Guardian

REPORTS detailing how ethnicity and religion influence the appointment of principal officers of universities and selection of applicants for top university courses, is a sad commentary on Nigeria. The castigating report did not only expose the complicity of the Federal Government in perpetuating a recourse to base sentiments on matters demanding merit, but also revealed a different kind of corruption, perhaps more devastating than the material one already crippling the nation.

According to the investigation of 27 old universities founded between 1948 and 2007, only four have vice chancellors that are not from the geopolitical zones, which the schools are located. The same is true of the nine federal universities established in 2011, which have three academics of northern extraction as vice chancellors of the six universities in the north. The remaining schools, which are in the south, are headed by academics from the south. Of the three federal universities established in the north this year, two are headed by northerners and one by a southerner.

This invidious primordial logic, which seems to have gotten the imprimatur of the Federal Government, has been the rule of thumb in the appointment of principal officers in federal universities for some time now. So entrenched is the resultant clannish chauvinism, that many universities have become huge town unions of ethnic inbreeding. In certain instances, there have been cases of applicants from one part of the country seeking academic positions in universities in other areas, only to be pointedly denied without recourse to their qualification and aptitude, and even told to go to their geopolitical zones for placements.

Scholars from the north, on the other hand, would rarely venture to seek positions in southern universities owing to the preconceived notion that, irrespective of merit, they will be denied on ethnic considerations. Many others have also been denied academic positions and privileges just because their name betrays their religious affiliation. All these derive justification from the politically expedient order of equity dubbed ‘federal character’ or ‘quota system’ – a controversial practice that is doing the nation more harm than good.

This development is dangerous. It is a brazen denouncement of the principles of excellence, merit, moral probity and intellectual freedom upon which the idea of a university is founded.

As citadels of learning and civilisation, universities are no places for parochialism and philistinism. What has gone wrong in the Nigerian university system to upturn the table? How did the sanctity of the Ivory Tower become so desecrated?

First, there is the leadership problem occasioned by what some have rightly called cascading mediocrity in university administration. Attributed to the dictatorial tendencies and incivility of years of military abuse on the system, this situation is one whereby every level of mediocre leadership elects or appoints inferior subordinates to carry on in magnified proportion the foibles of their predecessors. The result, as one critic observed, is “a linear parade of decreasing mediocrity that eventually runs the system aground”.

Secondly, which follows from the above, is that, in the absence of any purposeful vision for universities beyond routine production of graduates, there is an appeal to the tackiness of mass culture – mass production, mass education, mass appeal. Thus the motivation to sentimentalise power relations in the management of universities is a fad that allows uncritical, cheap populism as a guide in university administration. The success of the Nigerian university system lies not in the scandalous number of schools, not in the crowded campuses or even the architectural structures but in the calibre of leadership, teachers and researchers, that can produce the well cultivated mind, a mind radiating excellence, commitment to merit and the cause of the common good, tolerance of differences and enthronement of reason and freedom.

This is the model upon which universities must be run. It is gratifying that the Minister of Education, Ruqayyatu Rufai, at an event the other day, acknowledged this much when she declared: “The erroneous idea that chief executives or any principal officer (of a federal university) should come from its locality is alien to the system...”

The minister, as well as all stakeholders in higher education administration, must, however, match words with action by pursuing a leadership overhaul. This should start from the constitution of the Governing Councils of the universities. To this end, those who must be appointed must be selfless, courageous persons of high moral probity and intellectual ability. Moreover, the practice of appointing indigenes or persons from the same geopolitical zone in which a federal university is situated should be discouraged.

Furthermore, rather than remain fossilised at their privileged positions, senior members of the university administration should deploy their experiences to promote academic excellence by genuinely mentoring upcoming academics and junior colleagues.

Nigerian universities must set high standards, beginning with transformational and visionary management of their own affairs, rather than routine administrative duties of managing subventions and running the establishment. This entails developing a much broader outlook on the mission of a university.

And in doing this, merit as a measure is a non-negotiable minimum.