Beyond the procurement anti-corruption training for universities
On Monday, July 6, the Anti-Corruption Academy of Nigeria, the training arm of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission organized a workshop on procurement integrity for Nigerian universities in Abuja. The workshop was sequel to the findings of the pilot ICPC/NUC University System Study and Review (USSR) of corruption in the university system in 2012. This study and review identified a series of infractions including admissions racketeering, misapplication and embezzlement of funds, sale of examination questions, inducement to manipulate awards of degrees, direct cheating during examinations, deliberate delays in the release of results, victimization of students by officials, lack of commitment to work by lecturers, and above all, sexual harassment and exploitation of students by lecturers. At the presentation of the report in 2012, the ICPC Chairman, Mr Ekpo Nta, was quoted as saying: “we have uncovered many corrupt practices in our universities. Sexual harassment seems to rank extremely very high among corrupt practices in our universities. Our report is based on the quantum of petitions we have received on this corrupt practice. We’re emphasizing this because sexual harassment has to do with the immediate challenge we need to address.”
After the release of the report of the study in 2012, there were calls for the government to take serious actions to sanitise the University system. Three years after, the workshop – a mere talk shop with people who had superintended the rot in the first place – was all the action the government or more appropriately, the ICPC, could take to reform our decrepit university system.
True, the entire society, and not just the university system, is out of joint. The university is part of the society and is not immune to influences from the society. But the society must not and cannot dictate the pace for the university. The University, by nature, is a place for the teaching, acquisition and diffusion of universal knowledge. It sure depends on society for its sustenance, but more importantly, the society depends on it for fresh and revolutionary ideas and knowledge that drives the progress and development of society. Very importantly, this endeavor can only take place in an atmosphere of freedom. But, as history has taught us, the exercise of freedom, as desirable as it is, can produce undesirable outcomes. It is imperative therefore, that members of the university, whose occupation is the pursuit of knowledge – which is also the pursuit of truth – cultivate certain recognizable values and principles by which adherence to will surely and consistently lead to the truth or the acquisition of true knowledge. Virtues and principles such as respect for the freedom, dignity, and ideas of each individual, honesty, sincerity, decorum, temperance, and fortitude are indispensable to the flourishing of a university. They also help to confer order and discipline in the university.
Given the above, it is clear that our universities in Nigeria are a caricature of what a university should be. It wasn’t always like that, but the glory years are long gone and what is left is just a carcass whose miasma pollutes and threatens the health of society. At a time when progressive universities are outlawing any form of sexual or romantic relationships between students and teachers, our universities are centres of sexual harassment, rapes and transactional sex. Pray, how can any meaningful knowledge be learnt and transmitted in such an environment? It is not surprising therefore that our universities are bereft of any serious academic endeavours and our so-called academics are lost in the conversations within their disciplines. Haven cut themselves off from ‘the conversations’ with their global colleagues, they now create illusory ‘fiefdoms’ in the various universities where they are lords, create their own journals where they ‘converse’ with themselves, assess themselves and award themselves professorships with relish. Meanwhile, the degrees from the universities are almost meaningless. We have been deceived all along by the Academic Staff Union of University (ASUU) to think that the major problem of our universities is that of government neglect or insufficient funding. The former Executive Secretary of the NUC captured it more bluntly at the event when he said that the ranking of Nigerian Universities on the global index will remain poor unless the issue of academic integrity is seriously tackled.
It is not enough for the ICPC to gather university administrators (who have presided over the rot in the first instance) to conduct a workshop on procurement. The problem is far worse and demands drastic actions and solutions far beyond a workshop and increasing funding to the universities. Increasingly, Wole Soyinka’s suggestion that the universities should be closed down for a year or two to enable us fashion out workable solutions and redesign our universities no longer sounds outrageous.