By Ezekiel Olugbenga Akinkunmi
Despite all these challenges, one other feature of the present time in our system is the addition of new courses and even increase in the length and years of training for some courses without corresponding increase in the resource persons and resource materials.

Many of us are aware of the introduction of the CCMAS in December 2022. The details of the content of the CCMAS is outside of the scope of this present discourse, and this write-up is not intended to put up a thesis for or against the CCMAS, but it suffice to say that it’s occurrence is an example of the distruptions which the few hands that are in the system have to adjust to, even if they are crying under the burden.

Presently, in the system, there are no more responsibility allowances for those who have been assigned to positions of responsibilities such as Deans and Heads of Department or unit, yet the responsibilities have increased and are increasing in leaps and bonds. And those responsibilities must be done, if we are still going to have what we can call Universities. 

Before 2020, a Head of Department or Unit have some allowances for the extra roles he performs as a result of the enormous duties of those offices. The presence of these allowances is always being indicated on the appointment letter of the Head of Department or unit. This was what was on my own: “The appointment carries a responsibility allowance at the approved rate which is payable pro-rata where a person has functioned as Acting Head for at least a semester.” What I noticed was that those statements were there when the allowances were being paid and were not removed when they are no more paid. I am still trying to scratch my head to see if this sounds logical or even rational. I hope someone can help!

Looking at it from another angle, it really might not make much sense to make detailed references to issues of payment of allowances when the primary pays on which these allowances are supposed to be based are nothing to write home about.

I feel a bit reluctant to write on this because what I sense that some people would say are something like: if you are not comfortable with your pay why not try another job? Or why are you complaining on what you can change? Or what happened to passion for the job? And so on and so forth, as one of my teachers used to say. Now, when does having passion for something good become a crime? Or is it that those who decide to commit their life to the building of the nation, through building the next generations at the highest levels possible, should not have done so?

To imagine that the pay per month of the highest categories of workers with those responsibilities is presently less than four hundred dollars should be of great concern to all. And to assume that to get to that peak of practice is one of the most tasking career progression one can find globally only add to the confusion. For those who are inquisitive, please try and find out what it takes to be a professor!

In the face of all these, because few hands are doing the works of many, it is unimaginable the kinds of pressure those inside have to cope with. There are deadlines upon deadlines with numerous memos “for information and necessary actions” which must be addressed within 24 or 48 hours. As a semester is rounding up, another one will be starting because we must meet deadlines. A lecturer have to finish marking the scripts of more than a thousand students in two weeks.

These scripts include laboratory practical works, reports of field trips, theories, objectives and all kinds of other reports under various headings necessary to produce products of value at undergraduate and graduate levels. At the same time, it is expected that the academics would continue to generate valuable information and policy documents while extending the frontiers of knowledge through quality researches.

The academics don’t even have a choice on the later if they plan to move up in their career. Hence, there is no more time for relaxation, reflection and revision. In many Universities, the issues of Leave that once used to be straightforward have become unnecessarily controversial. 

In keeping the system like this for so long, the claim by some that those in charge of the system are actually running a programme or some kind of policies unknown to many of us is becoming increasingly difficult to fault. I still hope it’s not true because somehow, it does not make sense to imagine anyone running a policy that has no other end than ruins.

It is also equally difficult to imagine that someone would assume that a system being run essentially by those who had already been spent and used can replace a system being run by agile bodies from where those who run the earlier system come from. Those who understands understand. No one has been able to disprove the saying that no nation can be greater than the quality and welfare of those who teach it!

Meanwhile, at this juncture, I think it is okay to say congratulations to everyone on the about two hundred new community development Universities being considered for establiment in the country! And congratulations to those communities too. Before eyes are closed and open again, lecturers and various experts would be found among the teeming populations in those communities to manage those Universities! We need to reduce unemployment!

All these bring us to the logical question: can the ivories themselves be absolved from all blames on the issues that are now threatening both their own survival and the collapsing of their towers? Not at all. It can not happen that the insect that eat the vegetable is far from the vegetable. Systems can be built from within and can be destroyed the same way. Isn’t it possible to have some, even among the lecturers, who actually believe that things are okay as they are?

Don’t we have those who prefer getting the evasive earned allowances to the appointment of more staff? Or are they not the ones helping the same failing Institutions to ‘pass’ accreditations at every cycle of the process, killing and stabbing themselves in the back? Are the eventual leaders and staff of those community development Universities not going to be from among them? And to make matters worse, are the makers of the policies that presently run the Nation’s institutions and their consultants not among the same eggheads? So, how can they turn back and castigate the systems some of them help developed!

It is my considered opinion that it is time for those who are in the system to wake up and do something about how they have been contributing to the collapse of the system, in an attempt to raise the dead. It is time for genuine repentance and restitutions if we want things to change. It is time the Nigeria nation check if they wish to retain the appellation of Ivory Tower for their Universities or give the right of ownership to only those countries where the title adequately matches what the Universities are supposed to be! Those nations are all around us.

We know them by their developments. In the words of a past President of the United States of America, John Kennedy, “if the pursuit of knowledge is not defended by those who are educated, it will never be defended”, the truth remains that if the federal university system of Nigeria is not defended, at the critical places and fora, by those who were educated therein and by those who benefited from its existence either in the remote or recent past, it will never be defended.

What are the solutions to all these? As it is, the solutions to most problems are apparent in the description of those problems. The situation is not different in this case. I hope those who have been privileged by opportunities and positions to address these problems, even among us, will not be found to be doing the very opposite. This is because to my mind, it can be seeing clearly that in doing the opposite so far, the ivories are fast disappearing from the Ivory Towers….
……And it appears nobody even care!
Concluded.
Akinkunmi is a Professor of Pharmaceutical Microbiology and Biotechnology of the Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife. He can be reached via: [email protected]