Shortcomings of Nigerian universities’ vice chancellors -By Peter Ejirika

Vice Chancellor of Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike, Professor Hilary Edeoga

In the August 8 edition of the PUNCH newspaper, the editor reported how she interviewed the Vice Chancellor of Michael Okpara University regarding his dispute with certain members of the faculty. Recently, this type of dispute or better still communication breakdown has become the norm between the faculty and the vice chancellors of most Nigerian universities. However, I will use this incident as a test case to apprise Nigerians of the underlying explanatory variables which foster this disharmony that culminates in a hostile higher education work environment.

Before embarking on a document analysis of the interview, I will like to define the role of a vice chancellor in a university that is modelled after the University of Ibadan, which in turn is modelled after the Oxford University of England. Suffice it to surmise, that in a Commonwealth University, the vice chancellor is the chief academic and administrative officer, a position which is analogous to the president of an American university.

In this role, the vice chancellor is responsible for providing strategic direction along with ensuring the efficiency and effectiveness of the institution. Above all, the vice chancellor is responsible for establishing strong links with business and industry with a view to raising external funding, for creating placement opportunities for the alumni, and for research collaboration alongside with maintaining an active research career. In addition to defining the role of a vice chancellor, it is imperative to define the environment in which these roles will be applied.

The agricultural and mechanical universities of Nigeria are nominally parallel to the agricultural and mechanical universities of America. This category of American universities owes their origins to the Morrill Land Grant Act of the 1600s and 1800s. One of these universities, the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University located in Bryan, College Station is credited for the design, development, and construction of High Way Six, one of the longest High Ways in Texas. This university using the scientific expertise of some Nigerians of southern extraction has crossbred a he-goat that is as big and hefty as a cow.

In the interest of that digression, it is worthwhile to note that traditionally the mission of the agricultural and mechanical institutions is instruction, research, and community service. Applying the attributes, skill set, job performance, and leadership qualities of vice chancellor, Dr. Hillary Edeoga, to the requirements of the vice chancellorship position as stated earlier, the Nigerian public will be able to assess his stewardship for themselves. Dr. Edeoga would you enumerate the number of business and industry links that you have established and nurtured with multinational corporations as Shell, Julius Berger, Agip and Pfizer that is presently functioning as a collaborative research effort?

From a business perspective, how many call centres do oil companies which prospect for crude oil and gas in Abia State have in your campus? May I ask, Dr. Edeoga, what oil and gas dividend does your institution derive from being in the area of derivation of these minerals? Simply stated, how many of your students have had their internship experience in any of these oil companies or in any of these multinational corporations? But as a vice chancellor, one of your fiduciary responsibilities is to establish a strong link with business and industry which will manifest itself in sustainable collaborative research and business ventures. I will ask you a question that is dear to my being which prompted this article but don’t be offended for I am trying to learn from you. May I know how many students, who graduated from your university have got a professional job since your vice chancellorship? A professional job I define as a job in which the person performing the job will have special education or skill pertinent to that job.

Therefore, all of your alumni who are Okada chauffers are not engaged in a professional job so are the petty traders. This deprivation raises a significant emotional reaction because these students were led to believe that upon completion of their higher education their quality of life and that of their families will automatically improve but this is far from being the case though in your mind you are the best thing that ever happened to these students and their families.

Actually, there are students of the graduating class of the year 1999, who are yet to find a gainful employment. The impact of this deprivation has a far reaching ramification as can be discerned from the accompanying pictures which summarise what your students resort to because you and the rest of the vice chancellors of Nigerian universities lack the innovation and creativity to design and develop courses that will address youth unemployment by producing students who have global employability potential.

Applying the fund raising job requirements of a vice chancellor to your job performance, may I ask how much have you been able to raise for the university for research from external sources excluding federal and state appropriations since your tenure? As I stated earlier, an aspect of the mission of a university is community services but under Dr. Edeoga’s leadership the university is far from being in harmony with the natives, the owners of the land that houses the university facilities.

Actually, the university is in court with the natives over land dispute because the university wants to appropriate their land without paying requisite compensation. The villages surrounding the university are an agrarian community but they have yet to derive benefits from the agricultural research studies of the school as used to be the practice before the tenure of Dr. Edeoga.

Thus, Dr. Edeoga’s leadership hardly fosters civility or collegiality so it is difficult for learning to take place in such an environment. I observed in the fall of 2012 and the toilets of the university were analogous to the streets of London immediately after the Second World War. The vice chancellor’s assertion that certain members of the faculty can’t even spell their names is an utterance that violates the age long culture and tradition of the academe, a reflection of his inability to exercise appropriate restraint as well as show respect for the opinions of other members of the university.

Apparently, Dr. Edeoga does not know the tenets and values of the profession in which he found himself. As for the research and publication requirements of the essential functions of a vice chancellor, he met those standards since according to him, he has authored 60 peer reviewed articles, that achievement is acceptable for his academic performance but not for his leadership skill set.

Moreover, the vice chancellors have demonstrated, in many ways, their inability to lead universities which ranges from universities offering doctorate degrees to the highest bidders, to a university faculty member raping a prospective student and the university in turn offered admission and scholarship to the student via another university as a means of silencing the victim and her family, to a university extorting fees from the students under the guise of providing illusory housing units. Can Nigerians of goodwill join me to request that the government retire this category of vice chancellors and hire in their places, vice chancellors who can enhance the global employability of their alumni and have job placement rate as a performance measure of vice chancellorship? For education is a solution to human problem and unemployment is an aspect of a human problem that presently plagues Nigeria which vice chancellors have collectively demonstrated their inability to solve.

Dr. Ejirika, a CPA higher education econometrician, wrote in from Waco, Texas, pcejirika@mail.umhb.edu