THE recent sack of a professor and demotion of two others by the Governing Council of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB) underscore the worsening phenomenon of plagiarism by academics in Nigeria’s institutions of higher learning. The trend is a frightening dimension to the scourge of corruption in Nigeria for, more than its material equivalent, intellectual corruption is detrimental to national development aspirations.

Though, plagiarism is a global problem, the degree differs from place to place. With the frequency of occurrence in Nigeria, the authorities must rise to the challenge by not only sacking the offenders but also prosecuting them in the court of law. Stealing the intellectual property of another person is the academic equivalent of armed robbery and is regarded as the greatest crime in scholarship.

It is heartening that the authorities of some universities are beginning to expose plagiarism lest it becomes an epidemic in the nation’s university system.

Only last month, the Governing Council of the University of Calabar (UNICAL) took a drastic action by dismissing and demoting 10 of its academic staff over plagiarism. The University of Benin had in 2008 suspended its Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences for plagiarism.

Within the same period, one Professor Victor Dike, a US-based Nigerian scholar accused two academics of the Department of Economics, University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT) of plagiarising his work. The same Professor Dike, not long ago, accused the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi of also copying his work without attribution in a lecture he delivered at a university in 2010. Dike has since gone to court to seek redress in both cases. These are isolated cases that have added to the growing list of intellectual dishonesty in the country.

In the latest FUNAAB case, the authorities took the decision to sack the professor during its 76th statutory council meeting. The sacked professor was a Reader in the Department of Chemistry. Two other lecturers in the same department were also demoted from Lecturer I to Lecturer II, while an assistant lecturer in the same department had his appointment terminated.

The Vice Chancellor of the University, Professor Olusola Bandele Oyewole decried the falling standards. According to him, “If we fail to tell ourselves the truth, we will be deceiving ourselves. Our standard has gone down”.

This is the tragedy of the academia in Nigeria today.

Laziness on the part of some lecturers, acute under-funding of the universities, poor academic infrastructure, lack of well-equipped laboratories, poor quality postgraduate studies and research output and, of course, the penchant for cheating, which is now a national malaise, are factors responsible for the current state of affairs. That people in academic high places, including professors are involved in this infamy is most depressing. It diminishes the image of a scholar. The problem must obviously be worse at the undergraduate level where less rigorous checks are available.

Solution to the problem may not be far-fetched, using appropriate computer software. The plan by the Committee of Vice Chancellors to deploy the highly rated anti-plagiarism software by Turnitin is a step in the right direction. Turnitin is an academic plagiarism software for teachers and students. It is used to detect instances of plagiarism in academic work. Individual universities should, however, work towards deploying this technology to fight this plague.

There is an urgent need to check the fast declining standards of education in Nigeria and all the universities have a duty to restore quality. Funding, of course, is crucial. The government, perhaps through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), should inject more funds into the institutions with a view to revamping research and training and rewarding sound scholarship.

While the system may be in place to check and even punish wrongs, ultimately, integrity is a personal choice that every human being must make. And in no other place than the citadel of learning, where the destiny of a people or a nation is moulded, is this more imperative. Integrity must return to scholarship.