If you know what a councilor earns in a month and what a don earns in Nigeria, you would pity the system.
TOS NEWS: Are you arguing from the point of inequality?
Prof: Yes, and that is one of the banes of quality education in Nigeria.
TOS NEWS: During Covid-19, many universities in developed nations switched to online class while National University Commission said public universities don’t have the ability to offer that. What caused this?
Prof: That is not possible without constant power. What is going to power the equipment? What we don’t understand in this country is that this world is no longer divided by ideology, but by technology. This is the gap between developed nations and underdeveloped ones. Sadly, those who are saddled with the responsibility to provide that are the ones buying political forms with millions of naira left and right, gallivanting as if there will be no tomorrow; busy acquiring properties at the detriment of the future generation.
TOS NEWS: Paper qualification is now rampant in our society. Why is this happening?
Prof: This is part of the bad concept politicians sold to the society and it has become a way of life. This is happening because it is one of the criteria for job opportunity regardless of how you get it. That is why there is an increase in cases of certificate racketeering while young girls continue to sleep with lecturers to get marks. I have sent many Corps Members who cannot read and speak good English away from my office. Many of them graduated with first class that they cannot justify. That is what you get when you promote paper result than research result. I am not giving it outright condemnation, but we pay too much attention on certificate than the quality of one’s brain.
TOS NEWS: But politicians don’t work in tertiary institutions. Why are you holding them responsible for this?
Prof: Because they are the policy makers.
TOS NEWS: What do you think is the way forward?
Prof: Let them provide funding to revamp our institutions and prioritise welfare of lecturers. This is how to halt brain drain in public education, because if you do not value what you have, you would lose it.
