Press Release - ASUU Take Not

[Iheoma Obibi]

For Immediate Release

Re: Increase in Cases of Rape and Sexual Assault on Female University Student in Nigeria by Members of the Academic Staff.

Sunday, 13 September 2015 - The Nigerian Feminist Forum (NFF) is dismayed and alarmed by what appears to be an overwhelming rise in reported cases of sexual assault and rape of female university students by male members of the academic staff and students across university campuses in Nigeria and calls for attention to the need to take action to stem this trend urgently. 

In the past few months, there have been several notable reports of incidents of rape of and sexual violence on female students by members of the academic staff in several universities. For instance in the last week of August 2015, Professor Cyril Ndifon, Dean of the Faculty of Law University of Calabar is alleged to have sexually assaulted a 20 year old, 400 level law student from the same university. On or about July 23 2015 Dr. Akin Baruwa, a lecturer with the University of Lagos, allegedly raped an 18 year old female admission seeker. 

It is pertinent to state here that the vast majority of cases of sexual violence against female university students in Nigeria go unreported for various reasons associated with victim shaming, stigma, character assassination, public backlash and limited access to justice for victims. In many cases, female students who have reported such cases have been subsequently targeted for reprisal attacks by thugs, cultists or university teachers.

The mass abuse of female university students in Nigeria is fueled by the lack of a consistent and clear policy by university governing bodies and school authorities concerning sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape of female students.  Student handbooks and codes of conduct for staff and students are generally ‘silent’ on this and do not adequately address issues of violence against women. Sexual assaults are hardly mentioned during orientation for first year students neither are there any dedicated channels of redress or support for students who experience this form of violence whilst on campus.

It is not enough for university authorities to continue to disassociate themselves, single out, disown or suspend individual perpetuators of such grievous crime of gender based violence and abuse of public office and trust without providing any sort of support and care for the victims and their families.

Rape is a crime under the criminal and penal code in Nigeria. Sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape is a clear violation of Article 3 (4) of the protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (2003), Article 2 (d) of The Convention on Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) 1979 and Section 24 of the Violence Against Person Prohibition (VAPP) Act 2014. Sexual abuse of female students directly impedes on the progresses made in advancing  Girl-Child education, in fulfillment of the MDGs and newly adopted SDGs, as well at the objectives sited on the AU Agenda 2063 regarding Girl-child education. 

The Nigerian Feminist Forum hereby calls on the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to;

(a)  Adopt and enforce a comprehensive sexual harassment policy for its members;

(b) Penalize by delisting any of its members convicted of an act of sexual offense;

(c)  Sensitize its members on the debilitating effect of sexual harassment of female students.

 

The governing bodies of tertiary schools should immediately;

(a)  Adopt policies and measures to address the issue of sexual violation of female university students by fellow students and members of staff;

(b) Operationalize a comprehensive policy on eradicating sexual harassment on campus;

(c)  Put in place a victim’s response mechanism for reporting, investigating and prosecution of perpetuators of sexual violence against female students;

(d) Conduct a mass sensitization on sexual violence across all campuses in Nigeria.

 

Members of the CSOs and Media continue to;

 

(a)  Support victims to report cases of sexual harassment and abuse;

(b) Ensure the full prosecution of perpetuators of sexual crimes against women;

(c)  Ensure that the ongoing cases of 2 university lectures before the law courts are not swept under the carpet;

(d) Victims of sexual abuse are given the right support and care and;

(e)  Issues of sexual abuse are kept in the front burner of national news.

 

The NFF is ready to offer its support and expertise to the ASUU, body of Vice-Chancellors, the National Universities Commission (NUC) ministries of education and other policy makers at federal and state levels as well as the police and law enforcement agencies, in developing appropriate skills, standards, protocols and processes to urgently respond to this growing epidemic of sexual violence in educational institutions in Nigeria.

 

Signed,

 

Geraldyn Ezeakile

NFF Secretariat.

 

58B Awoniyi Elemo Street,

Ajao Estate Isolo,
Lagos Nigeria. 
Tel: +234 1 7615407
Email: n...@alliancesforafrica.org, nigerian...@gmail.com 
Facebook: www.facebook.com/nigerianfeministforum 
Twitter: nff2008

www.nigerianfeministforum.org

 

About the NFF;

The Nigerian Feminist Forum is a biennial conference that brings together Nigerian feminist activists to deliberate on issues of key concern to the movement.

 

--------------------------------------------

Iheoma Obibi

Mobile: + 234 803 302 0779
Int' mobile: + 44 7713 401454

Skype: iheomaobibi
http://www.alliancesforafrica.org

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[John Mbaku]

It is important for Nigerian educational institutions to have clear and enforceable policies regarding sexual harassment and other forms of abuse of female students. However,  it is even more important that national laws against these types of crimes be enforced and the perpetrators brought to book for their crimes. Apparently, the  Nigerian national police and other law enforcement agencies are failing in their duties--it is their job to protect the integrity and safety of all Nigerians, including especially vulnerable groups. The continued sexual abuse of girls and women reflects poorly on us as a people and it is time for us to speak up. The NFF needs our support--the next woman or girl abused could be someone close to you. 

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JOHN MUKUM MBAKU, ESQ.
J.D. (Law), Ph.D. (Economics)
Graduate Certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law
Nonresident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Attorney & Counselor at Law (Licensed in Utah)
Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor of Economics & Willard L. Eccles Professor of Economics and John S. Hinckley Fellow
Department of Economics
Weber State University
1337 Edvalson Street, Dept. 3807
Ogden, UT 84408-3807, USA
(801) 626-7442 Phone
(801) 626-7423 Fax

[OLADMEJI ABORISADE]

Dear Sirs,   
          This is sad.   Indeed, a disgrace. NUC must borrow a leaf from the United States Institutions on how to  handle  cases of this nature.      Individual concerned must be disciplined  in line with academic law.  Dismissal.   Label the  offender.     Have the offender Register so that other Institutions may know.  It is a serious form of corruption in  Nigeria.    It has  to stop.
Thank you,
 oladimeji aborisade.
 

---

Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2015 11:26:36 -0600
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Press Release - ASUU Take Note
From: jmb...@weber.edu
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
CC: iheom...@yahoo.com

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

The NUC should step in and formulate a comprehensive sexual harassment policy to be adopted by all universities. Forget ASUU; they will not push for it.

ASUU will not comment on let alone lead the effort to combat the abuse of our female students by their members. Suddenly, all the ASUU stalwarts who tried in vain with their defensive loquaciousness to prevent us from doing a full critical audit on ASUU during their strike have gone quiet. You will not hear them condemn and call for a stop to this abominable rapes committed by their members. Quite frankly I won't be surprised if ASUU uses its funds and organizational muscle to help its accused rapist members escape sanctions. 

When ASUU was busy fighting for largesse and making noise about trying to sanitize and improve the Nigerian higher education system, some of us laughed in derision and called them out on the deception. Many opportunities had presented themselves for ASUU to back up its hollow rhetoric of trying to improve the system. In each case, ASUU officials looked away, content to collect from government what they claim they deserve. 

Here is an opportunity, a very cheap one, for ASUU to demonstrate to us that it indeed cares about improving learning, holding its members accountable, and giving our young people a safe space to come of age intellectually. But as usual, ASUU members have gone quiet. They will pretend not to have been following the gory cases of rape committed by their members. And they will pretend not to know that for every reported lecturer rape case on Nigerian campuses there are at least ten unreported ones. 

In private some ASUU members condemn their colleagues for this crime of raping female students (a crime row which there are all kinds of euphemistic terms among the Nigerian university faculty), but will they push for meaningful sexual harassment policies that prescribe zero tolerance for sexual harassment and abuse by lecturers? NO! 

What else is new? After all, did some ASUU members on this forum not tell us that in fact they, lecturers, are the real victims of sexual harassment, that their female students sexually harass them, and that they, not female students, deserve sympathy and protection? ASUU will not support the formulation, let alone the implementation, of sexual harassment policies by public universities.

Introduce a topic on this forum bashing government types for their familiar crimes and see how our ASUU academics will jump into the discussion excitedly with glib selective outrage. But here's a topic on the sexual atrocities that ASUU members use their positions to commit against their vulnerable students, a topic deserving our unqualified outrage. What's the reaction from our ASUU members? None. Ikhide is absolutely right; the accountability we seek has to start with us. ASUU is part of the problem of university education in Nigeria. I will continue to say it.

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

ASUU has been effective in bringing about important changes in benefits and salary for university
faculty. I will never criticize them for improving the lot of hardworking members of Nigerian universities.

Now they must take the bull by the horn and help to put an end to sexual harassment on campus.

The AAUP in the US was able to participate actively in making changes on US campuses on this issue of
sexual harassment.

Incidentally just last month here on campus a case of sexual harassment of a student by a faculty member
was reported. The faculty was arrested. So it is also about the law of the land and enacting and enforcing
legislation that speaks against sexual abuse both on campus and outside of campus.

Throwing out the baby with the bath water is never productive. Organizations such as Women In Nigeria
(WIN), and various pressure groups must also take up the issue and demand a comprehensive sexual harassment policy
both on campus and elsewhere.

Sexual harassment applies not only to the four walls of a university
but also takes place in the bureaucracy and even in the church. But the first step is to address the
violations of law on campus, and ASUU must be a major participant. Where the law does not exist,
it must be enacted. I would add that student organizations should also have a vocal role in demanding the enactment
and implementation of anti-sexual harassment laws.

The following groups should therefore be involved:

1. ASUU
2. WIN and other female and feminist organizations
3. Student organizations
4. The Judiciary
5. The police and law enforcement officers
6. Relevant arms of University administration on the various campuses




Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora

________________________________
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Moses Ebe Ochonu [meoc...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2015 9:43 PM
To: USAAfricaDialogue

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Press Release - ASUU Take Note

The NUC should step in and formulate a comprehensive sexual harassment policy to be adopted by all universities. Forget ASUU; they will not push for it.

ASUU will not comment on let alone lead the effort to combat the abuse of our female students by their members. Suddenly, all the ASUU stalwarts who tried in vain with their defensive loquaciousness to prevent us from doing a full critical audit on ASUU during their strike have gone quiet. You will not hear them condemn and call for a stop to this abominable rapes committed by their members. Quite frankly I won't be surprised if ASUU uses its funds and organizational muscle to help its accused rapist members escape sanctions.

When ASUU was busy fighting for largesse and making noise about trying to sanitize and improve the Nigerian higher education system, some of us laughed in derision and called them out on the deception. Many opportunities had presented themselves for ASUU to back up its hollow rhetoric of trying to improve the system. In each case, ASUU officials looked away, content to collect from government what they claim they deserve.

Here is an opportunity, a very cheap one, for ASUU to demonstrate to us that it indeed cares about improving learning, holding its members accountable, and giving our young people a safe space to come of age intellectually. But as usual, ASUU members have gone quiet. They will pretend not to have been following the gory cases of rape committed by their members. And they will pretend not to know that for every reported lecturer rape case on Nigerian campuses there are at least ten unreported ones.

In private some ASUU members condemn their colleagues for this crime of raping female students (a crime row which there are all kinds of euphemistic terms among the Nigerian university faculty), but will they push for meaningful sexual harassment policies that prescribe zero tolerance for sexual harassment and abuse by lecturers? NO!

What else is new? After all, did some ASUU members on this forum not tell us that in fact they, lecturers, are the real victims of sexual harassment, that their female students sexually harass them, and that they, not female students, deserve sympathy and protection? ASUU will not support the formulation, let alone the implementation, of sexual harassment policies by public universities.

Introduce a topic on this forum bashing government types for their familiar crimes and see how our ASUU academics will jump into the discussion excitedly with glib selective outrage. But here's a topic on the sexual atrocities that ASUU members use their positions to commit against their vulnerable students, a topic deserving our unqualified outrage. What's the reaction from our ASUU members? None. Ikhide is absolutely right; the accountability we seek has to start with us. ASUU is part of the problem of university education in Nigeria. I will continue to say it.

On Sun, Sep 13, 2015 at 5:18 PM, OLADMEJI ABORISADE <olaabo...@msn.com<mailto:olaabo...@msn.com>> wrote:
Dear Sirs,
This is sad. Indeed, a disgrace. NUC must borrow a leaf from the United States Institutions on how to handle cases of this nature. Individual concerned must be disciplined in line with academic law. Dismissal. Label the offender. Have the offender Register so that other Institutions may know. It is a serious form of corruption in Nigeria. It has to stop.
Thank you,
oladimeji aborisade.

________________________________
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2015 11:26:36 -0600
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Press Release - ASUU Take Note

From: jmb...@weber.edu<mailto:jmb...@weber.edu>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
CC: iheom...@yahoo.com<mailto:iheom...@yahoo.com>

It is important for Nigerian educational institutions to have clear and enforceable policies regarding sexual harassment and other forms of abuse of female students. However, it is even more important that national laws against these types of crimes be enforced and the perpetrators brought to book for their crimes. Apparently, the Nigerian national police and other law enforcement agencies are failing in their duties--it is their job to protect the integrity and safety of all Nigerians, including especially vulnerable groups. The continued sexual abuse of girls and women reflects poorly on us as a people and it is time for us to speak up. The NFF needs our support--the next woman or girl abused could be someone close to you.

Tel: +234 1 7615407
Email: n...@alliancesforafrica.org<mailto:n...@alliancesforafrica.org>, nigerian...@gmail.com<mailto:nigerian...@gmail.com>
Facebook: www.facebook.com/nigerianfeministforum<http://www.facebook.com/nigerianfeministforum>
Twitter: nff2008<http://www.twitter.com/AfAafrica>
www.nigerianfeministforum.org<http://www.nigerianfeministforum.org/>

About the NFF;
The Nigerian Feminist Forum is a biennial conference that brings together Nigerian feminist activists to deliberate on issues of key concern to the movement.




--------------------------------------------
Iheoma Obibi

Mobile: + 234 803 302 0779
Int' mobile: + 44 7713 401454

Skype: iheomaobibi
http://www.alliancesforafrica.org

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JOHN MUKUM MBAKU, ESQ.
J.D. (Law), Ph.D. (Economics)
Graduate Certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law
Nonresident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Attorney & Counselor at Law (Licensed in Utah)
Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor of Economics & Willard L. Eccles Professor of Economics and John S. Hinckley Fellow
Department of Economics
Weber State University
1337 Edvalson Street, Dept. 3807
Ogden, UT 84408-3807, USA
(801) 626-7442 Phone
(801) 626-7423 Fax

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[Samuel Zalanga]

Yes, indeed. Being there, seen that! With changes within ASUU members, the transformation in Nigeria's higher education will be phenomenal. They can help in holding corrupt administrators accountable.

Interestingly, many of the ASUU members went to school overseas and saw how the systems are functionally relatively well. They returned there and are professors and by virtue of that, members of the senate (a major administrative organ of the university), yet, not all of them are committed. One hardly gets impressed with commitment to scholarship as a vocation or the beauty of intellectual curiosity.

There are surely some that are committed but they are a minority. If Nigeria is going to change, it is only if Nigerians set a high standard for themselves, and hold themselves accountable that the country can begin to see a path forward. For most part, as Buhari long ago said, for most Nigerians, they do not have any place to migrate to. So it is better to remain and salvage the country. 

Things can indeed improve if there is a higher level of commitment among the academic staff, not just in pursuit of their own interests but national interest, which includes the students'. I am glad that I started my university teaching here in the U.S. and have learned to always feel I am an ordinary mortal human being. It is one thing for a person to command the respect of others, but it is another to terrorize people to respect you. There is some aesthetic joy in learning to live and feel like a normal, regular human being.

Samuel

Samuel Zalanga
Department of Anthropology, Sociology & Reconciliation Studies
Bethel University, 3900 Bethel Drive #24
Saint Paul, MN 55112.
Office Phone: 651-638-6023

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Thanks for those balanced comments, Gloria and Samuel.

Moses, who prevented you or any one else on this forum from doing a 'full critical audit' on ASUU?

Were your efforts in that regard prevented from being posted on the forum?

Your  comments show little knowledge of ASUU's history.

It was ASUU, for example, that proposed to the govt the creation of an education trust fund, sourced by taxing companies, which I understand is the basis of the current TETFUND, which, after govt allocations I expect is  the largest financial source for university funding.

ASUU had a history of pushing for broader social change in its negotiations with govt,up till the 1980s.

ASUU made academics in Nigeria gain some respectability only by decades of dogged fighting.

Is there any value in criticism of ASUU  that is centred on ahistorical and total condemnation?

thanks

toyin

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Toyin,

No one prevented me from doing a full critical audit of ASUU, but, as my post says, they "tried in vain." They tried to deflect, confuse, intimidate, and defend. I kept at it. We ASUU critics kept at it and continue to keep at it. No shaking. Not everything that is wrong with the Nigerian university system is ASUU's fault but a big chunk of it is. For starters, will ASUU allow their members to be punished for not taking the primary duty of teaching seriously, or for treating research as a necessary irritation rather than an edifying calling?

And you say I don't know ASUU's history. Really, I don't know ASUU history? Why is that your go-to line every time someone challenges ASUU? FYI, I have observed ASUU experientially and as a critical stakeholder in its politics for over 20 years now. Not only that, I have externally supervised a Masters thesis on the history of ASUU. You are just finding out about ASUU's role in instituting the education tax and ETF (now TETFUND) and you have the "mouth" to accuse me of ignorance of ASUU history. Have you forgotten that I am a historian? You have a strange way of being an interlocutor.

You say ASUU was pushing for "broader social change ...until the 1980s." I will even push the timeline further to say they did so till the mid 1990s. The problem is encapsulated in the old saying: what have you done for me lately? What has ASUU done for us (students, parents, and the nation) lately beyond collecting rent from the FG on behalf of its members? What happened to the old ASUU? Why is it now a body concerned only with grabbing as much of the national cake as it can for its members? ASUU has become a caricature; it has lost its way, consumed by its own early success and its resistance to self-critique.

I say it again: ASUU has transformed into a hostage taking body. The hostages are students, parents, and the country. When did you hear ASUU embracing any reformist prescription that privileges self-critique, accountability, and the primacy of students' interests?

Since ASUU won its latest victory that unleashed a heap of largesse on its members, have you heard the body make silly noises about being a voice for reform and accountability bla bla bla in the Nigerian university system? That rhetoric terminated with the strike.

Gloria is just transferring her AAUP sympathies and solidarities to ASUU. It is undeserved in my opinion. ASUU is a far cry from AAUP. And AAUP does not make the outlandish claims that ASUU makes. It has a narrow focus on protecting and improving the interest of its members. I have no problem with that. ASUU on the other hand wants to be seen as a reform-minded organization in Nigerian higher education--except that when that claim is challenged they say, ahh don't you know that we're a trade union and that trade unions simply fight for the interest of their members? To which a curious mind might say, ok, but why didn't you say that before? Why all the deceptive vituperations about your purported concern for standards and ethics in the Nigerian university system?

Samuel Zalanga is actually saying what I and other critics of ASUU have been saying for years. The difference is one of tone. He is right that very few of our colleagues in ASUU take their calling seriously and that things are not going to change substantively unless the Nigerian academy ceases to be a bureaucratic space for accidental and uncommitted professors. 

ASUU is suffering from a crisis of identity, alternating between being a greedy trade union and a pretend platform for reform. We its critics are not as confused; we will hold it to account on both counts.

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Moses,

You summed ASUU up thus-

'Many opportunities had presented themselves for ASUU to back up its hollow rhetoric of trying to improve the system. In each case, ASUU officials looked away, content to collect from government what they claim they deserve.'

I then gave examples to demonstrate the falsehood of your assertion, one of those being ASUU's role in the creation of the education trust fund.

I was an ASUU assistant secretary when that initiative was developed and presented to the govt in the midst of a determined strike without pay.

So, bro, its you who has "mouth" to shout about what you dont know.

You claim to have supervised a thesis on ASUU.

Does that thesis consist of ahistorical, uncontextualized and unsubstantiated condemnations of the kind you proclaim here?

Your critique needs historical range and analytical depth.

A problematic comment-

'For starters, will ASUU allow their members to be punished for not taking the primary duty of teaching seriously, or for treating research as a necessary irritation rather than an edifying calling?'

Can you give us a justification for this sceptical view being presented almost as a fait accompli?

What is the logic of this assertion? What fora or research base informs this conclusion?-

'Here is an opportunity, a very cheap one, for ASUU to demonstrate to us that it indeed cares about improving learning, holding its members accountable, and giving our young people a safe space to come of age intellectually. But as usual, ASUU members have gone quiet.'

thanks

toyin

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Second response on Samuel-

I was hasty in my first response.

I was taken in by his measured tones that led me to forget that I dont know enough about  the Nigerian university system as a whole to assess these comments-

'One hardly gets impressed with commitment to scholarship as a vocation or the beauty of intellectual curiosity.

There are surely some that are committed but they are a minority.'

Can people in the system please help us on this?

second response to Moses-

I see that Moses modified his critique in his second comment, placing it in historical perspective.

I am also aware of the point when the idea that 'ASUU is primarily trade union' was presented as new approach of ASUU as different from the union's more broad ranging nationalist vision in earlier years.

While pointing out what I understand as inadequate critique, i want to avoid being uncritically defensive.

toyin

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

My understanding of the reason why ASUU may be seen as no longer  taking it upon itself to make suggestions or demands to the govt in relation to issues beyond university education was that it was difficult enough getting the govt to agree to negotiate in the first place and honour  agreements  reached in those negotiations, meaning the negotiation process would be more likely to succeed if ASUU focused on its primary mandate-the university system.

 

Should ASUU operate like the Nigerian Labour Congress for example, that presses for demands relating to the economy as a whole?

 

Thanks

 

toyin

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Toyin,

ASUU holding its members accountable by being at the forefront of efforts to rid the university system of rapist lecturers, who are ASUU members, and supporting moves to introduce student-centered teaching evaluations and other accountability metrics that would ensure that lecturers put their students' interest first are not " issues beyond university education." These are issues squarely in the province of university education. These efforts will help sanitize ethics and improve standards in the system. The only reason ASUU is not interested in these issues is simple: they won't translate to more money and benefits for its members. When it suits them, ASUU members will defend this posture of ASUU as classic trade unionism. At other times, especially when the public rises up against them as it did during the last strike, they start making fake noises about trying to reform and improve the university system. This is the game that ASUU people have been playing, but enablers like you help them get away with these tricks. 

[Ikhide]

Moses and others,

I appreciate the work of the Nigerian Feminist Forum in trying to shine a light on what is really an open secret - the sexual predation that goes on in Nigeria's tertiary institutions, which is a reflection of what obtains in the larger society. Women and children are second class citizens in Nigeria. And these men of letters who think that women are disposable and should be defiled ought to face the music. It is great that people are taking matters into their hands, shaming these beasts with their smartphones. Before their communique, the outrage had gone viral on social media. I did a search and I can only confirm that this organization is not very active on social media. That is a shame; in addition to their work in listserves and elsewhere, they should take their thoughtful approach to social media and help name and shame these people making life on campus hell for other people's children while theirs go to real schools abroad from where they take selfies of their great lives and show and tell on social media.

I work for a school system of 23,000 employees that together try to educate 155,000 children daily. This past year we have been under the searchlights because of some well publicized sexual abuse cases (of minors) in classrooms. There was high-decibel outrage and we were held accountable. Thanks to community outcry every one of us 23,000 employees is required to take an online training on child sexual abuse. It is mandatory. I just completed mine; it took TWO hours of lessons and quizzes. We also developed a code of conduct that every employee is required to abide by. The emphasis is on prevention, education and active reporting. As school system employees we are required by our policies and regulations, if not the law, to report any suspected case of child abuse. Or risk losing your job or worse. There are other structural things we have had to put in place to assure our community that the children under our care are safe and study in a wholesome environment. By the way, as part of the course correction, all personnel files going back many years were searched to assure that people accused of these things did not get away literally with murder. We would like to think that we have made all these changes out of the goodness of our hearts, but I will say that the community made us, the community held us accountable as they do in literally every aspect of our professional lives. It is transparency, there is very little that we do that is not ported to the web for the taxpayers to review. When things go wrong, they name and shame us into compliance. No society makes much progress without accountability.

Accountability. The precious few instances that those who manage Nigeria have had a rethink has been through loud heckling, naming and shaming, holding them accountable.  ASUU is intransigent; and I don't want to waste my breath on them.  From my perspective, not much has changed structurally in terms of public education from cradle to tertiary since independence. Why is the Federal government still building and running schools? Who is doing the oversight? So many questions... Structural reform will force misbehaving institutions into meaningful action. This has not happened yet, because we have intellectuals looking the other way, and/or actively colluding with the oppressors to continue to abuse the people. I don't want to waste my time rehashing all I have suggested in the past, certainly not on this forum. This forum of brilliant eggheads and professionals represents in my mind what is wrong with us. It has been particularly worthless in making a difference in the lives of women and children in Nigeria - because let's face it, our loved ones are safely out of the line of fire. If they were, we would not be muttering, we would be doing something tangible. As part of a public school system, I am expected to enroll my own children in the public schools and they all went or are attending them. It helps because I know that my children's fate is tied to whatever happens to other people's children.

Will things ever change? Sometimes I despair. Here is the website of my alma mater, The University of Benin. Go to the "Academics" section and ask yourself why anyone should respect this insitituion.  The rot in the Nigerian public education system is a national security crisis. I personally do not know of any institution in Nigeria that I would allow my own child in; that would be child abuse. And over 90 percent of the people on this listserve agree with me, because their kids are not in those schools. They are mostly all abroad, who are we fooling? There was a time when I thought African intellectuals and knowledge workers would out of deep altruism help to transform African nations and communities. I no longer believe that. I think for instance that to the extent that they have bought into this mimicry that pretends to be democracy and capitalism, God help you if you are poor, you are on your own. This democracy that we practice, this system without accountability is taking us down the wrong road and we all know it. We just are praying to alien gods for deliverance. I was a guest of the Ake Book Festival in 2013 at Abeokuta. As part of our gig, we visited some schools, and at one school, I will never forget, this child who looked like she was thirteen stood up and asked talked about sexual abuse by teachers in her classroom. What I remember vividly is adults mocking me for being horrified, telling me I had become American. Well, truth of the matter is ever since the fathers brought the bible and the classroom to my part of Nigeria, sexual abuse of boys and girls in boarding schools has been rampant. Yes, rampant. No one is held accountable.

Finally, it is good that we are here, we sometimes discuss important things, we also rehash stuff that we have rehashed in the past. There are many brilliant and conscientious souls here I wish would go out to social media and engage youngsters. You have so much to offer, based on what I read on this forum. It would be a simple matter of cutting and pasting your stuff on Facebook for hungry youngsters to devour. The myth that our young ones don't read is just that, a myth. And those youngsters are making a difference - holding our thieving politicians accountable.

Later, folks.

      

- Ikhide

 

Stalk my blog at www.xokigbo.com

Follow me on Twitter: @ikhide

Join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ikhide

---

From: Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com>
To: USAAfricaDialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2015 9:43 PM

[Samuel Zalanga]

Someone earlier today  mentioned with nostalgic feelings the high degree of intellectual exchange and fertile scholarly environment at Ibadan and I will say other universities as well in Nigeria of the past. I know as an undergraduate, I followed the debate between Yusuf Bangura and Yusuf Bala Usman. It was a debate that truly raised many insightful conceptual issues that I believe are still relevant today. That kind of stimulating intellectual environment is not available in many Nigerian universities today. The kind of vibrant debate that existed between John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich von Hayek in London School economics does to really exist in Nigeria today. 

There may be good reasons for that, but the fact remains that the environment is not as intellectually stimulating as before. I can make very specific comments to back up my assertion by I will not do so because my goal is not to tarnish anyone's image. But at least I can say that when I taught this summer at UJ, I administered a course evaluation and I have it with me here.  It is eye opening to me given that the students shared their thoughts freely.

The issue as I found out out is not that there no students that have intellectual curiosity. But for people to be intellectually curious, one has to create the appropriate environment. And when I say "appropriate and conducive environment" I mean many things.  The more you know the more easier it is for you to learn. If students have excellent and thorough background or foundation in their discipline, and they understand the debates at a deeper level, it is far easier for them to be curious than people who in the first place have not  been taught to grasp the issues.

 I decided for one meeting to focus on neoliberalism and globalization and their impact on contemporary research in Africa. We did not discuss the two processes as mere economic discourses but that there is a moral philosophy and vision of humanity that is built into them. I was amaze at how the students started asking questions and they immediately could relate some of the public policies implemented or that are still being implemented in Nigeria to the vision of neoliberal utopia. We should bear in mind that according to the Social Science encyclopedia, there are utopias of the right and utopias of the left. Neoliberalism at its deeper and extreme level is a Utopian movement on the right. Through my interaction with the students, I learned that  with patience, caring attitude and training, we can create a fertile ground for imagination and intellectual curiosity in Africa. It is something we can learn, nurture and encourage. This challenge is not just in Africa, it is even a problem in many communities or schools in the U.S. but our situation back in the continent is far more challenging.

With regard to scholarship as a vocation, note that in many Nigerian universities, recruitment is not just a function of merit now. This is not to say that recruitment tin the U.S. is not influenced by some other variables, but no institution here can operate sustainably with such a policy.  In one story I heard, in one Nigerian university someone with second class lower division got employed as a graduate assistant while others with superior performance were ignored.

When you embrace your work as a vocation, it makes a huge difference. John Merrow did a documentary on teaching in California public schools by examining different kinds of mandated teaching methods or strategies,. His conclusion was that even if you get a bad philosophy or official teaching strategy, teachers who are committed to their work as a vocation, find a way to make it work and relatively succeed. But even if you have a situation where the facilities are available, and support is there but if the teacher has no passion in his or her work and does not see it as a vocation, the performance is poor.

There are a lot of things that can happen in an environment that can discourage or promote creative thinking, deep thinking, and intellectual curiosity. Too much hierarchy and authoritarianism or intimidation can discourage intellectual exploration. Anything that affects young people's ability to be imaginative can threaten intellectual curiosity. When you leave people hungry, worry about their survival because of serous threats owing to their gender, their ethnicity, religion etc. etc. then they will have to deploy a lot of their brain power and energy to think of survival issues. The more such brain power is wasted for such things, the less there is to be deployed in creative thinking thereby lowering their learning capacity and their intellectual development and imaginativeness. Such a situation may lower the potential intelligence of the students, no matter how you measure it. There are certain conditions that are more conducive for promoting creative thinking, intellectual curiosity and  problem solving.

In one story I heard, in one Nigerian university, the professor according to his male students looks at attractive women in his class in a manner that leaves no doubt that he is committing what some call "lookry" or showing lust. The problem here is that just being a woman and being attractive can  put the woman in some trouble because someone wants to sleep her for being a student. This by no means all faculty members do that. There are indeed great men of honor and respect.But as for the others, the question is: Is the woman going to deal with pursuing her education based on merit or how to manage or navigate such a situation?

The learning environment that produced some creative, imaginative and intellectually curious scholars in the past in Nigeria was not magical. There were certain things in place. Many African scholars in Diaspora perform better just because the environment allows them to do so relatively. If we can create such environments in Africa, we will see wonders.

 I was shocked when one professor quoted the Bible telling me that too much critical analysis and evaluation of ideas is wrong because the bible says it is dangerous, presumably it will lead to arrogance or something like that. If we want to promote an intellectually curious environment, there are many ways we can promote it. At least we need to create a true marketplace of ideas where people encounter thinking that challenges their taken for granted worldviews .Research indicates that there are certain kinds of mothering that better promotes creative, logical and critical thinking in children than others. 

The issue is not whether black people can be creative, intellectually curious and inquisitive, but rather whether we are willing to see a connection between factors and conditions that promote these virtues and whether or not, we are willing to sincerely invest resources for that and create organizations that incarnate such virtues.

Samuel

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Moses,

You are too much in a hurry to criticize, leading me to wonder to what degree your stance on this subject goes beyond rhetoric.

When you condemned ASUU wholesale as interested only in the pay  of its members, I challenged that with examples that contradict that claim, particularly ASUU's role in the creation of what is now TETFUND.

You responded by granting the factuality of my example and modifying your ASUU critique as covering the late 1990s till now, arguing that since the mid 90s ASUU has not demonstrated nationalist vision beyond the welfare of its members, vision demonstrated by the TETFUND example.

I then explained why ASUU may be seen as no longer going beyond initiatives relating to the university system in its activities.

The issue of sexual harassment in the universities is squarely within the scope of university centred activity.

Again, I ask- why do you think ASUU has no interest in addressing this subject or in addressing it in a manner that will provide justice for all concerned?

thanks

toyin

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

"Again, I ask- why do you think ASUU has no interest in addressing this subject or in addressing it in a manner that will provide justice for all concerned?"

Toyin,

You asked me a direct question and I will answer in a typical Nigerian fashion of answering a question with a question, so here goes. Have you seen a single ASUU member comment on this topic which has to do with sexual misconduct and abuse of power by their colleagues and fellow ASUU members?

That is a good indication of their lack of interest interest in matters that have nothing to do with getting more money from the government, matters that bear on learning, ethics, and the integrity of the lecturer-student relationship. Enough said.

[Yinka Banwo]

Dear Prof. Moses,

My humble question: Pls, as a Nigerian, have you ever been a teacher in any Nigerian Public University for at least one year?

This will assist me to fully appreciate your position on ASUU.

  I know quite well that Prof. Emeagwali was not writing from any outside American experience, but she was a teacher in several Nigerian Universities and probably a member of ASUU at a time.

[Adeshina Afolayan]

Oga Moses,

Now, here's where i really disagree with you. That question you posed is an ad ignorantiam--because no ASUU members have responded to the issue, therefore they have no interest in it. Mbanu!

When this ASUU issue surfaced, i said to myself "here we go again!" I deliberately did not respond because we are going over those same issues all over again, and you are doing a good job of summarising the earlier points. We have made all these points before. I myself said it in a national newspaper that ASUU has a culture of silence that is only broken when the agreement signed with the FG is up for renewal. And the Union has been true to type since the last strike action!

As of today, i am no longer ASUU (Ibadan); i renounced my membership because i consider the that the Union has derailed not only on the issue of unionism yoked incoherently with advocacy for university education, but also in union matters itself. I will return when i am satisfied we understand what we are doing. 

Do you still think silence equals disinterest in the weightier matter of ethics and integrity?

 

Adeshina Afolayan, PhD
Department of Philosophy
University of Ibadan

+23480-3928-8429

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Adeshina,

More power to you, brother. I know that you're not alone in dissenting within. Many lecturers are growing frustrated with ASUU's antics and often during the branch level debates there are two camps--those who want to keep doing things the same way through strikes and demands for more largesse and those who recognize that public patience with ASUU is wearing thin and that there should be a better way. Often the latter group gets overwhelmed and are shouted down, their thoughtful dissent crushed in the hysteria to launch a strike and squeeze out more monetary concessions from government. If the monster called ASUU is going to give way to a better platform in Nigerian higher education, it is going to be brought down by conscientious dissent from within its ranks, especially from its older, saner, more experienced members.

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

But at least I can say that when I taught this summer at UJ, I administered a course evaluation and I have it with me here.  It is eye opening to me given that the students shared their thoughts freely. 

Samuel,

You have just scratched the surface. You only taught one class, I presume. If you taught several classes and administered student evaluations in all of them, your shock would multiple several folds to correspond with the revealingly scandalous information you'd see on the evaluations.

With regard to scholarship as a vocation, note that in many Nigerian universities, recruitment is not just a function of merit now. This is not to say that recruitment tin the U.S. is not influenced by some other variables, but no institution here can operate sustainably with such a policy.  In one story I heard, in one Nigerian university someone with second class lower division got employed as a graduate assistant while others with superior performance were ignored. 

The truth is that perhaps as many as 60 percent of lecturers in our university system have no business being in the academy. They simply lack the aptitude, passion, commitment, and skills necessary to be an academic. They got into the academy simply because they needed a job. So yes, the pattern of recruitment is a huge part of the problem. But another part of it is that even those who had some passion and commitment at the beginning have been contaminated by a system that ASUU subsidizes and fights to preserve, a system which lacks accountability, which asks nothing of lecturers in return for all that they get from the government, which can turn even a passionate academic into a complacent, lazy, and aloof one. If there is no incentive for one to be a serious, committed scholar-teacher, if there is no reward for passionate commitment to teaching and there is a blanket system that rewards poor teachers, tyrants, and sexual predators in the same way that it rewards the minority that teaches well and are ethically sound--if there is no incentive to teach well and cultivate sound ethics, even a good academic can turn bad. It is human nature.

There are a lot of things that can happen in an environment that can discourage or promote creative thinking, deep thinking, and intellectual curiosity. Too much hierarchy and authoritarianism or intimidation can discourage intellectual exploration. 

Most Nigerian lecturers are tyrants and mistake the suffering and anguish of students for the rigor of learning. They assume that the more they make students suffer, the more they starve them of their time and commitment, the more important they appear in the eyes of such students and the more respect they'll get from them. Often they are on an ego trip. I know what I am talking about because I was an undergraduate there. It is not their fault. It is the fault of ASUU, which superintends a system of union hostage taking that subsidizes the tyranny, egoism, and indifference of lecturers.

In one story I heard, in one Nigerian university, the professor according to his male students looks at attractive women in his class in a manner that leaves no doubt that he is committing what some call "lookry" or showing lust. The problem here is that just being a woman and being attractive can  put the woman in some trouble because someone wants to sleep her for being a student. This by no means all faculty members do that. There are indeed great men of honor and respect.But as for the others, the question is: Is the woman going to deal with pursuing her education based on merit or how to manage or navigate such a situation? 

This is very common, an epidemic on Nigerian college campuses. Many lecturers see the sexual exploitation of their female students as a fringe benefit, a kind of entitlement, and they have nauseating code words for nonchalantly describing their exploits in that sexual crime domain. Sexual predation is not exclusive to the universities; it is a rampant problem in Nigeria and in many cases don't even get reported. legal remedies are rare, and public discussion of it is stifled by a culture of male sexual entitlement. It is, in other words, a societal problem. But are we wrong to think that university lecturers who often wax sanctimonious about virtue, ethics, and wrong doing and who often threaten fire and brimstone if government does not do right by them should exhibit a higher, exemplary ethics especially considering that parents are trusting them with the safety and learning of their children? Is it too much to ask that, if they won't teach the children, they should at least not sexually abuse them?

I was shocked when one professor quoted the Bible telling me that too much critical analysis and evaluation of ideas is wrong because the bible says it is dangerous, presumably it will lead to arrogance or something like that. 

Samuel, how many Nigerian conference panels have you attended? I ask you this question because what passes as academic discussion sometimes is pure metaphysics and superstition, the substitution of conjecture, hearsay, and religious beliefs as scholarly thought and insight. Sometimes, you wonder if you're in a church or at an academic conference. Other times you wonder if you're in a bar. So, no, I am not surprised at all by your encounter with this academic interlocutor who discourages critical thinking.

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

It will be helpful to read from academics in Nigeria on these subjects.

To what degree are Moses' summations accurate in terms of Nigerian university education generally?

Is it true that the Nigerian university system gives equal reward to good and bad academics?

Not to my knowledge.

Promotion is awarded for publications, and these publications could be assessed for quality and international scope.

For the professorship, these publications could also be assessed by an examiner outside the country.

My BA at the Department of English and Literature at the University of Benin was very thorough.

The MA and PhD programs at the same dept were more rigorous than those I eventually encountered in some of the more prestigious  universities in  England.

The English programs were better, however, bcs the staff had a much better understanding of and commitment to student independence and dignity as a necessary foundation in the development of knowledge.

I also attended conferences in Nigerian universities and had  positive experiences, granted I am referring to more than ten years ago in my accounts of my experience of the Nigerian university system.

I am also aware of accounts of oppression of students by staff that were inadequately managed.

I am also aware of students making themselves available to staff in the name of getting better exam scores.

Various kinds of reports emerge from students in  Nigerian universities- some positive, some negative.

We need breadth and rigour of analysis on these issues, not blanket criticism.

thanks

toyin

 

[Anunoby, Ogugua]

What is wrong with an employee trying to  get better paid by their employer? Why does anyone have a problem with this effort especially when the employer is the state run by elected public officials who unconscionably expend more public funds on their personal emoluments for little and infrequent useful work, than they do on any other budget heads?

The ethics and morality issues in Nigeria’s higher education are in series and not in parallel with the state of the issues in the larger society. It is unrealistic to expect a higher standard of ethics and morality in Nigeria’s higher education than is the case in other parts of the Nigerian society.

While one does not approve of unethical and immoral behavior and the taking of undue advantage of others especially because of situation power differentials, the society is at the end of the day one whole and parts of it are microcosms of the whole.

I would argue on the strength of direct personal experience, that many ASUU members are ethical, moral professionals, deeply concerned about positive learning outcomes and morality issues in Nigeria’s higher education, and Nigeria as a country.  Is it their fault that the system is what it is, given that the system works as it is mostly intended, designed and operated to function as it seems to do? I do believe too that as is most often times the case, it is most likely a minority of people (miscreants) in higher education who are responsible for the cases of abuse that happen in the system. To paint all persons in higher education with the same brush as has been attempted in a post below is to not acknowledge facts as they truly are. It is always imprudent to generalize. There are almost always exceptions. I am tempted to add that it is even worse to do so when one should have known better.  

 

oa

Tel: +234 1 7615407

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Toyin,

You've revealed yourself to be a very distant observer of the Nigerian higher education system. I am not. When last did you go home and interact with colleagues in Nigerian universities? Do you talk to them regularly? Not only do I go home frequently, I collaborate with several colleagues back home, productive, committed, and passionate colleagues that are a small minority in the Nigerian university system. Not only that, I do external examinations, and this past summer, I spent about a month in a Nigerian university. Let me say this without giving out too much detail or betraying confidences: the Nigerian university system stinks, and some of the senior, committed colleagues are embarrassed by the breadth and depth of the rot. I feel for them; they are powerless. They are overwhelmed and stifled by the greedy ASUU mob. I get an earful, unsolicited, about the ethical crisis, corruption, and lack of commitment on the part of lecturers in the Nigerian university system. Some of what I hear I cannot even repeat. I think of myself as being impervious to shock when it comes to the Nigerian university system, but some of the misconduct and the anti-intellectual things I am told still test the limit of my jadedness.

The Nigerian University system needs an overhaul, not even a reform, and the cleansing has to start with ASUU, which protects the wrong doers and the pretenders. 

How the heck can you set a single salary structure for all academics on the same rank without regard to productivity, research distinction, and teaching excellence? It is a recipe for disaster. It is an outmoded incentive and compensation structure. It is killing teaching and research in the Nigerian university system. But an unimaginative ASUU clings to that template as though it is the capstone of a religious canon.

As for promotion being tied to publications, I advise you to go and look up the phrase "bean counting." That is what the NUC has inadvertently authorized in imposing a uniform set of publication metrics on all universities it supervises. Bean counting has become a scourge in the Nigerian university system. It is killing the system and many conscientious folks have already compellingly critiqued that growing phenomenon on this and other forums.

But back to the issue at hand, I'd say nothing could be more asinine that the exculpatory claim of "our female students made us do it" or "they tempted us by dressing provocatively or by, as you put it, making themselves available to us in exchange for higher grades." I have not encountered a more self-indicting rhetoric, but sadly this is the mindset of many Nigerian lecturers when it comes to sexual abuse of female students. They have no understanding of power asymmetries, status imbalances etc, and how those factors make nonsense of consent. It's appalling that a guy like you who lives in Britain where a silly defense like that would get one into more trouble than one was already in would be giving any sympathetic hearing to the insultingly outrageous alibi of Nigerian academic sexual abusers.

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

"I would argue on the strength of direct personal experience, that many ASUU members are ethical, moral professionals,
deeply concerned about positive learning outcomes and morality issues in Nigeria’s higher education,

and Nigeria as a country." AO


Agreed. The blanket statement that there is no commitment to scholarship as a vocation or intellectual curiosity
by ASUU members is simply ridiculous.

I would add that the experiences of Toyin in three British universities
should also be noted. His findings are also applicable to the American university system
to a large extent, particularly in the period of reference.

I am proud to say that my decade of teaching at
Ahmadu Bello University, the University of Ilorin and the NDA
are among the most intellectually stimulating of my entire teaching career.

Some of the most brilliant students and faculty that I have ever
met, in my teaching career, in three continents, were in those universities.

I know where some of the worst are located.

I really don't feel the need to justify my present existence by under-valuing other
experiences.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora

________________________________

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Anunoby, Ogugua [Anun...@lincolnu.edu]
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2015 10:25 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Press Release - ASUU Take Note

What is wrong with an employee trying to get better paid by their employer? Why does anyone have a problem with this effort especially when the employer is the state run by elected public officials who unconscionably expend more public funds on their personal emoluments for little and infrequent useful work, than they do on any other budget heads?
The ethics and morality issues in Nigeria’s higher education are in series and not in parallel with the state of the issues in the larger society. It is unrealistic to expect a higher standard of ethics and morality in Nigeria’s higher education than is the case in other parts of the Nigerian society.
While one does not approve of unethical and immoral behavior and the taking of undue advantage of others especially because of situation power differentials, the society is at the end of the day one whole and parts of it are microcosms of the whole.
I would argue on the strength of direct personal experience, that many ASUU members are ethical, moral professionals, deeply concerned about positive learning outcomes and morality issues in Nigeria’s higher education, and Nigeria as a country. Is it their fault that the system is what it is, given that the system works as it is mostly intended, designed and operated to function as it seems to do? I do believe too that as is most often times the case, it is most likely a minority of people (miscreants) in higher education who are responsible for the cases of abuse that happen in the system. To paint all persons in higher education with the same brush as has been attempted in a post below is to not acknowledge facts as they truly are. It is always imprudent to generalize. There are almost always exceptions. I am tempted to add that it is even worse to do so when one should have known better.

oa


From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Moses Ebe Ochonu
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2015 9:18 AM
To: USAAfricaDialogue
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Press Release - ASUU Take Note

"Again, I ask- why do you think ASUU has no interest in addressing this subject or in addressing it in a manner that will provide justice for all concerned?"


Toyin,

You asked me a direct question and I will answer in a typical Nigerian fashion of answering a question with a question, so here goes. Have you seen a single ASUU member comment on this topic which has to do with sexual misconduct and abuse of power by their colleagues and fellow ASUU members?

That is a good indication of their lack of interest interest in matters that have nothing to do with getting more money from the government, matters that bear on learning, ethics, and the integrity of the lecturer-student relationship. Enough said.

On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 4:00 AM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Moses,
You are too much in a hurry to criticize, leading me to wonder to what degree your stance on this subject goes beyond rhetoric.
When you condemned ASUU wholesale as interested only in the pay of its members, I challenged that with examples that contradict that claim, particularly ASUU's role in the creation of what is now TETFUND.
You responded by granting the factuality of my example and modifying your ASUU critique as covering the late 1990s till now, arguing that since the mid 90s ASUU has not demonstrated nationalist vision beyond the welfare of its members, vision demonstrated by the TETFUND example.
I then explained why ASUU may be seen as no longer going beyond initiatives relating to the university system in its activities.
The issue of sexual harassment in the universities is squarely within the scope of university centred activity.
Again, I ask- why do you think ASUU has no interest in addressing this subject or in addressing it in a manner that will provide justice for all concerned?
thanks
toyin





On 15 September 2015 at 18:50, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com<mailto:meoc...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Toyin,

ASUU holding its members accountable by being at the forefront of efforts to rid the university system of rapist lecturers, who are ASUU members, and supporting moves to introduce student-centered teaching evaluations and other accountability metrics that would ensure that lecturers put their students' interest first are not " issues beyond university education." These are issues squarely in the province of university education. These efforts will help sanitize ethics and improve standards in the system. The only reason ASUU is not interested in these issues is simple: they won't translate to more money and benefits for its members. When it suits them, ASUU members will defend this posture of ASUU as classic trade unionism. At other times, especially when the public rises up against them as it did during the last strike, they start making fake noises about trying to reform and improve the university system. This is the game that ASUU people have been playing, but enablers like you help them get away with these tricks.

On Tue, Sep 15, 2015 at 11:20 AM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>> wrote:
My understanding of the reason why ASUU may be seen as no longer taking it upon itself to make suggestions or demands to the govt in relation to issues beyond university education was that it was difficult enough getting the govt to agree to negotiate in the first place and honour agreements reached in those negotiations, meaning the negotiation process would be more likely to succeed if ASUU focused on its primary mandate-the university system.

Should ASUU operate like the Nigerian Labour Congress for example, that presses for demands relating to the economy as a whole?

Thanks

toyin

On 14 September 2015 at 19:00, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Second response on Samuel-
I was hasty in my first response.
I was taken in by his measured tones that led me to forget that I dont know enough about the Nigerian university system as a whole to assess these comments-

'One hardly gets impressed with commitment to scholarship as a vocation or the beauty of intellectual curiosity.

There are surely some that are committed but they are a minority.'
Can people in the system please help us on this?
second response to Moses-
I see that Moses modified his critique in his second comment, placing it in historical perspective.
I am also aware of the point when the idea that 'ASUU is primarily trade union' was presented as new approach of ASUU as different from the union's more broad ranging nationalist vision in earlier years.
While pointing out what I understand as inadequate critique, i want to avoid being uncritically defensive.
toyin

On Mon, Sep 14, 2015 at 2:22 AM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Thanks for those balanced comments, Gloria and Samuel.
Moses, who prevented you or any one else on this forum from doing a 'full critical audit' on ASUU?
Were your efforts in that regard prevented from being posted on the forum?
Your comments show little knowledge of ASUU's history.
It was ASUU, for example, that proposed to the govt the creation of an education trust fund, sourced by taxing companies, which I understand is the basis of the current TETFUND, which, after govt allocations I expect is the largest financial source for university funding.

ASUU had a history of pushing for broader social change in its negotiations with govt,up till the 1980s.
ASUU made academics in Nigeria gain some respectability only by decades of dogged fighting.
Is there any value in criticism of ASUU that is centred on ahistorical and total condemnation?
thanks
toyin

On 14 September 2015 at 04:00, Samuel Zalanga <szal...@bethel.edu<mailto:szal...@bethel.edu>> wrote:
Yes, indeed. Being there, seen that! With changes within ASUU members, the transformation in Nigeria's higher education will be phenomenal. They can help in holding corrupt administrators accountable.

Interestingly, many of the ASUU members went to school overseas and saw how the systems are functionally relatively well. They returned there and are professors and by virtue of that, members of the senate (a major administrative organ of the university), yet, not all of them are committed. One hardly gets impressed with commitment to scholarship as a vocation or the beauty of intellectual curiosity.

There are surely some that are committed but they are a minority. If Nigeria is going to change, it is only if Nigerians set a high standard for themselves, and hold themselves accountable that the country can begin to see a path forward. For most part, as Buhari long ago said, for most Nigerians, they do not have any place to migrate to. So it is better to remain and salvage the country.

Things can indeed improve if there is a higher level of commitment among the academic staff, not just in pursuit of their own interests but national interest, which includes the students'. I am glad that I started my university teaching here in the U.S. and have learned to always feel I am an ordinary mortal human being. It is one thing for a person to command the respect of others, but it is another to terrorize people to respect you. There is some aesthetic joy in learning to live and feel like a normal, regular human being.
Samuel

On Sun, Sep 13, 2015 at 8:43 PM, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com<mailto:meoc...@gmail.com>> wrote:
The NUC should step in and formulate a comprehensive sexual harassment policy to be adopted by all universities. Forget ASUU; they will not push for it.

ASUU will not comment on let alone lead the effort to combat the abuse of our female students by their members. Suddenly, all the ASUU stalwarts who tried in vain with their defensive loquaciousness to prevent us from doing a full critical audit on ASUU during their strike have gone quiet. You will not hear them condemn and call for a stop to this abominable rapes committed by their members. Quite frankly I won't be surprised if ASUU uses its funds and organizational muscle to help its accused rapist members escape sanctions.

When ASUU was busy fighting for largesse and making noise about trying to sanitize and improve the Nigerian higher education system, some of us laughed in derision and called them out on the deception. Many opportunities had presented themselves for ASUU to back up its hollow rhetoric of trying to improve the system. In each case, ASUU officials looked away, content to collect from government what they claim they deserve.

Here is an opportunity, a very cheap one, for ASUU to demonstrate to us that it indeed cares about improving learning, holding its members accountable, and giving our young people a safe space to come of age intellectually. But as usual, ASUU members have gone quiet. They will pretend not to have been following the gory cases of rape committed by their members. And they will pretend not to know that for every reported lecturer rape case on Nigerian campuses there are at least ten unreported ones.

In private some ASUU members condemn their colleagues for this crime of raping female students (a crime row which there are all kinds of euphemistic terms among the Nigerian university faculty), but will they push for meaningful sexual harassment policies that prescribe zero tolerance for sexual harassment and abuse by lecturers? NO!

What else is new? After all, did some ASUU members on this forum not tell us that in fact they, lecturers, are the real victims of sexual harassment, that their female students sexually harass them, and that they, not female students, deserve sympathy and protection? ASUU will not support the formulation, let alone the implementation, of sexual harassment policies by public universities.

Introduce a topic on this forum bashing government types for their familiar crimes and see how our ASUU academics will jump into the discussion excitedly with glib selective outrage. But here's a topic on the sexual atrocities that ASUU members use their positions to commit against their vulnerable students, a topic deserving our unqualified outrage. What's the reaction from our ASUU members? None. Ikhide is absolutely right; the accountability we seek has to start with us. ASUU is part of the problem of university education in Nigeria. I will continue to say it.

On Sun, Sep 13, 2015 at 5:18 PM, OLADMEJI ABORISADE <olaabo...@msn.com<mailto:olaabo...@msn.com>> wrote:
Dear Sirs,
This is sad. Indeed, a disgrace. NUC must borrow a leaf from the United States Institutions on how to handle cases of this nature. Individual concerned must be disciplined in line with academic law. Dismissal. Label the offender. Have the offender Register so that other Institutions may know. It is a serious form of corruption in Nigeria. It has to stop.
Thank you,
oladimeji aborisade.

________________________________
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2015 11:26:36 -0600
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Press Release - ASUU Take Note

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It is important for Nigerian educational institutions to have clear and enforceable policies regarding sexual harassment and other forms of abuse of female students. However, it is even more important that national laws against these types of crimes be enforced and the perpetrators brought to book for their crimes. Apparently, the Nigerian national police and other law enforcement agencies are failing in their duties--it is their job to protect the integrity and safety of all Nigerians, including especially vulnerable groups. The continued sexual abuse of girls and women reflects poorly on us as a people and it is time for us to speak up. The NFF needs our support--the next woman or girl abused could be someone close to you.

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[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Gloria, I did not do a blanket condemnation o. I have qualifiers and modifiers copiously sprinkled on my criticisms. You can accuse me of adopting a harsh tone and I will plead guilty. It is deliberate, given the gravity of the problem and the young lives and futures being destroyed. And I don't recall Samuel Zalanga making a blanket critique either.

Ogugua, there is nothing wrong with employees bargaining for better pay or conditions but there is something wrong when many of said employees would 1) not do the work for which they are asking for more money and would not agree to be held accountable by way of having their work evaluated; and 2) want to be seen not merely as employees fighting for better pay but as people who are out to save the employer, as people who love the employer more the employer loves himself. It is called 419 in local Nigerian parlance, deception in a less esoteric lexicon. This 419 is further compounded when some of the employees begin to vandalize some of the property entrusted in their care by the employer--a metaphor for the sexual abuse of female students. 

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[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Gloria, I did not do a blanket condemnation o. I have qualifiers and modifiers copiously sprinkled on my criticisms. You can accuse me of adopting a harsh tone and I will plead guilty. It is deliberate, given the gravity of the problem and the young lives and futures being destroyed. And I don't recall Samuel Zalanga making a blanket critique either.

Ogugua, there is nothing wrong with an employees asking bargaining for better pay or conditions but there is wrong when many of said employees would 1) not do the work for which they are asking for more money and would not agree to be held accountable by way of having their work evaluated; and 2) want to be seen not merely as employees fighting for better pay but as people who are out to save the employer, as people who love the employer more the employer loves himself. It is called 419 in local Nigerian parlance, deception in a less esoteric lexicon. This 419 is further compounded when some of the employees begin to vandalize some of the property entrusted in their care by the employer--a metaphor for the sexual abuse of female students. 

On Thu, Sep 17, 2015 at 10:45 AM, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emea...@mail.ccsu.edu> wrote:

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[Anunoby, Ogugua]

1) and 2) below seem to me to be more extravagant generalizations. The desired case can be made without besmirching the reputation the of all ASUU members, or impugning their integrity.

[Samuel Zalanga]

Please what is the time frame for the observation? I do not think that what the Professor is saying is different from much of what has been said if  we are concise and clear about the time frame of the observation. Someone cited the Ibadan of the past, and I think that is true of other universities as well; no one would deny that.

But even in those good days, which is getting to 25 years ago, I have had classes where the lecturer will not show up and then two or three weeks to the exam, he would start a crush program. No one held him accountable. In one of such classes, because I sit in front of the class, the lecturer had his undergraduate note book from ABU. The color of the notebook had started changing. It was from his lecture notes at ABU that he was giving us the lecture. In one specific case, he had to change two topics during one class session because he started teaching and run out of facts. He comes to class with little preparation. The guy is a very personable person but frankly he was not doing his work and no one held him accountable. This was when I was a boy and ASUU is like something from the kingdom of God.

 In another case, we were in the office of the professor who was a department chair. The course was political sociology, and one of us was making a presentation, the lecturer closed his eyes as if he was listening. There were more than ten of us. We did not know that he slept off. It was after the student finished his presentation that we realized he was not listening. We had to nudge him a bit before he woke up. He apologized and said the student was reading the paper and that was why he slept off. One lecturer told us that he was sorry we came to the university when he was psychologically retired from academics. What does that mean? And he said it in the presence of his colleagues. I am saying this from my standpoint as a student at the receiving. I agree that there are things that some lecturers and professors saw which we did not see as students, but so also, there were certain things we saw as students which some lecturers and professors given their privileged positions did not see or worry about.

 Still in another personal experience, we were having a lecture in the office of another lecturer and his friend stopped by to say hello to him. He did not put notice on the door that a class was going on. The lecturer interrupted the class and they cracked their jokes with is friend and when the friend was leaving, the lecturer said, "I will rush them and come and join you." We were quiet there. You dare not comment.

Does that mean all lecturers were like that even then over 20-30 years ago? No, and that is the point I believe the professor is trying salvage. In one case, another lecturer at the end of the year just said he wants all of us taking history to submit our note books. This was the time when you had to have tutorials, which was good mentoring. What about now? Anyway, we submitted our note books and I took Islamic and Contemporary world history. I remember getting an "A" in the course, but I know the reason why. It was not just because of the exam. But when the notes books were collected, the lecturers found out that I did not miss class, and my notes were compiled notes not the rough draft people take while in class. I normally take the rough drafts and in the evening, I compile them which was a great learning experience. In addition, I will go to the library and get a book that has additional information on the topic especially if the book was mentioned in class and I will read it and summarize the notes in my note book. That "A" that I got was an incentive because it showed me a direct correlation between my effort and diligence and where I ended. They do not easily give "As" in Nigeria those days. This is a good and inspirational case.

 In another case, once when one student snatched an assignment I was submitting because he was not even aware the assignment was given, we got into trouble. The student refused to return the paper to me until he went and plagiarized it. When the lecturer came to distribute the graded papers he took about fifteen minutes talking about plagiarism. I knew he detected something. When I got my paper, he wrote I should see him with the other guy. I immediately went and saw him and he was convinced that I was not the one copying, it was the other guy. This an excellent example of a diligent lecturer. So, there are the the good, the bad and the ugly in the academic staff of Nigerian Universities and all these examples are from 22 -25 years ago.

In my assessment, what has happened over time is that many of the hardworking lecturers who are the best members of ASUU became discouraged because there is no correlation between their diligence and where they ended up. Like Keynesian economists, who insist that demand and supply are not the only variables that account for what people get in the marketplace, similarly these lecturers realize that the incentive system in the institution is not aligned to encourage people investing more and in doing the right thing. Other variables became very crucial. So what I am saying here is not some general comment, but something that I have been interested in and monitored it for quite some time.

What changed in Nigeria therefore since some of the senior professors in this forum left the ASUU of those days is that the culture of impunity has worsened; merit, even if it was a problem then, has now worsened;  lecturers can miss classes several times in a row but no one holds them accountable or at best they can just complete a form; or when lecturers are in class, the material taught is not necessarily the best. Of course the universities can be ranked in continuum in terms of the degree to which things like this happen and the reasons for the variation are themselves more interesting in terms of our desire to change things in Nigeria or Africa.  Yet, as one dedicated professor told me, they are paid journal allowances but few lecturers channel those allowances to buy books or journals. These are empirically verifiable facts. There may be good reasons why many of the lecturers do not invest their journal allowances in buying books, but that concession does not preclude the negative impact of that on the academic culture in Nigerian universities, which is the substantive issue of concern here. I do not say this out of disrespect. My passion about Nigerian higher education has to do with the fact that I grew up really poor and without such an opportunity I would not be where I am and I am concerned about those who are caught up in the current decline.

 I can remember a time in Nigeria when people were more honest. But when I shared this story in Nigeria and gave examples, people told me that is now nostalgia. There was a time when even when people had the opportunity to take advantage of someone they will avoid that.

Are there still honest people in Nigeria today? Of course, there are! No doubt. One guy I met in Abuja, a taxi driver from Kano went and deposited a huge amount of money for me that I wanted to send to my sister's  bank account in GT Bank. I just met him. This was on the day of my departure from Abuja. The guy could have run away with the money and there is nothing I can do about that because I have no way of holding him accountable and will not stop my journey because of the money. The guy who called him to provide the service for me has no any influence over him.  But he went and deposited the money. It was after I gave him the money that I realized, oh, I probably made a terrible mistake. Later my sister called to inform me that she received an alert from the bank that the money I gave was deposited. When I met the guy in the evening before I left for the airport, I told him that I wanted to speak to him. I looked at him in the eye and told him that he did not preach to me but he did something that touched my soul. I told him that he could have run away with that money but you did not. I am very grateful and you made me feel proud as a Nigeria. What he did to me was more than many sermons preached in Nigeria that are not backed by genuine action. Ali is a Muslim from Kano and I made it clear to him that I am a Christian. Good behavior and something virtuous and commendable can be recognized by everyone if the person is honest. The guy's behavior was very admirable.

That said, but the question is how many honest people do you need to get things running effectively in a country or university? There is always a tipping point, -- here I want us to be very nuanced. How many scholars do you need to create dynamism in a university or a distinctive organizational culture that no one can deny its efficacy. How many good people do we need to create a tipping point that will change the organizational culture of the university? That Nigerian universities are not now functioning very well is well-known; but that everyone is not a serious scholar or involved in taking advantage of their students is not true. The question however is what is the tipping point or the paradigm that predominates? Most of the good people in some cases have strategically withdrawn out of frustration, which means by default the dominant culture is not the enterprising one that we all want to see. The good lecturers and professors have reputation on campus. It is not hidden. If what they are doing is the traditional practice of all, no one will consider them as spectacular because that will be ordinary. But how many of them do you need to change the momentum in another direction? This is an empirical question.

As someone who taught research methodology for a long time, I will agree that we can measure the degree of dysfunction and without contradicting ourselves conclude that some of the universities are functioning better than others, and when you visit such places you feel it, you sense it, if  one is honest to himself or herself. And there is something to be learned there.  Indeed, even within the same university sometimes some departments might be working better than others, which are all good topics for ethnographic research. Within the same department, some lecturers maybe making more effort than others. Such a study will definitely show that Nigerian universities have declined and part of it has to do with the quality of teaching and instruction. The lecturers and professors may have good reasons for that but this does not preclude the consequences.

But whatever the case, unless if we set the standard so low for ourselves, we would not deny that there are problems of dysfunction in spite of the existence of good people. What is happening in this respect reminds me of Reinhold Niebuhr's argument in the book "Moral Man and Immoral Society." There can be moral people in a university but that will not preclude the aggregate result being not good. The process through which this kind of thing happens is what preoccupied Niebuhr in his book. The incentive system does not really reward excellent scholarship as before since many people rose to very high ranking scholarship without high accomplishment.

Let us find out how much money the average lecturer or professor spends per year on books. In any case, if it were not for the problem of dysfunction, many of us would not be outside the country. For people like me, I came to the U.S. as a student, but for some on this forum, they arrived the U.S. as already ACCOMPLISHED SCHOLARS, which means they must have done more rational calculations in terms of leaving Nigeria than those of us who came and spent years as students before we made transition to become teachers. They are in a better position to explain why the system in Nigerian Universities were and are excellent but they left. We have to be honest to ourselves here, without feeling like we hate Nigeria or we are looking down upon the country. My desire is to help by contributing to bring about change because the system is not improving as we would want and if it is improving seriously, then the pace of the improvement suggests Nigerians have different time frame and quality standards compared to other people in higher education in some parts of the world. While in Jos, anyone who interacted with me knows that I cared and my desire is to help make the system better in spite of being told that I am naive. Yes, I came across some who encouraged me among the academic staff, and indeed many of the students.  Surely, even here in the U.S. people complain about the decline of standards but the difference here is that there are institutions that try to hold people or institutions accountable. I cannot meet graduate students five times in a regular semester and just give them exam at the end without someone holding me accountable here. As a member of the general education committee we have to meet every month to keep an eye on general education courses and program here. If we fail, the market will punish us.

While I was in Nigeria, I was lucky through some people I met high ranking people who all admitted that there are serious problems in Nigerian universities They did not say this because they hated Nigeria. One of such persons was Nigeria's ex-Finance Minister Professor Chu Okongwu who used to be at Harvard. He exemplifies a man who occupied a very high position of responsibility  in Nigeria but an encounter with him will show you how the value system of Nigeria has changed within decades. Many people who later occupied lesser rank than his are extremely richer. Nothing in his appearance suggest wealth or pomposity. It was truly touching to meet him and I told him that I will order his books. This is not about trying to insult anyone but to make observations that are empirically verifiable. If anyone is interested, I can mail him or her the scanned copies of the students comments in the evaluation I administered after teaching this summer in Nigeria; and for me that is a good place to start in terms of acknowledging the problems even if one can concede that there are good reasons for the problems. It helps me discuss with some empirical reference. The students are ultimately the immediate direct beneficiaries of the university system and they had some important things to say. Many of the comments would not be relevant if there were no issues. When the system goes bad, many innocent people suffer, or efforts by many hardworking innocent people get somewhat wasted as the value is diminished because of other people's carefree attitude. The challenges are not unique to one university in Nigeria even though some universities are better than others.

For me, the issue is about whether we can create a system in our own countries in Africa that works for all so that it will not make any difference whether someone got his or her training there or in the Western world. Of course this is goal that is not just the responsibility of academic staff but a much broader segment of the Nigerian or African society at large. I have taught social theory for long and I know I can spend the rest of my life just critiquing this European person or that, or this theory or that, but ultimately, the issue is how do we create institutions that really function well in Africa so that even visitors who hate Africa or look down upon it will have to admit that the system is working?

We should remember comments by persons like Ibn Batuta about Mali or Songhai empire regarding their orderliness and good governance, and comments by some European visitors to the Bini Kingdom in Nigeria.  My point is if something is really functioning well, people will just see and acknowledge it, and if they want to ignore that, they will make a fool of themselves. That is what I want Africa / Nigeria to be. WE should set standards for ourselves that are high and when we fail below expectations, we should not feel ashamed to call ourselves to order, and we do not need an outsider to tell us. 

While in Nigeria, I wanted to create a book discussion group, but I was told that I should be prepared to talk about the book when we meet if I am able to get good attendance. I wanted to organize a conference on Piketty's "Capital in the 21st Century" so as to draw insights form it for developing countries but nothing came out of it. People are too busy with some things. But the book is truly relevant for debating this whole idea that neoliberal capitalism as we know it is the panacea to human development. Saying this does not mean that the people are bad, but we have to evaluate people's choices or behavior in context. This is why some talk about "bounded rationality." Understanding how the incentive system and structure in Nigerian universities has changed or shifted in the past decades is very important in this respect.

In the U.S. if there is a relatively high correlation between the effort you invest in serious scholarship or teaching / mentoring and one's professional growth, then one has the incentive to invest his or her energy and time in those areas because even if the correlation is not perfect, it is very strong. I teach in a very white school but when I was first promoted, in my meeting with the provost, he made it clear to me that further promotion is based on scholarly productivity but he said at the then rate, I should have no problem if I continue. Well, that is an incentive for me. I realize my path way forward is not to focus on my being black as such (even though race counts in the U.S.) but to work hard to convince the system beyond doubt that I meet its expectation. Such signals have become somewhat fuzzy in many Nigerian universities. Thus, when over time people realize that the correlation between hard work, serious scholarship, quality teaching and mentoring has become low;  because they need serious connections, or else, few will recognize and affirm them, then we should acknowledge the fact that people will rationally and strategically behave differently and make different choices for good reasons. But even if the reasons are good, someone in the system still suffers and that should be our concern.

One thing I can assure everyone is that, just as over the past several decades families in Nigeria, religion in Nigeria, leadership in Nigeria etc. have changed,and often, not for the better; similarly, the kinds of students in the university have changed and the ASUU of today is different from the ASUU of those years, even though I have cited examples from 22-25 years ago about how some members of ASUU behaved when I was student and no one held them accountable. ASUU was at her heights then or so it seems.  When I was in Jos, I asked someone who is providing car commercial service to drop me in Bauchi and he said I should be N6000. I asked him whether he had taken any course in economics? He new that I could go to the motor park and take a whole vehicle to Bauchi for N2800, and there will be many vehicles available and they will happily to do so. But the guy feels I am from the U.S. and it is his turn to get his national cake. He allowed his desire to get rich fast takeover his reasoning.  All of us, depending on our context are susceptible to this temptation. The difference is how we deal with it.

And there are many reasons for these changes. So for me, the time frame of our observations is very important. If nothing, just as the spirit of excessive material acquisitiveness has invaded the inner-sanctums of religious sanctuaries, I will argue that the Nigerian academic community has not escaped that and we should not be surprised. I gathered evidence that Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) Chairmen in some states were bought off by the governors. And CAN became ineffective, a toothless bulldog, not because there are no serious people but there are many people who changed the organizational culture of the group. This has led to what some will call the "tragedy of the commons" in the sense that the leaders in pursuit of money, keep quiet when things are going wrong, and those that are serious, for the sake of still being relevant keep quiet even if not directly participating in the shenanigans. In my assessment we should not be surprise sociologically that given the Nigerian situation, the academic community has not been able to resist the excessive materialistic focus of the culture in a situation where institutions that are supposed to exert social and moral constraint on the insatiable desires of human beings are not functioning well. But that kind of spirit has the capacity to  distort and displace people's ideals.

 So we have to recognize that if we are going to be honest with ourselves, even if there are good reasons, the fact remains that there has been goal-displacement among Nigerian universities. And even here in the U.S. some say there has been such goal-displacement as increasingly education has become very instrumental with social and humanities becoming less attractive because they may not lead to lucrative jobs. This is not a problem unique to Nigeria. The number of good people in Nigerian universities it seems is not high enough to create a tipping point for the better.

In any case even if we say that all is alright with the world of academia in Nigeria, while it seems like we can calm and clap our hands and say hallelujah everything is great, yet, we have to note that it opens another discussion which in my view is even so serious. Now  we have to account for a situation where our academic staff has been functioning so well, highly intellectually curious and see scholarship as a vocation, but yet, we end up with what we see today in Nigerian universities. It is a fact that no matter how imperfect Nigerian universities were some decades ago, the system was still functioning far better. At the current rate of commitment of the academic staff if we are satisfied with it, how long will it take Nigerian universities to play a role in transforming Nigeria. German Universities were at one point ahead of many others in the world and collecting many Nobel Prizes before American Universities became dominant. Universities have an important public role to play. But with neoliberal reforms imposed on African countries worsened by internal, homegrown problems, the higher education system in Nigeria has been devastated. I was an elementary school headmaster before coming to the U.S. and I  know that even at that level, with all the deficiencies the system was functioning far better then than now.

That we have great people among the Nigerian University academic staff and yet some terrible things are happening overall is not surprising, but it should galvanize us to action. For me, this kind of reality is similar to many others in human history. For instance:

a) why did the ancient Athenians talk a lot about democracy as an ideal and considered themselves great according to one of their leaders Pericles in his funeral oration, and yet, they denied other Greeks, women and slaves? They made others their sharecroppers. Even though there were conscientious people in Ancient Athens who raised this public moral duplicity, it did not stop Athenians from screwing up the lives of others;

b) Why is it that there are decent and good people in Africa between 1960 to date, and yet, in their own presence, many Africans, and many Nigerians became statistically worse than a cow in Europe given that the European Union under the common agricultural policy subsidized farmers' cow at a minimum of $2:50 per day, when many in Nigeria cannot make $1:50 per day.  The life chances of many Nigerians even in my own lifetime has worsened. Is it because there are no good people in Nigeria?  Can we just attribute this just to foreigners as usual? Are there some home-grown reasons?

c) With all the good and nice people in the U.S.A., inequality between 1970 and today has widened and it has even widened more since the Great Recession. This is not because there are no caring people or those concerned with social justice. When tragedy of the commons happen, often it does because people just pursue their normal business thinking just in terms of their personal goals, but the aggregate result of that is tragedy for the community.

 It is in this respect that in my assessment the fact that there are indeed decent members of ASUU, it should not surprise us that things can deteriorate. just as the other examples I have given. It is the same reason why slavery took place when there were Christian revivals in the U.S., and Jim Crow segregation took place with strong Christian churches in America.

We still need to ask: how many God-fearing people do you need in a country before things will go well? What about situations where there are countries where they do not talk about God much and He is not part of the public discourse as much but the educational institutions of the countries and institutions are running fare well and better than Nigeria's.  How many decent academics do we need to turn Nigerian universities around? The has has to do with the fact:  Institutions matter and even when you have good people, if the institutional structure, function and reward system is distorted, misaligned, etc. it will result in people engaging in socially unproductive activities because those same activities are privately rewarding. As David Popenoe titled one of his books, Private Pleasure, Public Plight."

Samuel

On Thu, Sep 17, 2015 at 10:45 AM, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emea...@mail.ccsu.edu> wrote:

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

On Promotion Criteria in Nigerian Universities

Its important to distinguish truth from falsehood in Moses' summations on this subject :

'How the heck can you set a single salary structure for all academics on the same rank without regard to productivity, research distinction, and teaching excellence? It is a recipe for disaster. It is an outmoded incentive and compensation structure. It is killing teaching and research in the Nigerian university system. But an unimaginative ASUU clings to that template as though it is the capstone of a religious canon.

As for promotion being tied to publications, I advise you to go and look up the phrase "bean counting." That is what the NUC has inadvertently authorized in imposing a uniform set of publication metrics on all universities it supervises. Bean counting has become a scourge in the Nigerian university system. It is killing the system and many conscientious folks have already compellingly critiqued that growing phenomenon on this and other forums.'

I have explained  why his trying to rope ASUU into this subject has no merit.

Secondly,  it is not true that Nigerian universities operate in terms of "a single salary structure for all academics on the same rank without regard to productivity, research distinction, and teaching excellence?"

Academic promotions are gained through productivity and research distinction.

They are not automatic rewards bestowed regardless of achievement.

The publication criteria for each rung on the promotions ladder is spelt out.

These criteria may also be regularly reviewed upward, as was consistent from my observations at the University of Benin.

For the professorship, assessment was not only in terms of number of publications but research impact, assessed in terms of international range of dissemination of one's work, a criterion reinforced by the requirement of at least one assessor from outside the country.

Uniformity in Publication Metrics for Nigerian Universities

In what sense is uniformity of publication metrics for all Nigerian universities negative?

I understand England does the same for its universities, which have high global ratings.

Strategic Issues in Relation to Promotion Criteria in Nigerian Universities

There exist strategic issues in relation to promotion criteria in Nigerian universities which I earlier made the mistake of thinking Moses was addressing hence I gave some credence to his critique.

These are grounded in questions of the philosophical, social and economic factors shaping the development  of knowledge in higher education.

I will try to address this later.

thanks

toyin

On 18 September 2015 at 12:04, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com> wrote:

Modification :

"On the issue of promotion metrics, you make false assertions  which I will address in my next post".

thanks

toyin

On 18 September 2015 at 11:48, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com> wrote:

Moses,

On Filtering Information

You keep invoking and expanding your credentials in relation to this subject and yet keep making strategic missteps on the history and ethos of ASUU and, now, on the relationship of ASUU to various layers of  university management.

Is your self described exposure to the Nigerian university system not filtered primarily through which you have depicted as your bitter experience in your BA in Nigeria, an experience that is not representative of Nigerian higher education of many people?

It is possible to hear only what one wants to hear that fulfills one's prejudices.

Those prejudices seem to blind you to the limitations of your understanding of how the Nigerian university system is managed.

The reports I get from Nigerian academics and students, both in person  and on social media, paint a much more complex picture than you are presenting.

You began by dismissing ASUU as contributing nothing beyond holding the govt to hostage for member's salaries.

The falsehood of that was pointed out to you, leading you to modify your critique, acknowledging ASUU's contributions beyond member's pay, contributions  which you now claim stopped in the mid 1990s.

You were then challenged to justify your claim about ASUU's culpability in working against approaches to curb sexual harassment  of students by its members.

You pointed to what you described as the silence of ASUU members on USAAfrica Dialogues, as if USAAfrica Dialogues is an ASUU forum.

People have different reasons for their choices of timing and manner of response on listserves such as this  one, environments which are a significant distance  from the theatre  of action affected by the discussion.

ASUU, University Senate, NUC and Promotion Criteria in Nigerian Universities

You have now introduced a condemnation of ASUU as culplable in what you describe as destructive promotion  metrics in the Nigerian university system.

As was pointed out to you in the  debate on ASUU on this forum at the time of the last ASUU strike, ASUU plays no role in the determination of university promotion metrics.

That is the job of the university senate, possibly in collaboration with the Nigerian Universities Commission.

The limitations for ASUU created by this procedure are amplified by the fact that there is a world of difference in orientation between ASUU, as a trade union, and the senate of the university as part of the apex governing body of the institution.

Senate is management, ASUU is staff- a fundamental  dichotomy reflected in the history of trade unionism.

This dichotomy  holds even though members of senate- heads of dept, deans, professors and the vice-chancellor, are all members of ASUU.

Entry into managerial positions, such as head of dept, dean and vice- chancellor, modifies people's attitudes to issues affecting the work force on account of the change in relationship one now has to both the general members of staff to which one once belonged and the managerial  team to which one now  belongs.

This dichotomy is demonstrated in differences of approach to strategic  issues between management officers of the university, as members of senate and the larger group of academic staff.

These differences are reflected in various approaches of management staff, particularly vice-chancellors, to the struggles of ASUU, particularly in response to heavy handed  tactics by the govt.

On the issue of promotion metrics, you raise vital questions which need to be addressed away from the atmosphere of emotive rhetoric and problematic allocation of blame  in  which you cloak your arguments.

I will try to do so in my next post.

On Modes of Sexual Negotiation in Relation to Forms of Power

I stated that:

"I am also aware of accounts of oppression of students by staff that were inadequately managed.

I am also aware of students making themselves available to staff in the name of getting better exam scores."

We need carefully managed and enforced guidelines on sexual context. for students and staff.

Failure to acknowledge two way culpability on this subject is pure self deception.

To what degree do academic staff enjoy a greater degree of power than their students?

Do various forms of power imply different kinds of authority between the actors concerned?

Academic staff enjoy greater power than their students, generally speaking.

Academic staff may also be seen as vulnerable, however.

This vulnerability emerges from the prominence of the teacher's position in relation to the group the teacher guides.

Being a teacher may make one open to various seduction strategies, a situation which, in my view, teachers need to be trained in how to handle and students guided in how best to relate to teachers.

Any claim that the teacher should be seen as a paragon of virtue, an angelic, disembodied entity who must be solely responsible in all particulars for managing the negative and positive possibilities  of his social environment in relation to the adult population represented by university students  is pure fiction, and is not based on a realistic understanding  of human nature..

This is not to claim that teachers  should be excused when they cross a negative line, but that the two way traffic of sexual predatoriness between teachers  and students needs to be recognised  and managed through information dissemination, training in social interaction  and disciplinary  measures.

thanks

toyin

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Modification :

"On the issue of promotion metrics, you make false assertions  which I will address in my next post".

thanks

toyin

On 18 September 2015 at 11:48, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com> wrote:

Moses,

"I am also aware of accounts of oppression of students by staff that were inadequately managed.

I am also aware of students making themselves available to staff in the name of getting better exam scores."

We need carefully managed and enforced guidelines on sexual context. for students and staff.

Failure to acknowledge two way culpability on this subject is pure self deception.

To what degree do academic staff enjoy a greater degree of power than their students?

Do various forms of power imply different kinds of authority between the actors concerned?

Academic staff enjoy greater power than their students, generally speaking.

Academic staff may also be seen as vulnerable, however.

This vulnerability emerges from the prominence of the teacher's position in relation to the group the teacher guides.

Being a teacher may make one open to various seduction strategies, a situation which, in my view, teachers need to be trained in how to handle and students guided in how best to relate to teachers.

Any claim that the teacher should be seen as a paragon of virtue, an angelic, disembodied entity who must be solely responsible in all particulars for managing the negative and positive possibilities  of his social environment in relation to the adult population represented by university students  is pure fiction, and is not based on a realistic understanding  of human nature..

This is not to claim that teachers  should be excused when they cross a negative line, but that the two way traffic of sexual predatoriness between teachers  and students needs to be recognised  and managed through information dissemination, training in social interaction  and disciplinary  measures.

thanks

toyin

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

"I am also aware of accounts of oppression of students by staff that were inadequately managed.

I am also aware of students making themselves available to staff in the name of getting better exam scores."

We need carefully managed and enforced guidelines on sexual context. for students and staff.

Failure to acknowledge two way culpability on this subject is pure self deception.

To what degree do academic staff enjoy a greater degree of power than their students?

Do various forms of power imply different kinds of authority between the actors concerned?

Academic staff enjoy greater power than their students, generally speaking.

Academic staff may also be seen as vulnerable, however.

This vulnerability emerges from the prominence of the teacher's position in relation to the group the teacher guides.

Being a teacher may make one open to various seduction strategies, a situation which, in my view, teachers need to be trained in how to handle and students guided in how best to relate to teachers.

Any claim that the teacher should be seen as a paragon of virtue, an angelic, disembodied entity who must be solely responsible in all particulars for managing the negative and positive possibilities  of his social environment in relation to the adult population represented by university students  is pure fiction, and is not based on a realistic understanding  of human nature..

This is not to claim that teachers  should be excused when they cross a negative line, but that the two way traffic of sexual predatoriness between teachers  and students needs to be recognised  and managed through information dissemination, training in social interaction  and disciplinary  measures.

thanks

toyin

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Beautiful summation from Samuel Zalanga.

We need to hear more voices of academics in Nigerian universities.

Much of what we are hearing on this forum is people either speaking on behalf of those academics,recounting their experiences of some years ago in the system,  or summing up what are described as recent experiences of a system they visit but dont live in.

Is it true that there is little correlation between reward and effort in Nigerian universities?

What kind of reward- promotion and its attendant economic value?

On a different, recent post, Chid Okpara decried the poor remuneration of Nigerian academics while Moses Ochonu is fixated on what he describes as the financial greed of ASUU.

 Whose story is accurate?

thanks

toyin

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

"As someone who taught research methodology for a long time, I will agree that we can measure the degree of dysfunction and
without contradicting ourselves conclude that some of the universities are functioning better than others, and when you visit such places
you feel it, you sense it, if one is honest to himself or herself. And there is something to be learned there.
Indeed, even within the same university sometimes some departments might be working better than others,
which are all good topics for ethnographic research. Within the same department, some lecturers maybe
making more effort than others.
Such a study will definitely show that Nigerian universities have declined and part of it

has to do with the quality of teaching and instruction. " Zalanga


I got excited by the first four sentences. Here we had an acknowledgement that there were disparities even within departments
and universities, with some departments , and indeed professors working better than others.
Finally we had an approach that recognized institutional diversity and disparities.
Finally we had someone who was not just empirically rambling along.

The analyst/commentator was going to apply his professional skills as a social scientist to provide
a nuanced approach useful for ASUU, local administrators and foreign observers alike.
Other studies may have been done before but this would be a defining addition
to available resources.

But my hopes were brutally dashed to the ground by the premature, declarative conclusion and false
extrapolation that followed.

Then I realized that I had rushed to judgement. I had foolishly allowed myself to be carried away
by wild expectations.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora

________________________________

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Samuel Zalanga [szal...@bethel.edu]
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2015 12:56 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Press Release - ASUU Take Note

On Thu, Sep 17, 2015 at 10:45 AM, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emea...@mail.ccsu.edu<mailto:emea...@mail.ccsu.edu>> wrote:
"I would argue on the strength of direct personal experience, that many ASUU members are ethical, moral professionals,
deeply concerned about positive learning outcomes and morality issues in Nigeria's higher education,
and Nigeria as a country." AO


Agreed. The blanket statement that there is no commitment to scholarship as a vocation or intellectual curiosity
by ASUU members is simply ridiculous.

I would add that the experiences of Toyin in three British universities
should also be noted. His findings are also applicable to the American university system
to a large extent, particularly in the period of reference.

I am proud to say that my decade of teaching at
Ahmadu Bello University, the University of Ilorin and the NDA
are among the most intellectually stimulating of my entire teaching career.

Some of the most brilliant students and faculty that I have ever
met, in my teaching career, in three continents, were in those universities.

I know where some of the worst are located.

I really don't feel the need to justify my present existence by under-valuing other
experiences.



Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050

africahistory.net<http://africahistory.net>
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos<http://vimeo.com/user5946750/videos>

Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora

________________________________

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com> [usaafric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com>] On Behalf Of Anunoby, Ogugua [Anun...@lincolnu.edu<mailto:Anun...@lincolnu.edu>]

Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2015 10:25 AM

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Press Release - ASUU Take Note

What is wrong with an employee trying to get better paid by their employer? Why does anyone have a problem with this effort especially when the employer is the state run by elected public officials who unconscionably expend more public funds on their personal emoluments for little and infrequent useful work, than they do on any other budget heads?
The ethics and morality issues in Nigeria's higher education are in series and not in parallel with the state of the issues in the larger society. It is unrealistic to expect a higher standard of ethics and morality in Nigeria's higher education than is the case in other parts of the Nigerian society.
While one does not approve of unethical and immoral behavior and the taking of undue advantage of others especially because of situation power differentials, the society is at the end of the day one whole and parts of it are microcosms of the whole.
I would argue on the strength of direct personal experience, that many ASUU members are ethical, moral professionals, deeply concerned about positive learning outcomes and morality issues in Nigeria's higher education, and Nigeria as a country. Is it their fault that the system is what it is, given that the system works as it is mostly intended, designed and operated to function as it seems to do? I do believe too that as is most often times the case, it is most likely a minority of people (miscreants) in higher education who are responsible for the cases of abuse that happen in the system. To paint all persons in higher education with the same brush as has been attempted in a post below is to not acknowledge facts as they truly are. It is always imprudent to generalize. There are almost always exceptions. I am tempted to add that it is even worse to do so when one should have known better.

oa

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com> [mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com>] On Behalf Of Moses Ebe Ochonu
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2015 9:18 AM
To: USAAfricaDialogue
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Press Release - ASUU Take Note

"Again, I ask- why do you think ASUU has no interest in addressing this subject or in addressing it in a manner that will provide justice for all concerned?"


Toyin,

You asked me a direct question and I will answer in a typical Nigerian fashion of answering a question with a question, so here goes. Have you seen a single ASUU member comment on this topic which has to do with sexual misconduct and abuse of power by their colleagues and fellow ASUU members?

That is a good indication of their lack of interest interest in matters that have nothing to do with getting more money from the government, matters that bear on learning, ethics, and the integrity of the lecturer-student relationship. Enough said.

On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 4:00 AM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com><mailto:toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>>> wrote:
Moses,
You are too much in a hurry to criticize, leading me to wonder to what degree your stance on this subject goes beyond rhetoric.
When you condemned ASUU wholesale as interested only in the pay of its members, I challenged that with examples that contradict that claim, particularly ASUU's role in the creation of what is now TETFUND.
You responded by granting the factuality of my example and modifying your ASUU critique as covering the late 1990s till now, arguing that since the mid 90s ASUU has not demonstrated nationalist vision beyond the welfare of its members, vision demonstrated by the TETFUND example.
I then explained why ASUU may be seen as no longer going beyond initiatives relating to the university system in its activities.
The issue of sexual harassment in the universities is squarely within the scope of university centred activity.
Again, I ask- why do you think ASUU has no interest in addressing this subject or in addressing it in a manner that will provide justice for all concerned?
thanks
toyin





On 15 September 2015 at 18:50, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com<mailto:meoc...@gmail.com><mailto:meoc...@gmail.com<mailto:meoc...@gmail.com>>> wrote:
Toyin,

ASUU holding its members accountable by being at the forefront of efforts to rid the university system of rapist lecturers, who are ASUU members, and supporting moves to introduce student-centered teaching evaluations and other accountability metrics that would ensure that lecturers put their students' interest first are not " issues beyond university education." These are issues squarely in the province of university education. These efforts will help sanitize ethics and improve standards in the system. The only reason ASUU is not interested in these issues is simple: they won't translate to more money and benefits for its members. When it suits them, ASUU members will defend this posture of ASUU as classic trade unionism. At other times, especially when the public rises up against them as it did during the last strike, they start making fake noises about trying to reform and improve the university system. This is the game that ASUU people have been playing, but enablers like you help them get away with these tricks.

On Tue, Sep 15, 2015 at 11:20 AM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com><mailto:toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>>> wrote:
My understanding of the reason why ASUU may be seen as no longer taking it upon itself to make suggestions or demands to the govt in relation to issues beyond university education was that it was difficult enough getting the govt to agree to negotiate in the first place and honour agreements reached in those negotiations, meaning the negotiation process would be more likely to succeed if ASUU focused on its primary mandate-the university system.

Should ASUU operate like the Nigerian Labour Congress for example, that presses for demands relating to the economy as a whole?

Thanks

toyin

On 14 September 2015 at 19:00, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com><mailto:toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>>> wrote:
Second response on Samuel-
I was hasty in my first response.
I was taken in by his measured tones that led me to forget that I dont know enough about the Nigerian university system as a whole to assess these comments-

'One hardly gets impressed with commitment to scholarship as a vocation or the beauty of intellectual curiosity.

There are surely some that are committed but they are a minority.'
Can people in the system please help us on this?
second response to Moses-
I see that Moses modified his critique in his second comment, placing it in historical perspective.
I am also aware of the point when the idea that 'ASUU is primarily trade union' was presented as new approach of ASUU as different from the union's more broad ranging nationalist vision in earlier years.
While pointing out what I understand as inadequate critique, i want to avoid being uncritically defensive.
toyin

On Mon, Sep 14, 2015 at 2:22 AM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com><mailto:toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>>> wrote:
Thanks for those balanced comments, Gloria and Samuel.
Moses, who prevented you or any one else on this forum from doing a 'full critical audit' on ASUU?
Were your efforts in that regard prevented from being posted on the forum?
Your comments show little knowledge of ASUU's history.
It was ASUU, for example, that proposed to the govt the creation of an education trust fund, sourced by taxing companies, which I understand is the basis of the current TETFUND, which, after govt allocations I expect is the largest financial source for university funding.

ASUU had a history of pushing for broader social change in its negotiations with govt,up till the 1980s.
ASUU made academics in Nigeria gain some respectability only by decades of dogged fighting.
Is there any value in criticism of ASUU that is centred on ahistorical and total condemnation?
thanks
toyin

On 14 September 2015 at 04:00, Samuel Zalanga <szal...@bethel.edu<mailto:szal...@bethel.edu><mailto:szal...@bethel.edu<mailto:szal...@bethel.edu>>> wrote:
Yes, indeed. Being there, seen that! With changes within ASUU members, the transformation in Nigeria's higher education will be phenomenal. They can help in holding corrupt administrators accountable.

Interestingly, many of the ASUU members went to school overseas and saw how the systems are functionally relatively well. They returned there and are professors and by virtue of that, members of the senate (a major administrative organ of the university), yet, not all of them are committed. One hardly gets impressed with commitment to scholarship as a vocation or the beauty of intellectual curiosity.

There are surely some that are committed but they are a minority. If Nigeria is going to change, it is only if Nigerians set a high standard for themselves, and hold themselves accountable that the country can begin to see a path forward. For most part, as Buhari long ago said, for most Nigerians, they do not have any place to migrate to. So it is better to remain and salvage the country.

Things can indeed improve if there is a higher level of commitment among the academic staff, not just in pursuit of their own interests but national interest, which includes the students'. I am glad that I started my university teaching here in the U.S. and have learned to always feel I am an ordinary mortal human being. It is one thing for a person to command the respect of others, but it is another to terrorize people to respect you. There is some aesthetic joy in learning to live and feel like a normal, regular human being.
Samuel

On Sun, Sep 13, 2015 at 8:43 PM, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com<mailto:meoc...@gmail.com><mailto:meoc...@gmail.com<mailto:meoc...@gmail.com>>> wrote:
The NUC should step in and formulate a comprehensive sexual harassment policy to be adopted by all universities. Forget ASUU; they will not push for it.

ASUU will not comment on let alone lead the effort to combat the abuse of our female students by their members. Suddenly, all the ASUU stalwarts who tried in vain with their defensive loquaciousness to prevent us from doing a full critical audit on ASUU during their strike have gone quiet. You will not hear them condemn and call for a stop to this abominable rapes committed by their members. Quite frankly I won't be surprised if ASUU uses its funds and organizational muscle to help its accused rapist members escape sanctions.

When ASUU was busy fighting for largesse and making noise about trying to sanitize and improve the Nigerian higher education system, some of us laughed in derision and called them out on the deception. Many opportunities had presented themselves for ASUU to back up its hollow rhetoric of trying to improve the system. In each case, ASUU officials looked away, content to collect from government what they claim they deserve.

Here is an opportunity, a very cheap one, for ASUU to demonstrate to us that it indeed cares about improving learning, holding its members accountable, and giving our young people a safe space to come of age intellectually. But as usual, ASUU members have gone quiet. They will pretend not to have been following the gory cases of rape committed by their members. And they will pretend not to know that for every reported lecturer rape case on Nigerian campuses there are at least ten unreported ones.

In private some ASUU members condemn their colleagues for this crime of raping female students (a crime row which there are all kinds of euphemistic terms among the Nigerian university faculty), but will they push for meaningful sexual harassment policies that prescribe zero tolerance for sexual harassment and abuse by lecturers? NO!

What else is new? After all, did some ASUU members on this forum not tell us that in fact they, lecturers, are the real victims of sexual harassment, that their female students sexually harass them, and that they, not female students, deserve sympathy and protection? ASUU will not support the formulation, let alone the implementation, of sexual harassment policies by public universities.

Introduce a topic on this forum bashing government types for their familiar crimes and see how our ASUU academics will jump into the discussion excitedly with glib selective outrage. But here's a topic on the sexual atrocities that ASUU members use their positions to commit against their vulnerable students, a topic deserving our unqualified outrage. What's the reaction from our ASUU members? None. Ikhide is absolutely right; the accountability we seek has to start with us. ASUU is part of the problem of university education in Nigeria. I will continue to say it.

On Sun, Sep 13, 2015 at 5:18 PM, OLADMEJI ABORISADE <olaabo...@msn.com<mailto:olaabo...@msn.com><mailto:olaabo...@msn.com<mailto:olaabo...@msn.com>>> wrote:
Dear Sirs,
This is sad. Indeed, a disgrace. NUC must borrow a leaf from the United States Institutions on how to handle cases of this nature. Individual concerned must be disciplined in line with academic law. Dismissal. Label the offender. Have the offender Register so that other Institutions may know. It is a serious form of corruption in Nigeria. It has to stop.
Thank you,
oladimeji aborisade.

________________________________
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2015 11:26:36 -0600
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Press Release - ASUU Take Note

From: jmb...@weber.edu<mailto:jmb...@weber.edu><mailto:jmb...@weber.edu<mailto:jmb...@weber.edu>>
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CC: iheom...@yahoo.com<mailto:iheom...@yahoo.com><mailto:iheom...@yahoo.com<mailto:iheom...@yahoo.com>>

It is important for Nigerian educational institutions to have clear and enforceable policies regarding sexual harassment and other forms of abuse of female students. However, it is even more important that national laws against these types of crimes be enforced and the perpetrators brought to book for their crimes. Apparently, the Nigerian national police and other law enforcement agencies are failing in their duties--it is their job to protect the integrity and safety of all Nigerians, including especially vulnerable groups. The continued sexual abuse of girls and women reflects poorly on us as a people and it is time for us to speak up. The NFF needs our support--the next woman or girl abused could be someone close to you.

Tel: +234 1 7615407<tel:%2B234%201%207615407>
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About the NFF;
The Nigerian Feminist Forum is a biennial conference that brings together Nigerian feminist activists to deliberate on issues of key concern to the movement.




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[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

That Nigerian universities are not now functioning very well is well-known; but that everyone is not a serious scholar or involved in taking advantage of their students is not true. The question however is what is the tipping point or the paradigm that predominates? Most of the good people in some cases have strategically withdrawn out of frustration, which means by default the dominant culture is not the enterprising one that we all want to see. The good lecturers and professors have reputation on campus. It is not hidden. If what they are doing is the traditional practice of all, no one will consider them as spectacular because that will be ordinary. But how many of them do you need to change the momentum in another direction? This is an empirical question.

Samuel,

You do not always have to preface or punctuate your critique with the obvious point that there are good, committed academics in Nigeria. That much should be obvious, and those who are accusing us of blanket critique are simply engaging in selective perception. Quite frankly it is patronizing to include in every critique of the rot in Nigerian higher education the obvious fact that there are some serious, committed scholar-teachers in the system. What you wrote up there is the pertinent question. The serious academics are few, frustrated, and overwhelmed by a culture of pedagogical and research mediocrity. You hear it all the time from them. They are the voices of reason who are sometimes cautioning against impulsive strike actions and urging self-critique and self-accounting on the part of ASUU and lecturers. Often, they get shouted down at ASUU meetings because they are a tiny minority. They are the same people who are disgusted with the refusal of their colleagues to teach, with their colleagues who treat teaching as an irritating distraction.

I do not enjoy advancing this critique, and I sometimes worry that my friends and collaborators in the Nigerian academy (some of them members of this forum) may take offense. However, the Nigerian-based colleagues that I associate with share my critique and are sometimes the source of some of my empirical points, so I trust that they will understand the context and premise of my critique. The futures of our young ones are at stake and we must speak up.

Thanks for the stories you told. I have stories more scandalous than the ones you told. I had a lecturer who came to class ONE TIME in the entire semester, and that was to hand out his handout. I had a lecturer who made it very clear to us that they would not entertain questions. Another one got visibly angry each time we stopped him to ask a question and once stormed out of the classroom because we asked him to clarify something he had read from his notes, notes, we would later learn, had not even been prepared by him but had been passed down to those who taught the class over the last several decades! Apparently, he had not even bordered to read the notes and familiarize himself with the material before coming to class. There were several lecturers who simply read from dog-eared notebooks from thirty years ago, with much of the info/material so dated that even as students we knew much of it was BS. Other stories are even more scandalous, and I have not even mentioned the rapes and sexual predation that some of our female students were subjected to. In some cases, they would come to us crying while confiding in us.

I think the problem is that we Nigerians, like people around the world, tend to be chronocentric, that is, we always romanticize the past and claim that it was qualitatively better than the present. That is true sometimes, but not always. I generally try not to speak to the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and to stick to the period in which I was an undergraduate--the '90s. I graduated in 1997. Things were really bad in terms of conditions and compensation for university staff, and the Jega-led ASUU was doing a great job of improving conditions and compensations. We supported ASUU's struggle fanatically then, even though the strike kept us at home for four months. After that seminal moment, ASUU won a string of victories and rode that momentum into the 2000s. Salaries were considerably increased, so much so that I personally know people who left jobs in banks, the private sector, and even visible government agencies to take up appointments in the academy.

Yet, by all accounts (from what colleagues, my nieces and nephews, friends, etc say), the problem of non-teaching academics, of academics who are never there for their students, who do not supervise as they should, and who are not accountable to anyone--that problem has worsened. I was on a Nigeria-bound flight with the HOD of a political science department in a university in the Southwest and he filled my ears with unsolicited stories of staff in his department who rarely showed up on campus let alone teach or advise students. He told me that he often had to plead with them to meet with students whose theses they were supposed to be advising--after the students would have been looking for them for months and would, in frustration, come to him to intervene! And when he finally got through to the offending lecturers they would simply laugh it off and say they were busy with other personal engagements! Some of them were government contractors and consultants or had personal business to manage and only showed up on campus once in a while to administer exams or give the occasional lecture. He told me that the full professors were the worst offenders because they saw professorship as a license for absence, a release from teaching responsibilities. The impunity is galling, unconscionable.

The question I will close with then, a question which we people of good conscience who care about higher education in Nigeria should ask ourselves is: how is it that the rapid, significant improvement in compensation for university staff and funding for structural improvement have, rather than lead to improved teaching and research commitments, led to a deterioration in these areas? This negative correlation is counter-intuitive and points to a serious problem of lack of accountability and the rise of impunity, which I surmise are the unintended consequences of ASUU demanding an ever expanding portfolio of benefits and largesse for their members without reckoning that in doing so it would create monstrous academics who are above scrutiny and question--who would become bourgeoisie intellectuals above the rigors of teaching and research and drawn only to the benefits of academia and the status privileges that go along with being an academic. 

We have now produced academics who enjoy the licit and illicit benefits of being an academic without having to shoulder the professional and ethical responsibilities of the position. Moreover, this negative correlation between increased compensation and conditions and declining ethics and commitments turns the rhetoric of the early, effective ASUU on its head, for the prevailing mantra during the early phase of ASUU was that poor morale, lack of commitment, and other professorial vices were the byproducts of poor conditions and that teaching, commitment, and passion would increase if lecturers' demands for more money were met. This assumption has been proven wrong, with catastrophic results. It is time for a new paradigm, time to turn the page.

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Toyin,

My submission had nothing to do with promotion. It seems to me commonsensical that if you set a national uniform publication/promotion metric, the inadvertent result would be bean counting--a simple focus on number of publication (where even a newspaper op-ed can be counted as a publication) instead of quality of research, research trajectory, publication venue, and quality of said publications. 

Here in the States, institutions, public or private, and even individual programs and departments are generally allowed to set their own publication/promotion metrics, which can vary from discipline to discipline. Yes, it is not perfect, it is sometimes subjective and open to interpretation and manipulation, but it is the way to avoid the problem of bean counting that plagues Nigerian higher education. Bean counting is a recipe for mediocrity, and NUC, aided by ASUU's unimaginative, money-based approach to the problems of higher education, has created a monster of mediocrity.

But that is by the way. My original point was about incentives and rewards. Let me break it down to you for the last time in the hope that you will get it this time.

By the ASUU/FG-agreed salary structure, if you and I are both Lecturers II and especially if we are on the same step, our compensation is the same. It does not matter if you have twenty publications and I have 5. It does not matter if you've published in the flagship journal of your field and my publications are only in journals published within the department and edited by my friends. In fact when it comes to promotion to Lecturer I, all I have to do is meet the NUC-mandated publication count, whatever it is. Again you and I will get promoted even if you have twenty more than the prescribed number or have published in more prestigious venues. Tell me, is this a fair, progressive incentive system? Will it not ultimately dampen your passion as the more productive and committed academic among the two of us? And will it not basically say to me that I do not have to raise my game or become a more committed scholar? Why should I show more commitment when I am earning the same thing that you, my more committed and serious colleague, is earning?

There is a teaching component to it. Nigerian academics are required to teach a certain number of courses and to supervise a certain number of theses. There is nothing in the rule book about the quality of teaching or about providing serious, rigorous supervision and mentorship. There is no evaluation. So, the excellent teacher and mentor who works hard to give his time and intellect to his students gets no extra recognition in terms of pay or career advancement. There is no system to punish his colleague who does not show up in class and does not meet with his advisees. Over time, will this system not discourage the hardworking teacher and mentor from putting in any effort? Will he not become more like his mediocre colleague and choose the path of least resistance? And will the bad teacher-mentor not simply persist in being a bad teacher-mentor? What is the incentive for teaching excellence, for even a basic commitment to teaching like showing up and engaging with your students? There is none.

What I am driving at in this longwinded illustration is that the current uniform compensation/reward system is not an incentive system. It does not recognize, let alone reward research or teaching commitment, nor does it punish a lack of commitment to teaching and research. In other words, there is no accountability and no mechanism for incentivizing commitment to teaching, mentorship, and research. In both the research and teaching cases, bean counting supersedes commitment and quality and there is no enforcement or accountability mechanism to reduce impunity, encourage commitment, and discourage mediocrity.

In other words, salaries and compensation should be set in range only and should allow for what in America we call merit pay and merit raises (increases). These are based on productivity, quality, commitment, and passion in both teaching and research. At present variation in compensation among people on the same rank in Nigerian universities is a product of longevity. A serious academic incentive culture should put meritocracy ahead of longevity.

As for there being other culprits (other than ASUU) for the rot in Nigerian higher education, of course there are other culprits!!!! Duh! The NUC has been an unimaginative regulator, and university authorities have failed to drive change partly because they're a product of the current ASUU system and partly because they lack ideas for innovative solutions. I have deliberately chosen to focus on ASUU and lecturers like a loser beam because, 1) they are the closest to students in the food chain and bear direct responsibility for educating them; 2) they are the ones who make noise about wanting to reform and save the Nigerian higher education system, and 3) they are my constituency. You or others can focus on the NUC and university administrators components of the problem and we can have a comprehensive analysis. I started my intervention on this topic with a declarative statement: that ASUU is a huge part of the problem in the University system NOT the only one. That there are other culpable actors should be obvious, requiring no debate. This is a forum of academics and intellectuals; you insult them when you lecture them and spell everything out. Some things are obvious or implicitly stated and should not be belabored. Moreover, time is an enemy of giving lectures to the already informed.

Two other things:

1. My experience in university was not "bitter" as you put it. In fact I had a lot of fun in the university and enjoyed my time there. Bayero university was a vibrant academic space, all things considered. I had a few lecturers who were committed to teaching, who were men and women of ideas, and who developed my critical thinking skills. I have mentioned some of them on this forum. I remain eternally grateful to them. The problem is that there were too few of such committed academics and far too many of the mediocre, uncommitted ones who were protected by the immunity of ASUU membership and a systemic lack of accountability.

2. Your scandalous declaration that sexual predation on Nigerian college campuses is a two-way street is so offensive on many levels I am not sure it deserves a response, but let me humor you. I teach in an American university where young female students and perhaps even some males ones will make passes at you or dress provocatively. It does not happen only on college campus but every freaking place you go in society. It is called life. Seduction is a timeless, ubiquitous human activity, so is provocative dressing. It does not give any person a license to rape, let alone someone in a position of power over the rape victim. What distinguishes us from animals is our capacity for discipline and restraint. It is an insult to Nigerian male lecturers to say they cannot control themselves in the face of seductive maneuvers from their female students. Finally, yes, self-control is not a fail-safe deterrent. That is why there is an urgent need for clear sexual harassment policies in Nigerian universities, so that those intending to commit such acts know that they will lose their career and livelihood and/or worse. The bottom line then is that there is no consequence for taking advantage of female students in the Nigerian university system because of the absence of sexual harassment policies in these institutions. Blaming and shaming the victims as you are doing skirts the main issue. 

[basil ugochukwu]

Toyin,

I have followed much your exchanges with Moses and my conclusion is that you are living inside an unrealistic bubble. You have to come out of there quickly if your goal is to help the Nigerian University system. The system needs a lot of help and you know it. So it is a disservice to the search for solutions if all you do is dismiss relevant anecdotal experiences while bringing none to the table. Or when it pleases you bring up your undergraduate experience at the University of Benin of donkey years ago in the context of a rot that has escalated over the last couple of years. I also see that each time you raise a query and Moses answers, you shift the goal post without responding to the answers he provided for your own queries. First you say Moses has no "experience" of the system. When he deploys facts that prove otherwise you quickly change it to he has not "lived" the experience. That's disingenuous on your part. Nothing in the exchanges I have read remotely even suggests that you have had any recent interaction with the system you are defending or "lived" it beyond those years you spent at UniBen as student and Lecturer. By your own logic you shouldn't say anything because you have also not "lived" the issue being discussed. Or you "lived" it donkey years ago. When was the last time you visited a Nigerian University?

I can also see you have now interjected "poor remuneration" to perhaps justify why teachers can't teach/research or why the Dean of Law somewhere stalks and rapes a student under his charge. Are you or whoever raised it initially for real?

 

Basil 

---

From: Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com>
To: USAAfricaDialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2015 7:45 AM

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Since telling of stories is now being used on this forum as means of presenting pictures of Nigerian academia, I will make sure I compose and tell my own stories here and present stories of others.

Telling stories of your personal experience needs to be carefully managed as way of assessing a  national system but trust Moses to jump on that to regale us with his stories of torture.

toyin

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Voices of Students and Academics in Nigerian University Education in the Present and the Past Ten Years

"Nigerian University Education : Past, Present, Future : My Life at the University of Nigeria", Nsukka by Chijioke Ngobili

Facebook

Scribd (PDF)

I will get more accounts and post them here.

Those in the system, in recent and contemporary times, should speak for themselves, rather than only being spoken for .

thanks

toyin

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

I can also see you have now interjected "poor remuneration" to perhaps justify why teachers can't teach/research or why the Dean of Law somewhere stalks and rapes a student under his charge. Are you or whoever raised it initially for real?

Basil,

That tells you that Toyin, despite his vociferous defense of the Nigerian university system, is hopelessly out of touch with the Nigerian academy. Poor remuneration in the Nigerian University system in 2015? This is why if you don't interact with a system regularly, it is perhaps better to keep quiet when the system is being discussed. Nigerian lecturers are no longer poorly remunerated, and this has been the picture for more than a decade now. But Toyin doesn't know it. 

Today, university lecturers are actually among the highest paid professionals in Nigeria, if not Africa. In fact, I am not ashamed to say that, as a full professor, I cannot hold a financial candle to a Nigerian full professor. They are more financially comfortable than we are in North America. I challenge anyone to refute this on the basis of compensation alone. Do you know how many allowances are now paid to Nigerian academics? Have you visited a Nigerian academic recently? Have you seen their houses, cars, possessions, none of which is mortgaged or financed? Why are academic jobs some of the most sought-after jobs in Nigeria today? The truth is that remuneration is no longer a legitimate grievance of the Nigerian academic, which is why nowadays whenever there is an ASUU national strike, the union tries very hard in its propaganda to deemphasize remuneration and its demands for more money for its members and instead focuses on funding and other issues. 

Nigerians know that lecturers are very well paid. Which is one of the reasons one is saying that to whom much is given much is required and that having forced the government to give them what they deserve (I'm happy for them, for they deserve a good pay for being a critical component of national human capital development), they should reciprocate by doing the most basic thing for which they are being paid: teach our young ones and do no harm to them.

 Leave Toyin with his outdated knowledge of the Nigerian higher education system. I think he's possessed by the residual, romanticized memories of when he was a local ASUU official in UNIBEN. Beyond this romantic image of Nigerian academics and the Nigerian academy, he contributes fantasy and denial to the discussion. I respond to him because I won't allow him to muddy, derail, and confuse the issues or set he terms of the discussion. 

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

This is fiction bcs it was not stated by Toyin-

I can also see you have now interjected "poor remuneration" to perhaps justify why teachers can't teach/research or why the Dean of Law somewhere stalks and rapes a student under his charge. Are you or whoever raised it initially for real?

but trust Moses to jump on this fiction as he fabricates generalisations which he presents as based on hearsay.

On Remuneration

The response of one professor to the fact that Nigerian academics are better paid than in the past is that this money has to  be spread into providing the basics of civilised living which the state does not provide.

This includes electricity (generators)  water ( bore holes) even tarring roads leading to one's house.

So the claims about how Nigerian academics are paid needs to be placed in perspective to the demands on this income.

Rhetorical Completion

Since rhetorical sparring has become central to this discussion by some people, I will also deploy it as a way of mocking the claims of those people.

Moses despite his vociferous defense of the Nigerian university system, is hopelessly full of unsubstantiated bias agst the Nigerian academy.  This is why if when you  interact with a system , it is perhaps better to seek comprehensive understanding, not selective judgement or keep quiet when the system is being discussed. Moses lives within his own world of snippets of information he presents as comprehensive research.

Leave Moses  with his fragmented and bias riddled  knowledge of the Nigerian higher education system. I think he's possessed by the residual, bitter  memories of when he was a student in Nigeria. Beyond this bitter mirror,   he contributes little beyond unsubstantiated  claims and totalistic condemnation.  I respond to him because I won't allow him to contribute to destroying the necessary work to be done through his projection of personal problems as national fact

thanks

Toyin

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

Don't change the conversation. Simply carry on with your previous analysis as indicated below,
and take it to its logical conclusion. Primary and secondary documents and story telling
could be put to good use in such a project. The discourse would be helpful to ASUU and
local administrations hoping to improve public education. I don't have a problem with that.

My argument is that organizations such as ASUU, student organizations etc have pivotal roles
in bringing the change you desire. You don't have tothrow out the baby and the bath water.

Arrive at your conclusion logically and send me a copy.
That is the paper I will look at.

Thank you.

GE


.................................................
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Emeagwali, Gloria (History) [emea...@mail.ccsu.edu]
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2015 9:39 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.

[Abubakar Acheneje]

Rape, sexual harassment in Nigerian ivory towers

on September 17, 2015 / in Education, News 12:55 am / Comments

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By Amaka Abayomi, Tare Youdeowei & Kelechukwu Iruoma

WHen Shola, who was a 300 Level student of Business Administration in University of Ibadan, was propositioned by one of her core course lecturers, a professor that students dreaded failing his course, little did she know what fate had in store for her. Shola said: “I was surprised when he made his intentions known to me because I was your normal everyday kind of girl who didn’t dress provocatively. When I rejected his advances, he made it clear that it was either I gave in to him or spend an extra year in school.

Intelligentstudents

“I stood my grounds and had made up my mind to spend the extra year despite being one of the intelligent students in the department. When he saw that I was adamant and he knew he couldn’t defend failing me in the exams, he scored me 40 despite my best efforts.”

Today, Shola runs a successful human capacity training business. She is among the lucky few who escaped the clutches of randy lecturers and higher institution staff, especially as most students spend extra years till they give in to these demands.

Who’s at fault? Sexual harassment is bullying or coercion of a sexual nature, or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favours. It is unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favours and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature.

Nigerian ivory towers have moulded intellectuals that have shaped the destiny of this nation and have spawned icons, who are contributing their quota to national and global development. But these citadels of academic and moral excellence have, pathetically, become havens for randy lecturers, who specialize in sexual harassment, sexual gratification and, in most cases, rape.

That the internet is full of stories and images of how some lecturers, who were bent on sleeping with students before they would allow them graduate, were set up by would-be victims and their friends, have not deterred others from engaging in such acts. The question then is who is at fault for the rise in this malaise— the female students or lecturers.

‘The students’: A mother of two undergraduates and a post-graduate student herself, Mrs. Kate Oragui, emphatically lays the blame at the doorsteps of female students, who dress scantily and provocatively, especially those who she describes as ‘academically and morally bankrupt’.

She said “when I started my post-graduate programme at the University of Lagos, I was shocked to see female students wearing cloths that barely covered their nakedness and I wonder how they would not be sexually harassed or raped by men who can’t control their libido.

“It is boldly written at the school’s entrance that the way you dress determines how you would be addressed. So I wonder why female students can’t respect and cover their bodies. A good number of the victims are either morally or intellectually bankrupt and are willing to do anything to score high grades.”

Blaming the female students, a Combine Arts student of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, who did not want her name in print, said: “The victims actually play a part in their predicament through their provocative dressing or manner of approaching the male lecturers.

“In cases where such lecturers make promises of good grades, I don’t think I would still consider that as rape. Be that as it may, these ‘good grades’ hardly turn out to be an ‘A’. Rather, it’s usually something less, degrading the self-worth of such a lady that succumbs to such sexual approaches.”

‘It’s lecturers, students, authorities’

Condemning the act in the strongest terms, a lecturer at the University of Benin, Dr. Daniel Ekharefo, blamed the lecturers, female students and school authorities for feeding this monster. He said: “I wonder the level of perversion of the individuals in such cases. Young people should avoid short cuts to success as many lecturers, who sleep with students, ride on the promise to give good grades to students but end up taking advantage of them.

“Unfortunately, the students, more often than not, are prepared to offer their bodies for marks. What is required therefore, is for students to read hard and stand firm. No lecturer can take advantage of a brilliant and intelligent student. “Lecturers need a moral re-awakening to the ethics of their profession and their place in nation building, and school authorities should open channels of communication where students can ventilate their grievances and report the unethical behaviour of their tutors.”

Victims speak up

A third year student of UNN (names withheld), who was sexually harassed by a lecturer, said she did the right and most moral thing by turning down the lecturer despite being promised a good grade.

She said: “It is just a mechanized way by randy male lecturers to satisfy their sexual urge. Some of them are just empty promises and those that go ahead to rape the students should be critically followed up by law enforcement agencies for appropriate punishment.

“It is a devilish act which should be stopped. I believe that students have the right to be listened to when such complains come up in a school environment. And female students should speak to the right persons about such harassment and avoid such lecturers.”

She suggested that ad hoc committees or councils be set up in every tertiary institution to specifically protect students and mete out punishments to offending lecturers or any offender, for that matter.

Another victim of sexual harassment, a National Diploma, ND, II student of Library and Information Science, Federal Polytechnic, Oko, Anambra State, who pleaded anonymity, noted that sexual harassment and rape are not new because they happen everyday in schools.

Recounting her experience, she said: “Most lecturers feel they can intimidate and threaten female students because, at the end of the day, they are the ones that would score them. So, they see this as a tool to achieve their evil plans. I was lucky because the lecturer involved wasn’t taking us on any core course. So I knew the consequences of calling his bluff would not be so bad.

“So serious was he about having his way with me that he even gave me money to go pay for a hotel room and wait for him at an appointed time. It was like telling the sheep to go wait for the butcher at the slaughter house. Being a sharp Lagos girl, I disappeared with the money after giving him false hope that I would be waiting for him.

“When he eventually saw me after some weeks, I gave one lame excuse and he said I was the first Lagos girl he came across that wasn’t loose as evident in my decent cloths. I guess he just wanted to try his luck with me.”

The way forward

In the words of one of the victims, lecturers who indulge in such acts should be severely punished to serve as a deterrent to others. She said: “I don’t think it would be too hard a consequence if our schools can be strict enough to withdraw the employment of anyone engaged in such act.

“Rape is not a minor issue and any lecturer caught in the act should be stripped of his position and publicly humiliated so that others would learn. Most of them go scot free and that is why they continue in those acts.”

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

What this discussion needs, Basil, is critical thinking, not an umpire marking scores or the mere taking of sides.

Uncritically presented anecdotal evidence, generalised to demonise  an entire social system, which is Moses primary strategy,  is worse than unhelpful.

In your wisdom you believe 'the last couple of years' is enough to reduce the generality of  Nigerian universty academics to the monsters Moses depicts, in the abscence of large scale breakdown of society?

Do you have any exposure to how social systems work or any idea of the very system you are happy to belive the worst about just bcs someone  spins stories of tales he claims he was told?

Moses has presented little in terms of fact.

Accounts of stories you are told are not fact.

They are hearsay.

One does not need to visit a Nigerian university to see through the limitations  of Moses logic and the improbability of his   fantastic  claims.

His argument is that the Nigerian university academic is generally a monster, a distortion  of rational humanity whom it would be an insult to animals to describe as bestial, feeding greedily on wealth  gained througjh fraudlent means by ASUU  from the federal govt,  yet doing little or no research, little or no teaching and making preying on female students his primary occupation.

The height of the ludicrous.

When you are able to point out how I have changed the goal posts and desit from imputing false statements  to me " I can also see you have now interjected "poor remuneration" to perhaps justify why teachers can't teach/research or why the Dean of Law somewhere stalks and rapes a student under his charge. Are you or whoever raised it initially for real?" then we can discuss.

Do you have any opinions of yours on this subject that will not require piggybacking on Toyin or Moses?

On what grounds do such opinions stand- empirical evidence, hearsay or logical examination of issues?

Thanks

toyin

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Why Nigerian Academics Must Speak Up For Themselves

It is never wise to make little or no contribution to telling your own story.

Why are Nigerian based academics on this group content to largely remain silent while others tell their story?

Moses is making the fantastic claim that the majority of Nigerian academics, a brood of poisonous  parasites, have completely destroyed all processes of accountability  in the Nigerian university system, are lazy and despicable creatures who feed fat on ill gotten remunerations yet do little or no research, and make feeding on the innocence of their female students their primary goal.

How does he know this?

He claims that on his regular visits to Nigerian universities, the angels among the demonic horde of Nigerian academia regale him with stories of how they are overwhelmed by the demonic generality.

He then follows that up with a host of vituperations agst ASUU as the primary enabler of this disintegration of the system.

I dont need to visit a Nigerian university or even talk to anybody from the system to realise the improbability of this narrative that reduces Nigerian academics to sub-human creatures and the system to an absolute jungle.

Such breakdown is impossible outside a general breakdown of society.

The diversity of perspectives on contemporary Nigerian university education also contradicts this image that has all the marks of being a caricature.

I am interested in seeing research  of some comprehensiveness  on this subject from anyone making  such claims, not purely second hand narratives the truth of which are unverifiable.

I will not respond any more to story telling used to reinforce improbable generalisations.

It is sad, though, that the Nigerian academics on this fora are content to allow themselves be attacked, critiqued or defended largely  by people who dont work in Nigerian universities and dont even live in Nigeria.

Whatever your views of and experiences of the system are, you should speak up, in the name of your own dignity, the dignity of the system you represent and the need to improve that system.

thanks

toyin

[Bode]

This is an issue for the Nigerian University Commission (NUC) and the Vice Chancellors. The reality is ASUU is an advocacy group. The active members are usually the executive council of about 5 left leaning radicals. The only issues on which they can gain the support of their members are salary related. They will never get the support of the full body for a campaign against harassment, which by the way is being perpetrated by some of the most powerful academics who are sometimes their senior colleagues. This is a mere description of the current situation. I hope progressive members find the courage to take on this issue. However, for the time being, I think advocacy groups for the protection of female students would be better served by targeting the NUC for better and quicker outcomes on this issue.

Bode 

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Toyin,

There you of again weeping more than the bereaved. I've never seen a scholar in the social sciences and humanities who questions the evidentiary power of stories--both first hand and second hand. The aggregate of stories is what we call evidence in the social sciences and humanities. In literature, your field, scholars and writers traffic in stories, some fictionalized and others packaged as essays and memoirs. Increasingly literary scholars are doing interviews and collecting oral traditions, folk stories, and even stories told in archival documents as evidence and raw materials for their analysis. 

In African history, my field, the mainstay of the enterprise is the collection of stories--oral traditions and contemporary interviews about past events--to support materials from archives where they exist. Sociologists and political scientists conduct interviews and surveys by administering questionnaires--again essentially collecting individual stories and experiences. Even economists rely on stories collected through surveys for a glimpse into some microeconomic dynamics.

Yet, you have rejected my own first hand experiences as an undergraduate in the 1990s, Samuel Zalanga's experiences as an undergraduate from the 1980s, the stories that lecturers in the system from different universities have told me and Samuel and others. I even brought up the fact that I SAW some of these things myself during my visits to Nigerian universities, which would amount to what in research we would call participant observation. Yet none of this evidence is good enough for you as indication of the rot in Nigerian higher education. 

What about newspaper articles and stories of rape and sexual abuse of students by lecturers and about "sorting" and other ethical misconducts? Those too are not good evidence for you. Meanwhile have you brought any evidence to counter my points? No. Instead, you simply reject any evidence brought into the discussion. You're just a rejectionist trying to kill the conversation on the misconducts and poor commitment of many of our lecturers, a widely known phenomenon among Nigerian lecturers (home and abroad). You prefer to live in denial and to wallow in your fantasy of what the Nigerian academy is. You have been calling for Nigeria-based academics to come an back up your baseless defense of the system in vain. Yet you persist in peddling your denial and parrying. I can only speculate on what your motive is for embarking on this futile endeavor of escapism. And since I don't see you reacting to Samuel's even more damning stories as you have done to mine, I can only assume that your problem with my submission is my tone, which I have declared to be deliberate--a choice dictated by the gravity of the problem and the enormity of what is at stake.

Let me tell you something. I have barely scratched the surface of the evidence I have for this problem--both my own first hand observations and stories told to me by those in the system. Just yesterday, a member of this forum sent me a damning article/conference paper written by a prominent Nigerian academic in a Nigerian university detailing the rot and the culpability of many lecturers in it. It is a much more damaging picture than anything I've painted on this forum.

I have, in fact, been keeping confidences by withholding some of the things I witnessed and heard in and about some Nigerian institutions. One of the biggest scandals in Nigerian universities is how supervisors treat their graduate students--again pointing to the problem of instruction, supervision, and mentorship. Many of these students are turned to slaves, serving every whim and needs of their supervisors and sometimes their supervisors' wives and children. They run domestic errants, are called upon to provide money, logistics, to pay for their supervisors' meals, hotels, etc whenever the latter is in town, and are spoken to like children, ordered around, insulted, threatened, and sometimes banned from seeing the supervisor for extended periods of time. I heard this from both graduate students--many of them--and professors alike. 

One supervisor, having refused to even look at his student's thesis long after it was submitted, made a startling comment upon being confronted. Dejected, the student, himself a lecturer in another university, approached a senior colleague to talk to his supervisor about why his thesis had been delayed for years without any reason being offered for the delay. The supervisor told the senior colleague who intervened that the student was "too ambitious" and that if it wasn't for his intervention he would have delayed the student a further five years! For goodness sake, what is wrong with your student being intellectually ambitious? Should you not celebrate that? This kind of story is more typical than not.

One can only imagine what happens to some female graduate students in the process of doing their graduate work. In one case that I witnessed, the graduate student had been transferred to another lecturer after being abused for more than ten years by his previous adviser and after having given up hope, and yet on the day of the defense, the old supervisor came in and tried to use some silly juvenile tactics to cause the student to fail. Many Nigerian academics see the supervision process as a kind of hazing whereby students have to be baptized by fire and taken through suffering and anguish. The flawed assumption is that the students would appreciate it more if they suffered through it and that the advanced degree had immense monetary value as a career starter. This nonsensical assumption has meant that people sometimes spend 6 years on their MA and as many as fifteen years on their doctorate, not because they are not working or writing but because their supervisors are too busy and indifferent to even look at their work or are too busy exploiting them to care about their research.

And yes, there are more stories in the kitty.

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Addition to Last Post

I agree that quality of  teaching should be rewarded and  neglect of teaching punished.

thanks

toyin

On 19 September 2015 at 15:17, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com> wrote:

Promotion Criteria in Nigerian Universities in a National and Global Context

       The Role of ASUU

Should ASUU play a strategic role in revising this?

Ideally speaking, ASUU could be challenged to examine this subject but it is not realistic to condemn ASUU for not doing so.

Why?

ASUU has been engaged for decades in  fighting a survivalist battle on behalf of its members.

The character of Nigerian politics and economy, both being unstable, imply this survivalist  battle might have to continue.

This battle is meant to protect the humanity of its members as people who deserve to be reasonably paid for their work.

The issues involved in promotion criteria are so complex, so  deeply interwoven with Nigerian society and economy that it would require substantial reworking of the relationship btw academia and society at national and global levels to address.

It is a huge task and a person who has only relatively recently battled his way to a position of survival cannot be condemned for not struggling to address such higher order issues.

What are these issues?

Moses description is useful :

'It seems to me commonsensical that if you set a national uniform publication/promotion metric, the inadvertent result would be bean counting--a simple focus on number of publication (where even a newspaper op-ed can be counted as a publication) instead of quality of research, research trajectory, publication venue, and quality of said publications.'

The example of a newspaper op ed may best be seen as a hyperbolic example meant to make his point.

Decentralising Academic Asessment Criteria in Nigeria

Moses suggests  the contrastive US example to replace that of Nigeria:

'Here in the States, institutions, public or private, and even individual programs and departments are generally allowed to set their own publication/promotion metrics, which can vary from discipline to discipline. Yes, it is not perfect, it is sometimes subjective and open to interpretation and manipulation, but it is the way to avoid the problem of bean counting that plagues Nigerian higher education.'

 I almost shudder thinking of what would happen if such a system were adopted in Nigeria.

An ethnically and politically divided nation. A nation that is only just stumbling towards its own culture of learning. A country with no roots in a learning culture beyond the last less than 100 years or much less. A country without an endogenously developed cognitive history as central to its learning systems. A country with a weak economy, weak organs of knowledge dissemination and judiciary. A country where becoming a vice- chancellor is described as often tied to ethnicity. A country where struggles for positions in universities are sometimes carried out using open deployment of magical instruments. A country where the current ruler has just placed his kinsmen in the most sensitive positions and dismissed the other jobs he is yet to announce, his cabinet of ministers, as noise makers.

Imagine what could happen if you placed the decision making as to publication/promotion metrics of Nigerian universities in the hands of individual programs and departments

Would that not inspire a descent into hell, the proliferation of  in the culture of manipulating promotion criteria to suit oneself and one's cohort in the promotion ladder while making it harder for others, manufacturing spurious and short lived journals for the purpose of promotion,promotion on the basis of little productivity in the name of jacking up ethnic representation, among other  vices Nigerian academics have been accused of?

 Socio/Economic and Pedagogical intertiwnings in US Culture

The US may  operate its system the way Moses describes it  bcs the country is sitting on a strong foundation of shared values that unify most of its citizens. It has a unified history that binds those citizens. Nigeria, on the other hand, is a conglomeration of peoples with diverse histories, inadequately bound by their forced journey  together in a little above 50 years of co-existence.

The US is also sitting on the vast cultural heritage of Europe, from ancient Greece to the present, values that shape the cognitive culture of the society and its  educational system.

With such powerful foundations, certain standards will not fall below a particular point bcs those living by those standards will not allow it.

The US also has a powerful judicial  system which the citizens  actively use in seeking redress for many  kinds of issues, meaning people are careful that the other person could 'lawyer up' in the case of breach of promotion rights etc. Nigeria is not so mature.

Finally, the US is also operating with the world's most powerful information dissemination network. This network is created by the activity of  publishing houses and booksellers within what I describe as the Euro-American cultural and economic empire, comprising  North America and Europe, in which networks of information management  weave the system into a whole, as dramatically demonstrated by the mutual influence  of European scientists in laying  the foundations for dominant scientific  world view shortly before World War 2, with the leading research in the field being published in journals  in German and English  and yet being read across the continent, evoking  the time when Euorope was unified by a common language of learning, Latin.

Summation- does Nigeria demonstrate the cultural, social and economic maturity required to place determination of promotion criteria in the hands of individual depots and programs?

Can the US example suggested by Moses be imported to Nigeria in the way he describes it?

Beyond the US : Germany and England

Germany and England operate within the same cultural network as the US but run systems that are not identical with what Moses describes of the US example.

The German Habilitation

In Germany, a central example of this difference is the habilitation, a scholarly book required for a permanent  job in the university, to present a basic sense of my understanding of the role it played in the  careers of such scholars as Martin Heidegger.

The habilitation requirement represents a unifying metric in the systems that use it, and it has produced a number of great works but its correlation with a specific time range has been described as slowing down progress of academics.

It is being reviewed, however, as indicated by the linked article from 2002 and this from 1999, in relation to the sciences.

This document from presents the  current state at the Technische Universität München.

I am not presenting the habilitation, in all its details of temporal progression,  as a model Nigeria should follow, just describing the existence of systems with nationally uniform assessment systems across the nation.

England and the Research Excellence Framework

England has also developed the Research Excellence Framework which provides uniform criteria for assessing English universities, as demonstrated at the article at the link that also presents criticism of the system.

These examples demonstrate that Nigeria is not alone in using nationally uniform assessment criteria, but shares this characteristic with countries of high research impact.

The Way Forward

How may Nigeria avoid what Moses describes as the nonweighting of publications in terms of levels of quality and no above the basic requirement.

I dont have an answer to that.

My immediate interest, however, is in something more fundamental- the development of an indigenous cognitive network.

What does this mean?

I am uninspired by the use of the West as the primary point of reference for the development and dissemination of knowledge- specifically ideas that frame discourses,  journals, books, conferences.

Why?

Is it possible for a learning system to achieve maturity if its central ideas, methods of developing and disseminating knowledge are external to its own culture?

The West built its educational system by developing a significantly  inbred academic culture that has now become a global centre.

For centuries, this system communicated largely with itself and little with others even in the study of those others.

What can Africans do to make themselves into a centre of knowledge in dialogue on equal terms with other centres?

Thanks

Toyin

 

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

On Addressing Sexual Harassment in Nigerian Universities

The following summation of my position is from Moses imagination and is not represented by my comments-

'Seduction is a timeless, ubiquitous human activity, so is provocative dressing. It does not give any person a license to rape, let alone someone in a position of power over the rape victim.

 It is an insult to Nigerian male lecturers to say they cannot control themselves in the face of seductive manoeuvres from their female students.

Blaming and shaming the victims as you are doing skirts the main issue. '


What I propose is a comprehensive solution, not an exclusive  focus on criticism of teachers. This solution involves information for students and training for staff. Training does not imply the person being trained lacks self control, but that the person's capacities for judgement and discipline are enhanced by learning skills for managing delicate and at times dangerous social situations.

Sexual harassment training is practised in different parts of the world, in different establishments-

Western Growers ( USA)

HR Classroom ( Canada)

This is largely conjectural bcs Nigerian academics have been punished for sexual harassment and evidence exists for sexual harassment policies from Nigerian universities, such as the University of Ibadan, linked and attached-

'The bottom line then is that there is no consequence for taking advantage of female students in the Nigerian university system because of the absence of sexual harassment policies in these institutions.'

The University of Ibadan sexual harassment  policy rightly recognises sexual harassment as  emanating from both staff and students and presents broad based but precise body of descriptions  of such activities that is not fixated on the occupational identity   of the perpetrator  but on their actions which may emerge from a student or a member of staff :

Definition of Sexual Harassment :

..."touching and expressions capable of prejudicing or undermining a person's freedom, rights and privileges.

Such acts could include but are not limited to outright demands, ogling, indecent comments and unnecessary bodily contact which could lead to psychological or physical unsolicited sexual relationships;

2. Unwanted suggestive looks, phone calls or use of other multimedia format and comments intended to lure a person into a sexual relationship."

The Stony Brook School of Medicine Mistreatment Policy also recognises that academic faculty  can be victims of sexual harassment-

'The University reaffirms the principle that students, faculty, and staff have the right to be free from discrimination based upon gender, commonly known as "sexual harassment."

This paper from a Kansas State University law scholar discusses protection of both students and teachers.

Richard Shane's "Teachers as Sexual Harassment Victims" David Thompson's  Teachers' Sexual Harassment Claims Based on Student Conduct", elaborates on this.

thanks

toyin

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Toyin,

Now we can have a productive discussion, since you're no longer simply dismissing my points and are actually engaging them. This is encouraging, since you don't solve a problem by dismissing or wishing it sway but by discussing it in an unfettered manner.

I actually don't think that a wholesale implementation of the US research valuation and/or promotion system in Nigeria would work. I talked about it only as a reference for alternative systems that work fairly well to check the problem of bean counting elsewhere. What I envisage for Nigeria is a hybrid of some sort. That is why I advocated a national GUIDELINE for both pay and promotion/publication metric, rather than a rigid, uniform national metric. Such a guideline would supply or recommend a range within which institutions can operate, but it would also give individual institutions room to reward good teaching and excellent research output and punish bad teaching and bad research commitment. At present there is no such latitude.

You mentioned England and Germany but I have friends in the British university system and no academic in that system will get away with not showing up for class for no legitimate reason, publishing in junk venues, and treating students like dirt.

I'm open to creative hybrid solutions, as long as they depart radically from the rotten status quo, but first we must acknowledge depth and scope of the problem. As long as we acknowledge the problem and the urgency of tackling it, we can brainstorm on innovative but indigenous solutions that take into account some of the socioeconomic and political factors you outlined.

Now let solution ideas pour in. No more denial.

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

I agree. This is the kind of discussion needed.

I believe that pressure groups/trade unions like ASUU
and Student Organizations and other stake holders should be in the forefront of
the movement for improvement.

ASUU is not a dictatorship or a one-man show. Officers are elected
and new faces brought into the fore from time to time. If this is not the case then
this is certainly an area in need of change.These wonderful ideas
for improvement should be taken up by those seeking to be in the forefront of
ASUU and student leadership.

The real denial was that institutions such as ASUU
could play an important role.

Another denial was that some good has also emanated from the university system.

A third denial was that across and within the 100 plus universities there were also hard working
scholarly professors who deserved to negotiate salary increases from time to time -
rather than beg with an empty calabash in the market square.

I appreciate the rational discourse that we are now having.

I also commend Toyin for taking the time to identify some of the technicalities in a very
lucid write-up.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora

________________________________

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Moses Ebe Ochonu [meoc...@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2015 10:51 AM
To: USAAfricaDialogue

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Press Release - ASUU Take Note

Toyin,

Now we can have a productive discussion, since you're no longer simply dismissing my points and are actually engaging them. This is encouraging, since you don't solve a problem by dismissing or wishing it sway but by discussing it in an unfettered manner.

I actually don't think that a wholesale implementation of the US research valuation and/or promotion system in Nigeria would work. I talked about it only as a reference for alternative systems that work fairly well to check the problem of bean counting elsewhere. What I envisage for Nigeria is a hybrid of some sort. That is why I advocated a national GUIDELINE for both pay and promotion/publication metric, rather than a rigid, uniform national metric. Such a guideline would supply or recommend a range within which institutions can operate, but it would also give individual institutions room to reward good teaching and excellent research output and punish bad teaching and bad research commitment. At present there is no such latitude.

You mentioned England and Germany but I have friends in the British university system and no academic in that system will get away with not showing up for class for no legitimate reason, publishing in junk venues, and treating students like dirt.

I'm open to creative hybrid solutions, as long as they depart radically from the rotten status quo, but first we must acknowledge depth and scope of the problem. As long as we acknowledge the problem and the urgency of tackling it, we can brainstorm on innovative but indigenous solutions that take into account some of the socioeconomic and political factors you outlined.

Now let solution ideas pour in. No more denial.

On Sat, Sep 19, 2015 at 9:19 AM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Addition to Last Post

I agree that quality of teaching should be rewarded and neglect of teaching punished.

thanks

toyin

In Germany, a central example of this difference is the habilitation<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habilitation>, a scholarly book required for a permanent job in the university, to present a basic sense of my understanding of the role it played in the careers of such scholars as Martin Heidegger.

The habilitation requirement represents a unifying metric in the systems that use it, and it has produced a number of great works but its correlation with a specific time range has been described as slowing down progress of academics.

It is being reviewed<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v415/n6869/full/415257a.html>, however, as indicated by the linked article from 2002 and this from 1999<http://www.sciencemag.org/content/285/5433/1525.full?ck=nck>, in relation to the sciences.

This document from presents the current state at the Technische Universität München.<https://portal.mytum.de/archiv/kompendium_rechtsangelegenheiten/habilitationsordnung/engl.Vers._HabilO_mit_AES_13.12.05.pdf/view>

On 19 September 2015 at 11:17, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>> wrote:
What this discussion needs, Basil, is critical thinking, not an umpire marking scores or the mere taking of sides.

Uncritically presented anecdotal evidence, generalised to demonise an entire social system, which is Moses primary strategy, is worse than unhelpful.

In your wisdom you believe 'the last couple of years' is enough to reduce the generality of Nigerian universty academics to the monsters Moses depicts, in the abscence of large scale breakdown of society?

Do you have any exposure to how social systems work or any idea of the very system you are happy to belive the worst about just bcs someone spins stories of tales he claims he was told?

Moses has presented little in terms of fact.

Accounts of stories you are told are not fact.

They are hearsay.

One does not need to visit a Nigerian university to see through the limitations of Moses logic and the improbability of his fantastic claims.

His argument is that the Nigerian university academic is generally a monster, a distortion of rational humanity whom it would be an insult to animals to describe as bestial, feeding greedily on wealth gained througjh fraudlent means by ASUU from the federal govt, yet doing little or no research, little or no teaching and making preying on female students his primary occupation.

The height of the ludicrous.

When you are able to point out how I have changed the goal posts and desit from imputing false statements to me " I can also see you have now interjected "poor remuneration" to perhaps justify why teachers can't teach/research or why the Dean of Law somewhere stalks and rapes a student under his charge. Are you or whoever raised it initially for real?" then we can discuss.

Do you have any opinions of yours on this subject that will not require piggybacking on Toyin or Moses?

On what grounds do such opinions stand- empirical evidence, hearsay or logical examination of issues?

Thanks

toyin

On 18 September 2015 at 16:41, 'basil ugochukwu' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com>> wrote:
Toyin,

I have followed much your exchanges with Moses and my conclusion is that you are living inside an unrealistic bubble. You have to come out of there quickly if your goal is to help the Nigerian University system. The system needs a lot of help and you know it. So it is a disservice to the search for solutions if all you do is dismiss relevant anecdotal experiences while bringing none to the table. Or when it pleases you bring up your undergraduate experience at the University of Benin of donkey years ago in the context of a rot that has escalated over the last couple of years. I also see that each time you raise a query and Moses answers, you shift the goal post without responding to the answers he provided for your own queries. First you say Moses has no "experience" of the system. When he deploys facts that prove otherwise you quickly change it to he has not "lived" the experience. That's disingenuous on your part. Nothing in the exchanges I have read remotely even suggests that you have had any recent interaction with the system you are defending or "lived" it beyond those years you spent at UniBen as student and Lecturer. By your own logic you shouldn't say anything because you have also not "lived" the issue being discussed. Or you "lived" it donkey years ago. When was the last time you visited a Nigerian University?

I can also see you have now interjected "poor remuneration" to perhaps justify why teachers can't teach/research or why the Dean of Law somewhere stalks and rapes a student under his charge. Are you or whoever raised it initially for real?

Basil


________________________________

From: Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>>
To: USAAfricaDialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com>>

Sent: Friday, September 18, 2015 7:45 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Press Release - ASUU Take Note

Beautiful summation from Samuel Zalanga.
We need to hear more voices of academics in Nigerian universities.

Much of what we are hearing on this forum is people either speaking on behalf of those academics,recounting their experiences of some years ago in the system, or summing up what are described as recent experiences of a system they visit but dont live in.

Is it true that there is little correlation between reward and effort in Nigerian universities?

What kind of reward- promotion and its attendant economic value?

On a different, recent post, Chid Okpara decried the poor remuneration of Nigerian academics while Moses Ochonu is fixated on what he describes as the financial greed of ASUU.

Whose story is accurate?

thanks

toyin

On 18 September 2015 at 12:21, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>> wrote:
On Promotion Criteria in Nigerian Universities

Its important to distinguish truth from falsehood in Moses' summations on this subject :

'How the heck can you set a single salary structure for all academics on the same rank without regard to productivity, research distinction, and teaching excellence? It is a recipe for disaster. It is an outmoded incentive and compensation structure. It is killing teaching and research in the Nigerian university system. But an unimaginative ASUU clings to that template as though it is the capstone of a religious canon.

As for promotion being tied to publications, I advise you to go and look up the phrase "bean counting." That is what the NUC has inadvertently authorized in imposing a uniform set of publication metrics on all universities it supervises. Bean counting has become a scourge in the Nigerian university system. It is killing the system and many conscientious folks have already compellingly critiqued that growing phenomenon on this and other forums.'

I have explained why his trying to rope ASUU into this subject has no merit.

Secondly, it is not true that Nigerian universities operate in terms of "a single salary structure for all academics on the same rank without regard to productivity, research distinction, and teaching excellence?"

Academic promotions are gained through productivity and research distinction.

They are not automatic rewards bestowed regardless of achievement.

The publication criteria for each rung on the promotions ladder is spelt out.

These criteria may also be regularly reviewed upward, as was consistent from my observations at the University of Benin.

For the professorship, assessment was not only in terms of number of publications but research impact, assessed in terms of international range of dissemination of one's work, a criterion reinforced by the requirement of at least one assessor from outside the country.

Uniformity in Publication Metrics for Nigerian Universities

In what sense is uniformity of publication metrics for all Nigerian universities negative?

I understand England does the same for its universities, which have high global ratings.

Strategic Issues in Relation to Promotion Criteria in Nigerian Universities

There exist strategic issues in relation to promotion criteria in Nigerian universities which I earlier made the mistake of thinking Moses was addressing hence I gave some credence to his critique.

These are grounded in questions of the philosophical, social and economic factors shaping the development of knowledge in higher education.

I will try to address this later.

thanks

toyin

On Tue, Sep 15, 2015 at 8:07 PM, Samuel Zalanga <szal...@bethel.edu<mailto:szal...@bethel.edu>> wrote:
Someone earlier today mentioned with nostalgic feelings the high degree of intellectual exchange and fertile scholarly environment at Ibadan and I will say other universities as well in Nigeria of the past. I know as an undergraduate, I followed the debate between Yusuf Bangura and Yusuf Bala Usman. It was a debate that truly raised many insightful conceptual issues that I believe are still relevant today. That kind of stimulating intellectual environment is not available in many Nigerian universities today. The kind of vibrant debate that existed between John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich von Hayek in London School economics does to really exist in Nigeria today.

There may be good reasons for that, but the fact remains that the environment is not as intellectually stimulating as before. I can make very specific comments to back up my assertion by I will not do so because my goal is not to tarnish anyone's image. But at least I can say that when I taught this summer at UJ, I administered a course evaluation and I have it with me here. It is eye opening to me given that the students shared their thoughts freely.

The issue as I found out out is not that there no students that have intellectual curiosity. But for people to be intellectually curious, one has to create the appropriate environment. And when I say "appropriate and conducive environment" I mean many things. The more you know the more easier it is for you to learn. If students have excellent and thorough background or foundation in their discipline, and they understand the debates at a deeper level, it is far easier for them to be curious than people who in the first place have not been taught to grasp the issues.

I decided for one meeting to focus on neoliberalism and globalization and their impact on contemporary research in Africa. We did not discuss the two processes as mere economic discourses but that there is a moral philosophy and vision of humanity that is built into them. I was amaze at how the students started asking questions and they immediately could relate some of the public policies implemented or that are still being implemented in Nigeria to the vision of neoliberal utopia. We should bear in mind that according to the Social Science encyclopedia, there are utopias of the right and utopias of the left. Neoliberalism at its deeper and extreme level is a Utopian movement on the right. Through my interaction with the students, I learned that with patience, caring attitude and training, we can create a fertile ground for imagination and intellectual curiosity in Africa. It is something we can learn, nurture and encourage. This challenge is not just in Africa, it is even a problem in many communities or schools in the U.S. but our situation back in the continent is far more challenging.

With regard to scholarship as a vocation, note that in many Nigerian universities, recruitment is not just a function of merit now. This is not to say that recruitment tin the U.S. is not influenced by some other variables, but no institution here can operate sustainably with such a policy. In one story I heard, in one Nigerian university someone with second class lower division got employed as a graduate assistant while others with superior performance were ignored.

When you embrace your work as a vocation, it makes a huge difference. John Merrow did a documentary on teaching in California public schools by examining different kinds of mandated teaching methods or strategies,. His conclusion was that even if you get a bad philosophy or official teaching strategy, teachers who are committed to their work as a vocation, find a way to make it work and relatively succeed. But even if you have a situation where the facilities are available, and support is there but if the teacher has no passion in his or her work and does not see it as a vocation, the performance is poor.

There are a lot of things that can happen in an environment that can discourage or promote creative thinking, deep thinking, and intellectual curiosity. Too much hierarchy and authoritarianism or intimidation can discourage intellectual exploration. Anything that affects young people's ability to be imaginative can threaten intellectual curiosity. When you leave people hungry, worry about their survival because of serous threats owing to their gender, their ethnicity, religion etc. etc. then they will have to deploy a lot of their brain power and energy to think of survival issues. The more such brain power is wasted for such things, the less there is to be deployed in creative thinking thereby lowering their learning capacity and their intellectual development and imaginativeness. Such a situation may lower the potential intelligence of the students, no matter how you measure it. There are certain conditions that are more conducive for promoting creative thinking, intellectual curiosity and problem solving.

In one story I heard, in one Nigerian university, the professor according to his male students looks at attractive women in his class in a manner that leaves no doubt that he is committing what some call "lookry" or showing lust. The problem here is that just being a woman and being attractive can put the woman in some trouble because someone wants to sleep her for being a student. This by no means all faculty members do that. There are indeed great men of honor and respect.But as for the others, the question is: Is the woman going to deal with pursuing her education based on merit or how to manage or navigate such a situation?

The learning environment that produced some creative, imaginative and intellectually curious scholars in the past in Nigeria was not magical. There were certain things in place. Many African scholars in Diaspora perform better just because the environment allows them to do so relatively. If we can create such environments in Africa, we will see wonders.

I was shocked when one professor quoted the Bible telling me that too much critical analysis and evaluation of ideas is wrong because the bible says it is dangerous, presumably it will lead to arrogance or something like that. If we want to promote an intellectually curious environment, there are many ways we can promote it. At least we need to create a true marketplace of ideas where people encounter thinking that challenges their taken for granted worldviews .Research indicates that there are certain kinds of mothering that better promotes creative, logical and critical thinking in children than others.

The issue is not whether black people can be creative, intellectually curious and inquisitive, but rather whether we are willing to see a connection between factors and conditions that promote these virtues and whether or not, we are willing to sincerely invest resources for that and create organizations that incarnate such virtues.

Samuel

On Mon, Sep 14, 2015 at 2:22 AM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Thanks for those balanced comments, Gloria and Samuel.

Moses, who prevented you or any one else on this forum from doing a 'full critical audit' on ASUU?

Were your efforts in that regard prevented from being posted on the forum?

Your comments show little knowledge of ASUU's history.

It was ASUU, for example, that proposed to the govt the creation of an education trust fund, sourced by taxing companies, which I understand is the basis of the current TETFUND, which, after govt allocations I expect is the largest financial source for university funding.

ASUU had a history of pushing for broader social change in its negotiations with govt,up till the 1980s.

ASUU made academics in Nigeria gain some respectability only by decades of dogged fighting.

Is there any value in criticism of ASUU that is centred on ahistorical and total condemnation?

thanks

toyin






On 14 September 2015 at 04:00, Samuel Zalanga <szal...@bethel.edu<mailto:szal...@bethel.edu>> wrote:
Yes, indeed. Being there, seen that! With changes within ASUU members, the transformation in Nigeria's higher education will be phenomenal. They can help in holding corrupt administrators accountable.

Interestingly, many of the ASUU members went to school overseas and saw how the systems are functionally relatively well. They returned there and are professors and by virtue of that, members of the senate (a major administrative organ of the university), yet, not all of them are committed. One hardly gets impressed with commitment to scholarship as a vocation or the beauty of intellectual curiosity.

There are surely some that are committed but they are a minority. If Nigeria is going to change, it is only if Nigerians set a high standard for themselves, and hold themselves accountable that the country can begin to see a path forward. For most part, as Buhari long ago said, for most Nigerians, they do not have any place to migrate to. So it is better to remain and salvage the country.

Things can indeed improve if there is a higher level of commitment among the academic staff, not just in pursuit of their own interests but national interest, which includes the students'. I am glad that I started my university teaching here in the U.S. and have learned to always feel I am an ordinary mortal human being. It is one thing for a person to command the respect of others, but it is another to terrorize people to respect you. There is some aesthetic joy in learning to live and feel like a normal, regular human being.

Samuel

On Sun, Sep 13, 2015 at 8:43 PM, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com<mailto:meoc...@gmail.com>> wrote:
The NUC should step in and formulate a comprehensive sexual harassment policy to be adopted by all universities. Forget ASUU; they will not push for it.

ASUU will not comment on let alone lead the effort to combat the abuse of our female students by their members. Suddenly, all the ASUU stalwarts who tried in vain with their defensive loquaciousness to prevent us from doing a full critical audit on ASUU during their strike have gone quiet. You will not hear them condemn and call for a stop to this abominable rapes committed by their members. Quite frankly I won't be surprised if ASUU uses its funds and organizational muscle to help its accused rapist members escape sanctions.

When ASUU was busy fighting for largesse and making noise about trying to sanitize and improve the Nigerian higher education system, some of us laughed in derision and called them out on the deception. Many opportunities had presented themselves for ASUU to back up its hollow rhetoric of trying to improve the system. In each case, ASUU officials looked away, content to collect from government what they claim they deserve.

Here is an opportunity, a very cheap one, for ASUU to demonstrate to us that it indeed cares about improving learning, holding its members accountable, and giving our young people a safe space to come of age intellectually. But as usual, ASUU members have gone quiet. They will pretend not to have been following the gory cases of rape committed by their members. And they will pretend not to know that for every reported lecturer rape case on Nigerian campuses there are at least ten unreported ones.

In private some ASUU members condemn their colleagues for this crime of raping female students (a crime row which there are all kinds of euphemistic terms among the Nigerian university faculty), but will they push for meaningful sexual harassment policies that prescribe zero tolerance for sexual harassment and abuse by lecturers? NO!

What else is new? After all, did some ASUU members on this forum not tell us that in fact they, lecturers, are the real victims of sexual harassment, that their female students sexually harass them, and that they, not female students, deserve sympathy and protection? ASUU will not support the formulation, let alone the implementation, of sexual harassment policies by public universities.

Introduce a topic on this forum bashing government types for their familiar crimes and see how our ASUU academics will jump into the discussion excitedly with glib selective outrage. But here's a topic on the sexual atrocities that ASUU members use their positions to commit against their vulnerable students, a topic deserving our unqualified outrage. What's the reaction from our ASUU members? None. Ikhide is absolutely right; the accountability we seek has to start with us. ASUU is part of the problem of university education in Nigeria. I will continue to say it.

On Sun, Sep 13, 2015 at 5:18 PM, OLADMEJI ABORISADE <olaabo...@msn.com<mailto:olaabo...@msn.com>> wrote:
Dear Sirs,
This is sad. Indeed, a disgrace. NUC must borrow a leaf from the United States Institutions on how to handle cases of this nature. Individual concerned must be disciplined in line with academic law. Dismissal. Label the offender. Have the offender Register so that other Institutions may know. It is a serious form of corruption in Nigeria. It has to stop.
Thank you,
oladimeji aborisade.

________________________________
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2015 11:26:36 -0600
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Press Release - ASUU Take Note

From: jmb...@weber.edu<mailto:jmb...@weber.edu>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
CC: iheom...@yahoo.com<mailto:iheom...@yahoo.com>

It is important for Nigerian educational institutions to have clear and enforceable policies regarding sexual harassment and other forms of abuse of female students. However, it is even more important that national laws against these types of crimes be enforced and the perpetrators brought to book for their crimes. Apparently, the Nigerian national police and other law enforcement agencies are failing in their duties--it is their job to protect the integrity and safety of all Nigerians, including especially vulnerable groups. The continued sexual abuse of girls and women reflects poorly on us as a people and it is time for us to speak up. The NFF needs our support--the next woman or girl abused could be someone close to you.

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[kenneth harrow]

don't forget the "U.S. System" is enormously variable, from "teaching colleges" to Research One universities, to 2 yr colleges, etc.
each should be framed by the local constraints and ideals

-- 
kenneth w. harrow 
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michigan state university
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har...@msu.edu

[kenneth harrow]

there are some "stories" that everyone knows.
i made some comments about my experiences in the university of yaounde and then cheikh anta diop, and i asked on this forum how others' experiences were. mostly i was expostulating about the loss of books in libraries, argument that book donations were a bad charity, and that we all ought to work toward electronic availability.
anyway, i received some responses defending nigerian universities on this list. i don't know if anyone remembers that thread.
to further moses's point about stories, however, i would say that to deny the abuse of girls in high school and college is ridiculous. it was too open to be hidden.
along those lines, when one saw the black cars lined up outside the highschools to pick up girls in yaounde, everyone knew who was there and for what.
maybe now it is less open, but i doubt it.
but i also wanted to repeat another point, which gloria underlines. in cheihk anta diop, the history dept was quite famous. deservedly so.
other depts were weaker.
there was no uniform statement one could make: there were great, famous scholars; at yaounde as well/\
i taught in english depts, so we were more informed by language courses, which were not the sites for becoming famous, but we too had some great teachers,
i believe that is probably true in most places. everyone knows what ibadan and ife once represented to the world of african letters. everyone knows when there was a flight of the greats out of the country.
why deny this?
on this list, often enough people ask for proof. but we are a listserv of people who share their views as well as expertise. i concur with moses that stories/history are ways of spreading knowledges in the real world.their discourses are not the same; but knowledge, as mudimbe says, is communicated in more than one language, and only the old-fashioned scholar would set the written word above the oral word.
or now, electronic word.

ken

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[Ikhide]

You guys want to have yet another "productive conversation"? Haba! Wouldn't it just be easier to revisit the archives and regurgitate the productive discussions we had in 2013? All the awesome posts are still there, simply go to Googlegroups and search for ASUU. Minds have clearly not changed and rehashing the debate would simply be paralysis by analysis. Surely we all have better things to do with our time.

There is nothing under the sun that has not already been said. In any case, I am a practical person, this is not the time for analysis, this is the time for action. I don't know of anyone who would ask for empirical evidence that there are sexual predators in our classrooms if a relative of theirs was a victim, hopefully they would want to do something about it.

There is no need arguing with someone who wants to assure a wary world that all is well with Nigerian public institutions. You may read them Dele Sobowale's harrowing essay (How ASUU members destroyed Nigerian universities) and they would wave you away. One rape on our campus is one rape too many and it is offensive for anyone to suggest that we should indulge in yet another round of jaw jawing even as other people's children are being chased from classroom to classroom for sex. Shame on us.

And yes, in 2013, during that uprising against ASUU of which I was a proud stone-carrying member, many of us came up with suggestions for improving upon our institutions, for making ASUU, that body held hostage by thugs with PhDs, stronger and less self-serving. I wrote this piece here, with thoughts and suggestions informed by my professional experience of three decades, most of it spent managing very complex institutions' operating and capital budget and resources. Here is another data driven analysis by Feyi Fawehinmi.

ASUU promised all sorts of stuff once they got what they were asking for. That was in 2013. Have you guys asked to see the before and after? I asked the other day and I was met with dead silence. WHAT did they do with the money they got? WHAT?

Dead silence. Now y'all want to start another round of feel good masturbatory introspection. Good luck.

Let's try something more productive. One of you that's eager to start typing away should spend that energy crafting a well thought out opinion piece to be signed by anyone on this listserv - signed by as many as can - to be published online, in newspapers, decrying the state of our public tertiary institutions and urging concrete action be taken to protect the children in those classrooms. This will most likely not happen because our children are not there. They are mostly all in good schools abroad or in expensive private schools in Ghana. Who are we fooling?

If you really want to know how deeply reviled our university lecturers are, go to Facebook and ask the youngsters opinions of their lecturers and you will shocked. Which reminds me, the universities have funded public relations units; what do they do? Do they send out FACT CHECKS to checkmate the bad press they are getting out there from consumers? What do they do all day? They should be right here and on social media explaining to the world that charges of sexual assault are in the heads of the "alleged victims."

Why is it my responsibility to provide data and "empirical evidence" whatever that means? You want empirical evidence? Well, I am the oldest of ten. I paid the school fees of everyone below me and also a couple of nephews and nieces. I can tell you that apart from one, maybe two, I am owed a full refund for each "university graduate," My sisters were subjected to the worst form of sexual predation ever, one almost did not graduate because she would not give in to the beast. It took my intervention to rescue her from his claws. There are more harrowing stories like this on social media. Let me just repeat that it is highly offensive for the men of this listserv to be muttering "analysis" when clearly there is a sexual assault epidemic on our campuses.

The good news is that the young ones are fighting back, they are stripping some of these beasts to their birthday suits and videotaping them and putting them on YouTube. Jungle justice for beasts. I love it. Name and shame them while their counterparts write lovely essay about empirical whatever.

Have we no compassion?

Oya, carry one with your intellectual conversations. Without me. LOL!

- Ikhide

				10 points on the ASUU wahala: It is all about the data a... Nigeria is on my mind. Specifically, I am thinking of the crippling strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) that is almost six months now. It is c...
				View on xokigbo.com	Preview by Yahoo

				ASUU Part Deux: This Time The Facts (And Only A Bit of S... So my blog post on ASUU which contained no facts has been accused of being fact free. I actually thought I explained this in the very first sentence and even called...
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				How ASUU members destroyed Nigerian universities (1): ... Show me a lecturer including top class professors who worked in any of our public universities and who did not line his pockets with proceeds from the sale of Cours...
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- Ikhide

 

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From: Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com>
To: USAAfricaDialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2015 10:51 AM

[Samuel Zalanga]

Interesting points. I came across one research that I laughed  after reading it. It was during the Civil Rights /Jim Crow era and the great majority of the churches in the South were silent about such social pathologies. The researcher in reference wanted to know why even though some of the preachers privately know that Jim Crow and racial segregation in the name of God or Jesus was bad, but they would never talk about it or if they did so before their congregations, they would preface their comment by saying, "I know every one has his or her opinion on this issue" --- which means they diminished the force and the authority of the comment in order not to offend some people, and consequently lose their job, or get empty pews and be unable to pay their mortgage or budget because of reduction in monthly collection..

The researcher in his research design first approached the young  and dynamic pastors, who you would think are the "Young Turks" very vibrant and engaging.  He asked them why they knew that it was ethically wrong for them as Christians to condone Jim Crow and racial segregation, but they failed to take a clear and categorical stand on the issue and tell their congregations it was wrong. The congregations were part of denominational hierarchy which means the churches were also social organizations, in spite of any spiritual role they claimed to play. The young pastors responded by saying that they understood what the researcher said. but they were waiting until they reach a strategic position in the denominational hierarchy so that when they talk about any issue, or take a moral stand, they can get away with it and no one can harass them i.e. they are talking about power and position and the freedom of choice it gives one. Theirs was a strategic answer, an answer that was politically expedient even if not morally and ethically right.

Well, on  hearing that, the researcher logically thought the logical thing was for him to go and interview ministers in the denomination who were higher up in the denominational hierarchy. At least they can get away with telling the truth or calling a spade, a spade based on the insights he derived from the younger dynamic ministers. . When he met higher ranking ministers and asked them without them knowing that he had interviewed the younger generation of ministers, the highly ranked ones said, they had invested so much to rise up to where they were in the hierarchy, and they did not want to do anything that would undermine their role or position.  Implication -- no change because of the inner workings and dynamics of the church as a social organization.

This is an example of how even when organizations officially claim to have great ideals, and are initially well-intentioned, yet, the dynamics of organizational leadership, process and structure may disorient people and lead them to forget about their original purposes. It does not happen all at once but it does happen and that is why you will find many organizations including religious ones, preaching great ideals and say they believe in them, but then deep down the organizations do not seem to transform their environment or societies for the better. There is a lot of that happening in Nigerian organizations including universities.

This kind of problem happens in the U.S., in China, in India, -- all over the world including Nigeria.

Moreover, as Weber said, if knowledge for instance is power, then it is not knowledge per se that will automatically solve these problems or lead to social action. For knowledge to be transformed into effective social action as many of us desire for Nigeria' s higher education, then according to Weber, there has to be an intersection of knowledge, power, social and material interests. When such intersection exists, then  one will see "fireworks." The knowledge is just like an instrument of the passions or the moral and ethical commitment of people in one sense. Ideally we would want reason to transcend such a role.  Even if the authorities in Nigeria and in the universities  have knowledge of the right thing to do, unless that knowledge fits with their social and material interest,, values, moral and ethical commitment, whatever the knowledge is, it will be ignored. What this means is that we are faced with not just talking about solutions but how to ensure that concretely the appropriate context is created for the powers that be to see implementing the solutions as consistent with their social and material interests on behalf of the nation.  I for one do not believe that the problems in Nigerian economy and society or the universities is as a result of lack of knowledge of what is the right thing to do. On the contrary, I believe that knowledge is available. The problem is that the knowledge would only become particularly relevant if it fits with the social and material interests of the ruling elites whether at the national, state, university or organizational level.  So the practical question is how do we get that to happen.

We should note in this respect that rectifying the problem of Nigerian universities is in some way related to effort to eradicate prejudice. To eradicate prejudice, one needs to know its nature.  There are people who are prejudiced because of IGNORANCE, there are people who are prejudiced as a MATTER OF CONVICTION. For those that are prejudiced because of ignorance, the moment they get evidence that systematically challenges their prejudiced beliefs, they will change. But for those who are prejudiced as a matter of conviction, no matter the evidence you provide them they will remain intact with their beliefs because the information does not fit with t heir social and material interest, values and ethics..

In this respect we have to ask whether the current problems in Nigerian universities is just because of ignorance or whether it is because of some other factors that make people who have all the information and knowledge they need, but because of some other reasons, they ignore using the knowledge.  I do not think that the problem we have in Nigeria whether related to education or anything for that matter is because of ignorance per se. We have to understand it in terms of what are the values, social and material interests and ethics of the people in power. For instance Weber recognized that the Junkers in Germany were in power but they did not have the appropriate values and broad political commitment to govern the nation in an era that nationalism was key to development in Europe. . People's values, social and material interests / ethics shape which knowledge they look for, and what they need it for.

Even on the issues of development, I came across many sincere, thoughtful and honest analyses of the Nigerian situation from the 70s. Indeed there was one chapter I read written by Asiodu, who I think was a super permanent secretary under General Gowon where he clearly demonstrated that the practice of state creation in Nigeria is not the best path to developing the country. As Thomas Piketty said, the Western world laid the foundation for their modern societies by investing heavily in education, public health and infrastructure. He provided estimate of the taxes collected in African countries which is terribly low. So in the case of Nigeria, the money that was received as subvention from the federal government was increasingly invested or expended in overhead cost: creating more states and local governments and employing more people, creating more opportunities for corruption etc.

With that kind of arrangement, there is less money to invest in education, healthcare and public infrastructure. Instead of investing in building institutional capacity and effectiveness to ensure efficient delivery of services to the citizens, the elites based on their social and material interest and values, decided to invest the money to create more states and local governments, giving more people the opportunity to get their fiefdom but doing little to improve institutional capacity and effectiveness. This is not a good pathway to succeed in the ferociously competitive global economy. It is not how many states or local governments you have in a country that matter, but how effective and efficient they are in serving people and delivering goods and services.

Indeed Asiodu had a table where he calculated the total budgets of I think the 19 states  in Nigeria then, and then did the math and came up with what percentage of their annual budge is taken care of by locally generated revenue in the state. I think at that time only Lagos and Kano could pay the salaries of their workers without receiving federal government subvention. This means the moment the money comes from the federal government, much  of it is spent on salaries for a tiny percentage of the population working in the public sector while there is little left for investment in public goods: education, healthcare and infrastructure and the little that is invested, much is also embezzled.

There are informed and knowledgeable people in that country who know this truth and know very well that states creation has just been a way of wasting scarce resources which could have been invested for things that have more enduring value: public education, public healthcare and infrastructure. The Nigerian elites based on their material and social interests/ values chose what was good for them and forgetting the general population. So let us not assume that the problem in Nigeria is ignorance about solutions. In my assessment, the problem is the social and material interests of those in charge and their moral and ethical commitment. If the social and material interests and moral and ethical commitment were appropriate, they will go anywhere in the world to get the right information or knowledge even if they do not have it. But there are Diaspora Nigerians who can do this freely, just as when Taiwan was formulating its universal healthcare policy, they tapped the expertise of their citizens in Diaspora.

A reading of the ascension speeches of Nigerian leaders shows similar diagnosis of the ills of the country which often are correct, but nothing really changed. It will be hard for anyone to sincerely claim that authorities in Nigerian universities are ignorant about the problems of the universities or the solutions needed. These people were either trained abroad (most of them) or they visit foreign universities regularly, and participated in series of conferences or special training on higher education. Did not Alexis de Tocqueville drew a lot of insights abut American society, by just visiting places in the U.S. and asking questions with keen interests and observations? Yes, he might have made some mistakes but it is amazing how insightful many of his observations still remain relevant in understand the U.S.

Knowledge is always tied to human interest according to Jurgen Habermas. According to him some have the interest of empirical-analytic knowledge which is aimed at prediction and control, others have the desire to increase or bring about greater hermeneutical understanding, while others are concerned about critical science, which is aimed at emancipation and liberation. Each one of these human interests leads to different kinds of knowledge acquisition and use.  So we should try to understand what is the human interests of those in power?  Or, how can we get them to cultivate the appropriate social and material interests or value commitment? The assumption that if knowledge is made available through research it will automatically change the situation in Nigeria is not really realistic about the situation on the ground because such a position assumes the real problem is one of ignorance and not lack of political will. But we can learn from Aristotle when he critiqued his former teacher Plato, by saying that people may know the truth but they may not have the courage to live it out. Living out the truth or doing the right thing involves costs, i.e., paying a price or sacrifice. And whether in the U.S. or Nigeria, sometimes the fact is that people look at the mirror and they say, I know this is the right thing to do but if I do it, I may not personally gain much, and so I will do something else, and then organize a public relations campaign to make me look good.

One can do that for some time and not maybe contribute in destroying his or her country. But if you lead or govern this way for a long time, the cumulative effect will create the kind of disaster or problems you see in Nigeria as a country or in our higher education institutions. In brief, the problem is not one of ignorance per se in my view. It is one of moral, ethical commitment and the kind of social, material and human interests that infuse the hearts and minds of those in charge.

 I wish we have a situation where social justice, fairness and the pursuit of greater equality and creating an excellent / conducive learning environment is cultivated as aesthetic beauty in the form of music that when it plays, it penetrates the deep soul of a human being which Immanuel Kant said even reason cannot reach. When that happens, with the litter that our the leaders have, we will be very amaze at how much  they will accomplish,. On the other hand, even with plenty resources, if the officials of a university or a country do not have the kind of social and material interests, and commitment that sees excellent results that serve ordinary people well as a key indicator of success and progress, they will not accomplish much. Indeed, they may lower the expectations of people or standards so that the little they have achieved on behalf the public will look high.

 The world of neoliberal globalization, which Nigeria embraces is a world of survival of the fittest. We can lie to ourselves, and our leaders can lie to us, but the empirical facts about the country will not lie. Nations are like in a 100 meter race. The Enlightenment idea of equality and progress are there in the constitution but it is going to be presumably realized by human beings as part of the modern nation-states, which means, if your nation-state screws up, then you are left behind or at least you become a humanitarian project. Nigerian universities are increasingly being left behind based on rankings published in this forum. What this means is that the Enlightenment project may end up becoming a nightmare for some people if their nation state fails to compete well. To compete well, the nation must get her acts together.   This does not feels good to me but that is a fair description of our world today.

We should measure the progress of Nigeria by how the least are doing and not some examples here and there of spectacular achievement which Nietzsche calls "monumental history."  Monumental history can inspire us but at the end it is about larger than life figures. We want that to be balanced with "critical history" i.e., history seen from the bottom-up. I know some in Abuja live better than many in the U.S. But that is not the only place in Nigeria.  The magnificence of the Parthenon in ancient Athens or the Coliseum in Rome did not preclude the fact that such societies treated a segment of their population as disposable and expendable. We are concerned about those parents and their children who are treated as expendable and disposable. The rich send their children to private schools and universities and the poor are left to suffer in public universities that do not truly meet the needs of the youths in the standards and expectations of a 21st century education where young people are competing globally in many ways.

My lamentation.

Samuel

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Speaking of stories, here is one written and published by a student during the last ASUU strike.

'DARE AKINWALE

• ABOUT

observations…

My worst lecturer

by 'Dare Akinwale

I started my fourth session in university with a high dose of excitement. Being back on the familiar grounds of school, reunited with my friends and the prospect of all the adventures awaiting us during the semester was a real pleasure. I was particularly interested in the second semester, when we would be on industrial attachment and we would rest from the agony of coursework and long lectures.
But before then, I had to cross the daunting hurdle of first semester. It was perhaps the most intensive semester of university – several three units courses and a long sojourn on the Fadama farm during the dry season. Among those courses was a course called Production Economics; AEM 403. It was one of those courses I did not look forward to, economics bored me quickly. But I had taken two other economics courses and passed them very well, so I was not worried about my performance, just the unending drudgery of debating the virtues of demand and supply, examining the artistic merits of graph after graph and reading bland, dusty essays on economic theories of dead men from ages past.

My lecturer did not make things easy either. He was, in keeping with the character of his profession, a scarce commodity indeed. Whenever he graced us with his presence, which was rarely, he raced through the day’s lecture, scribbling equations on the board; reciting explanations like a babalawo chanting incantations and then he would turn to us and ask, “it’s easy, isn’t it?”
Before we had a chance to answer, he would back turn to the board, wipe off everything and begin another economic performance.

In spite of his lack of dedication, I found the course easy and even interesting, because the concepts of production, of profit maximization, cost minimization and resource allocation were just fancy expressions for general concerns every business person had to deal with. The main challenges were the countless functions and knotty equations which required the use of calculus to demystify. But once you had solved the equations, it was easy explaining your answers even to a primary school pupil. It took some days to refresh my understanding of differential equations and then I became a guru! I even started teaching people, economics of all courses!

About two weeks to our continuous assessment tests, Mr lecturer miraculously appeared and delivered another thrilling recital on production economics, punctuated with his usual solo refrain of “it’s easy, isn’t it?” And when we shouted Noooo!, he took it as the ovation of an overwhelmed audience and continued his conversation with the board.

Minutes later, the class erupted into an agitated chorus of protesting and chaos. Fearing for his life, oga lecturer turned to us, his face a pleading mask of fear, hands hanging limp and impotent. He seemed to be considering his chances of success if he rushed for the door, but after two futile glances in that direction, he decided to confront his angry students instead.

A girl stood up to speak. She told him we did not understand what he was teaching, especially the equations since most of us hated mathematics and many in the class were still battling a mathematics carryover from 100 level. I understood what she was talking about; I had failed that course in 100 level, in this very auditorium.

The man nodded and told us not to worry about the equations, we should focus more on understanding the relationship between the figures instead. He promised that even if we made mistakes in the mathematical solutions, he would pardon, as long as we could explain the central concepts in the course. Everyone was happy, that was what we wanted to hear.

Test day came. I was prancing about the whole area, solving past questions and boasting I would score the highest. It felt good to be the man with the answers. A few minutes before we went in for the test, someone showed me a past question that made my heart quake. It was an strange equation; instead of regular figures, there were indices. And I hated indices! I hated algebra! I looked at it and laughed, “it can’t come out!”
I was dead wrong.

The first question was crafted in that kind of wicked equation. My palm suddenly became sweaty, and I sat still for several minutes, stunned. I could hear groans of surprise from others in the hall. Then I consoled myself by answering the other two questions which were definitions and examples of some concepts. Afterwards, I returned to the equation and tried to recollect the laws of indices. Somehow, I seemed to remember and solved the equation, slowly and sweating on my answer sheet. I got my final figures, wrote down the explanation and reviewed my answers. Even though my pride was deflated, I felt I had done a good job.

When the marked scripts were returned weeks later, we were shocked and angry. I got a high score of 3/30, which was the average score. Even some of the students with the highest CGPA’s did not score as high as me. We trooped to his office to complain, but the smart guy had traveled to Ibadan on one of his more important business trips. I visited his office almost everyday after then, he was hardly around.

Finally, one afternoon, while we were preparing for the exams, I stepped out of the library and met him walking briskly to his office. I ran after him, unfortunately, I did not have my script with me.
“Excuse me sir!” I called out. He stopped and regarded me with an irritated look.
“What is it?”
“I’ve been looking for you since, I’m one of your students, AEM 403” He frowned and continued walking. I tried to keep up with him.
“I wanted to discuss my test score with you, I don’t think I deserved the score I got, I don’t think it was fair at all, sir.” He stopped again and looked at me keenly, studying my face, then said I should seem him the next day with my script.
Surprisingly, he was in his office the next day and remembered me as soon as I walked in.

After informing me of my apparent lack of respect and the hopeless moral decadence of my generation, we went through my test script together. He could only fault an error in somewhere in the mathematical solution, but could not explain how all the scores summed up to three. I showed him all the explanations I had written and asked if they did not count for anything. He could not even produce his marking scheme like other lecturers, he just looked lost, as usual.

It was later we heard that he gave the scripts to a post-graduate student to mark, because he was out on a more profitable trip, and now, he was too proud to apologise. The final results for AEM 403 were very low and so unbelieving that it took the intervention of the Senate for the scores to be reviewed. At the end, the students lost, because a lecturer considered his own private business more important than his primary job.

I will always remember this man as the worst lecturer I ever had. I don’t think he was interested in his work at all, even when he came to class, he was distant and always in a hurry to leave. We were just an unavoidable nuisance to him. Many have stories like this, worse even. This is sometimes the portrait of a Nigerian university education.

I have always believed some professions like the academics are callings almost as sacred as being called to be a minister. Because they involve the delicate task of directly building people, transferring knowledge and training them. It is not for everybody. If you are not called to that ministry, don’t go there, you may destroy lives.

ASUU is on strike presently. I hope when, if, the government meets their demands, they in turn will be able to perform the noble duty they owe their students, their community and Nigeria. I hope they will demand and enforce responsible scholarship from all universities and hold all lecturers to the highest standards possible.

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PUBLISHED: September 7, 2013

FILED UNDER: Uncategorized

TAGS: 'Dare Akinwale : ASUU : education : Nigerian education : NIgerian students : Nigerian university

One Comment to “My worst lecturer”

1. Chisim

   September 8, 2013 at 19:06

   I had a thousand and one similar experiences. Sometimes, I wonder if some of our lecturers deserve what they’re demanding. A Nigerian student is always at the mercy of insensitive lecturers who practically have the yam and the knife.

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

How about law enforcement?

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora

________________________________

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bode [omi...@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2015 9:14 AM
To: 'Ikhide' via USA Africa Dialogue Series

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Press Release - ASUU Take Note

This is an issue for the Nigerian University Commission (NUC) and the Vice Chancellors. The reality is ASUU is an advocacy group. The active members are usually the executive council of about 5 left leaning radicals. The only issues on which they can gain the support of their members are salary related. They will never get the support of the full body for a campaign against harassment, which by the way is being perpetrated by some of the most powerful academics who are sometimes their senior colleagues. This is a mere description of the current situation. I hope progressive members find the courage to take on this issue. However, for the time being, I think advocacy groups for the protection of female students would be better served by targeting the NUC for better and quicker outcomes on this issue.

Bode

On Sat, Sep 19, 2015 at 6:35 AM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Why Nigerian Academics Must Speak Up For Themselves

It is never wise to make little or no contribution to telling your own story.

Why are Nigerian based academics on this group content to largely remain silent while others tell their story?

Moses is making the fantastic claim that the majority of Nigerian academics, a brood of poisonous parasites, have completely destroyed all processes of accountability in the Nigerian university system, are lazy and despicable creatures who feed fat on ill gotten remunerations yet do little or no research, and make feeding on the innocence of their female students their primary goal.

How does he know this?

He claims that on his regular visits to Nigerian universities, the angels among the demonic horde of Nigerian academia regale him with stories of how they are overwhelmed by the demonic generality.

He then follows that up with a host of vituperations agst ASUU as the primary enabler of this disintegration of the system.

I dont need to visit a Nigerian university or even talk to anybody from the system to realise the improbability of this narrative that reduces Nigerian academics to sub-human creatures and the system to an absolute jungle.

Such breakdown is impossible outside a general breakdown of society.

The diversity of perspectives on contemporary Nigerian university education also contradicts this image that has all the marks of being a caricature.

I am interested in seeing research of some comprehensiveness on this subject from anyone making such claims, not purely second hand narratives the truth of which are unverifiable.

I will not respond any more to story telling used to reinforce improbable generalisations.

It is sad, though, that the Nigerian academics on this fora are content to allow themselves be attacked, critiqued or defended largely by people who dont work in Nigerian universities and dont even live in Nigeria.

Whatever your views of and experiences of the system are, you should speak up, in the name of your own dignity, the dignity of the system you represent and the need to improve that system.

thanks

toyin

On 19 September 2015 at 11:17, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>> wrote:
What this discussion needs, Basil, is critical thinking, not an umpire marking scores or the mere taking of sides.

Uncritically presented anecdotal evidence, generalised to demonise an entire social system, which is Moses primary strategy, is worse than unhelpful.

In your wisdom you believe 'the last couple of years' is enough to reduce the generality of Nigerian universty academics to the monsters Moses depicts, in the abscence of large scale breakdown of society?

Do you have any exposure to how social systems work or any idea of the very system you are happy to belive the worst about just bcs someone spins stories of tales he claims he was told?

Moses has presented little in terms of fact.

Accounts of stories you are told are not fact.

They are hearsay.

One does not need to visit a Nigerian university to see through the limitations of Moses logic and the improbability of his fantastic claims.

His argument is that the Nigerian university academic is generally a monster, a distortion of rational humanity whom it would be an insult to animals to describe as bestial, feeding greedily on wealth gained througjh fraudlent means by ASUU from the federal govt, yet doing little or no research, little or no teaching and making preying on female students his primary occupation.

The height of the ludicrous.

When you are able to point out how I have changed the goal posts and desit from imputing false statements to me " I can also see you have now interjected "poor remuneration" to perhaps justify why teachers can't teach/research or why the Dean of Law somewhere stalks and rapes a student under his charge. Are you or whoever raised it initially for real?" then we can discuss.

Do you have any opinions of yours on this subject that will not require piggybacking on Toyin or Moses?

On what grounds do such opinions stand- empirical evidence, hearsay or logical examination of issues?

Thanks

toyin

On 18 September 2015 at 16:41, 'basil ugochukwu' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com>> wrote:
Toyin,

I have followed much your exchanges with Moses and my conclusion is that you are living inside an unrealistic bubble. You have to come out of there quickly if your goal is to help the Nigerian University system. The system needs a lot of help and you know it. So it is a disservice to the search for solutions if all you do is dismiss relevant anecdotal experiences while bringing none to the table. Or when it pleases you bring up your undergraduate experience at the University of Benin of donkey years ago in the context of a rot that has escalated over the last couple of years. I also see that each time you raise a query and Moses answers, you shift the goal post without responding to the answers he provided for your own queries. First you say Moses has no "experience" of the system. When he deploys facts that prove otherwise you quickly change it to he has not "lived" the experience. That's disingenuous on your part. Nothing in the exchanges I have read remotely even suggests that you have had any recent interaction with the system you are defending or "lived" it beyond those years you spent at UniBen as student and Lecturer. By your own logic you shouldn't say anything because you have also not "lived" the issue being discussed. Or you "lived" it donkey years ago. When was the last time you visited a Nigerian University?

I can also see you have now interjected "poor remuneration" to perhaps justify why teachers can't teach/research or why the Dean of Law somewhere stalks and rapes a student under his charge. Are you or whoever raised it initially for real?

Basil


________________________________

From: Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>>

To: USAAfricaDialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com>>

Sent: Friday, September 18, 2015 7:45 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Press Release - ASUU Take Note

Beautiful summation from Samuel Zalanga.
We need to hear more voices of academics in Nigerian universities.

Much of what we are hearing on this forum is people either speaking on behalf of those academics,recounting their experiences of some years ago in the system, or summing up what are described as recent experiences of a system they visit but dont live in.

Is it true that there is little correlation between reward and effort in Nigerian universities?

What kind of reward- promotion and its attendant economic value?

On a different, recent post, Chid Okpara decried the poor remuneration of Nigerian academics while Moses Ochonu is fixated on what he describes as the financial greed of ASUU.

Whose story is accurate?

thanks

toyin

On 18 September 2015 at 12:21, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>> wrote:
On Promotion Criteria in Nigerian Universities

Its important to distinguish truth from falsehood in Moses' summations on this subject :

'How the heck can you set a single salary structure for all academics on the same rank without regard to productivity, research distinction, and teaching excellence? It is a recipe for disaster. It is an outmoded incentive and compensation structure. It is killing teaching and research in the Nigerian university system. But an unimaginative ASUU clings to that template as though it is the capstone of a religious canon.

As for promotion being tied to publications, I advise you to go and look up the phrase "bean counting." That is what the NUC has inadvertently authorized in imposing a uniform set of publication metrics on all universities it supervises. Bean counting has become a scourge in the Nigerian university system. It is killing the system and many conscientious folks have already compellingly critiqued that growing phenomenon on this and other forums.'

I have explained why his trying to rope ASUU into this subject has no merit.

Secondly, it is not true that Nigerian universities operate in terms of "a single salary structure for all academics on the same rank without regard to productivity, research distinction, and teaching excellence?"

Academic promotions are gained through productivity and research distinction.

They are not automatic rewards bestowed regardless of achievement.

The publication criteria for each rung on the promotions ladder is spelt out.

These criteria may also be regularly reviewed upward, as was consistent from my observations at the University of Benin.

For the professorship, assessment was not only in terms of number of publications but research impact, assessed in terms of international range of dissemination of one's work, a criterion reinforced by the requirement of at least one assessor from outside the country.

Uniformity in Publication Metrics for Nigerian Universities

In what sense is uniformity of publication metrics for all Nigerian universities negative?

I understand England does the same for its universities, which have high global ratings.

Strategic Issues in Relation to Promotion Criteria in Nigerian Universities

There exist strategic issues in relation to promotion criteria in Nigerian universities which I earlier made the mistake of thinking Moses was addressing hence I gave some credence to his critique.

These are grounded in questions of the philosophical, social and economic factors shaping the development of knowledge in higher education.

I will try to address this later.

thanks

toyin

On Tue, Sep 15, 2015 at 8:07 PM, Samuel Zalanga <szal...@bethel.edu<mailto:szal...@bethel.edu>> wrote:
Someone earlier today mentioned with nostalgic feelings the high degree of intellectual exchange and fertile scholarly environment at Ibadan and I will say other universities as well in Nigeria of the past. I know as an undergraduate, I followed the debate between Yusuf Bangura and Yusuf Bala Usman. It was a debate that truly raised many insightful conceptual issues that I believe are still relevant today. That kind of stimulating intellectual environment is not available in many Nigerian universities today. The kind of vibrant debate that existed between John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich von Hayek in London School economics does to really exist in Nigeria today.

There may be good reasons for that, but the fact remains that the environment is not as intellectually stimulating as before. I can make very specific comments to back up my assertion by I will not do so because my goal is not to tarnish anyone's image. But at least I can say that when I taught this summer at UJ, I administered a course evaluation and I have it with me here. It is eye opening to me given that the students shared their thoughts freely.

The issue as I found out out is not that there no students that have intellectual curiosity. But for people to be intellectually curious, one has to create the appropriate environment. And when I say "appropriate and conducive environment" I mean many things. The more you know the more easier it is for you to learn. If students have excellent and thorough background or foundation in their discipline, and they understand the debates at a deeper level, it is far easier for them to be curious than people who in the first place have not been taught to grasp the issues.

I decided for one meeting to focus on neoliberalism and globalization and their impact on contemporary research in Africa. We did not discuss the two processes as mere economic discourses but that there is a moral philosophy and vision of humanity that is built into them. I was amaze at how the students started asking questions and they immediately could relate some of the public policies implemented or that are still being implemented in Nigeria to the vision of neoliberal utopia. We should bear in mind that according to the Social Science encyclopedia, there are utopias of the right and utopias of the left. Neoliberalism at its deeper and extreme level is a Utopian movement on the right. Through my interaction with the students, I learned that with patience, caring attitude and training, we can create a fertile ground for imagination and intellectual curiosity in Africa. It is something we can learn, nurture and encourage. This challenge is not just in Africa, it is even a problem in many communities or schools in the U.S. but our situation back in the continent is far more challenging.

With regard to scholarship as a vocation, note that in many Nigerian universities, recruitment is not just a function of merit now. This is not to say that recruitment tin the U.S. is not influenced by some other variables, but no institution here can operate sustainably with such a policy. In one story I heard, in one Nigerian university someone with second class lower division got employed as a graduate assistant while others with superior performance were ignored.

When you embrace your work as a vocation, it makes a huge difference. John Merrow did a documentary on teaching in California public schools by examining different kinds of mandated teaching methods or strategies,. His conclusion was that even if you get a bad philosophy or official teaching strategy, teachers who are committed to their work as a vocation, find a way to make it work and relatively succeed. But even if you have a situation where the facilities are available, and support is there but if the teacher has no passion in his or her work and does not see it as a vocation, the performance is poor.

There are a lot of things that can happen in an environment that can discourage or promote creative thinking, deep thinking, and intellectual curiosity. Too much hierarchy and authoritarianism or intimidation can discourage intellectual exploration. Anything that affects young people's ability to be imaginative can threaten intellectual curiosity. When you leave people hungry, worry about their survival because of serous threats owing to their gender, their ethnicity, religion etc. etc. then they will have to deploy a lot of their brain power and energy to think of survival issues. The more such brain power is wasted for such things, the less there is to be deployed in creative thinking thereby lowering their learning capacity and their intellectual development and imaginativeness. Such a situation may lower the potential intelligence of the students, no matter how you measure it. There are certain conditions that are more conducive for promoting creative thinking, intellectual curiosity and problem solving.

In one story I heard, in one Nigerian university, the professor according to his male students looks at attractive women in his class in a manner that leaves no doubt that he is committing what some call "lookry" or showing lust. The problem here is that just being a woman and being attractive can put the woman in some trouble because someone wants to sleep her for being a student. This by no means all faculty members do that. There are indeed great men of honor and respect.But as for the others, the question is: Is the woman going to deal with pursuing her education based on merit or how to manage or navigate such a situation?

The learning environment that produced some creative, imaginative and intellectually curious scholars in the past in Nigeria was not magical. There were certain things in place. Many African scholars in Diaspora perform better just because the environment allows them to do so relatively. If we can create such environments in Africa, we will see wonders.

I was shocked when one professor quoted the Bible telling me that too much critical analysis and evaluation of ideas is wrong because the bible says it is dangerous, presumably it will lead to arrogance or something like that. If we want to promote an intellectually curious environment, there are many ways we can promote it. At least we need to create a true marketplace of ideas where people encounter thinking that challenges their taken for granted worldviews .Research indicates that there are certain kinds of mothering that better promotes creative, logical and critical thinking in children than others.

The issue is not whether black people can be creative, intellectually curious and inquisitive, but rather whether we are willing to see a connection between factors and conditions that promote these virtues and whether or not, we are willing to sincerely invest resources for that and create organizations that incarnate such virtues.

Samuel

On Mon, Sep 14, 2015 at 2:22 AM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Thanks for those balanced comments, Gloria and Samuel.

Moses, who prevented you or any one else on this forum from doing a 'full critical audit' on ASUU?

Were your efforts in that regard prevented from being posted on the forum?

Your comments show little knowledge of ASUU's history.

It was ASUU, for example, that proposed to the govt the creation of an education trust fund, sourced by taxing companies, which I understand is the basis of the current TETFUND, which, after govt allocations I expect is the largest financial source for university funding.

ASUU had a history of pushing for broader social change in its negotiations with govt,up till the 1980s.

ASUU made academics in Nigeria gain some respectability only by decades of dogged fighting.

Is there any value in criticism of ASUU that is centred on ahistorical and total condemnation?

thanks

toyin






On 14 September 2015 at 04:00, Samuel Zalanga <szal...@bethel.edu<mailto:szal...@bethel.edu>> wrote:
Yes, indeed. Being there, seen that! With changes within ASUU members, the transformation in Nigeria's higher education will be phenomenal. They can help in holding corrupt administrators accountable.

Interestingly, many of the ASUU members went to school overseas and saw how the systems are functionally relatively well. They returned there and are professors and by virtue of that, members of the senate (a major administrative organ of the university), yet, not all of them are committed. One hardly gets impressed with commitment to scholarship as a vocation or the beauty of intellectual curiosity.

There are surely some that are committed but they are a minority. If Nigeria is going to change, it is only if Nigerians set a high standard for themselves, and hold themselves accountable that the country can begin to see a path forward. For most part, as Buhari long ago said, for most Nigerians, they do not have any place to migrate to. So it is better to remain and salvage the country.

Things can indeed improve if there is a higher level of commitment among the academic staff, not just in pursuit of their own interests but national interest, which includes the students'. I am glad that I started my university teaching here in the U.S. and have learned to always feel I am an ordinary mortal human being. It is one thing for a person to command the respect of others, but it is another to terrorize people to respect you. There is some aesthetic joy in learning to live and feel like a normal, regular human being.

Samuel

On Sun, Sep 13, 2015 at 8:43 PM, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com<mailto:meoc...@gmail.com>> wrote:
The NUC should step in and formulate a comprehensive sexual harassment policy to be adopted by all universities. Forget ASUU; they will not push for it.

ASUU will not comment on let alone lead the effort to combat the abuse of our female students by their members. Suddenly, all the ASUU stalwarts who tried in vain with their defensive loquaciousness to prevent us from doing a full critical audit on ASUU during their strike have gone quiet. You will not hear them condemn and call for a stop to this abominable rapes committed by their members. Quite frankly I won't be surprised if ASUU uses its funds and organizational muscle to help its accused rapist members escape sanctions.

When ASUU was busy fighting for largesse and making noise about trying to sanitize and improve the Nigerian higher education system, some of us laughed in derision and called them out on the deception. Many opportunities had presented themselves for ASUU to back up its hollow rhetoric of trying to improve the system. In each case, ASUU officials looked away, content to collect from government what they claim they deserve.

Here is an opportunity, a very cheap one, for ASUU to demonstrate to us that it indeed cares about improving learning, holding its members accountable, and giving our young people a safe space to come of age intellectually. But as usual, ASUU members have gone quiet. They will pretend not to have been following the gory cases of rape committed by their members. And they will pretend not to know that for every reported lecturer rape case on Nigerian campuses there are at least ten unreported ones.

In private some ASUU members condemn their colleagues for this crime of raping female students (a crime row which there are all kinds of euphemistic terms among the Nigerian university faculty), but will they push for meaningful sexual harassment policies that prescribe zero tolerance for sexual harassment and abuse by lecturers? NO!

What else is new? After all, did some ASUU members on this forum not tell us that in fact they, lecturers, are the real victims of sexual harassment, that their female students sexually harass them, and that they, not female students, deserve sympathy and protection? ASUU will not support the formulation, let alone the implementation, of sexual harassment policies by public universities.

Introduce a topic on this forum bashing government types for their familiar crimes and see how our ASUU academics will jump into the discussion excitedly with glib selective outrage. But here's a topic on the sexual atrocities that ASUU members use their positions to commit against their vulnerable students, a topic deserving our unqualified outrage. What's the reaction from our ASUU members? None. Ikhide is absolutely right; the accountability we seek has to start with us. ASUU is part of the problem of university education in Nigeria. I will continue to say it.

On Sun, Sep 13, 2015 at 5:18 PM, OLADMEJI ABORISADE <olaabo...@msn.com<mailto:olaabo...@msn.com>> wrote:
Dear Sirs,
This is sad. Indeed, a disgrace. NUC must borrow a leaf from the United States Institutions on how to handle cases of this nature. Individual concerned must be disciplined in line with academic law. Dismissal. Label the offender. Have the offender Register so that other Institutions may know. It is a serious form of corruption in Nigeria. It has to stop.
Thank you,
oladimeji aborisade.

________________________________
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2015 11:26:36 -0600
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Press Release - ASUU Take Note

From: jmb...@weber.edu<mailto:jmb...@weber.edu>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

CC: iheom...@yahoo.com<mailto:iheom...@yahoo.com>

It is important for Nigerian educational institutions to have clear and enforceable policies regarding sexual harassment and other forms of abuse of female students. However, it is even more important that national laws against these types of crimes be enforced and the perpetrators brought to book for their crimes. Apparently, the Nigerian national police and other law enforcement agencies are failing in their duties--it is their job to protect the integrity and safety of all Nigerians, including especially vulnerable groups. The continued sexual abuse of girls and women reflects poorly on us as a people and it is time for us to speak up. The NFF needs our support--the next woman or girl abused could be someone close to you.

Tel: +234 1 7615407
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[Samuel Zalanga]

And in addition to that the "God of the market" in America is not forgiving, and not as patient as the Abrahamic God. Implication: American educational system is by and large disciplined by the market. The market can teach a university system a bitter lesson and there are many examples.

 In effect there are many ways that universities in the U.S. receive feedback beyond just from the government or accreditation agency. I was told that one  professor said in the U.S., they will grant someone a Ph.D. because he has consumed too much resources in the department and even though is work is not fully up to standard, they will excuse him because "the market will take care of him. "

 The feedback from the marge is sometimes instant and it is unforgiving. In effect, university administrators or even faculty can be disciplined by the market to a great extent. That kind of market does not yet exist in Nigeria, otherwise it would clearly allow those doing bad things to fail.

Samuel

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Read the story (below) of the serial sexual predator, Professor Cyril Osim Ndifon who not only enjoyed immunity for his decades-long sexual predation but also rose to become the dean of the faculty of law at a major Nigerian public university, the University of Calabar. You will weep for female undergraduates in Nigerian universities, and you might agree with Ikhide that speaking obfuscatory grammar that complicates a straightforward matter of lecturers committing sexual crimes is an insult to the victims. This is gut wrenching. At least alumni groups, previous victims, and people of conscience are speaking out and trying to make sure that justice is done. We can continue to blame the victims, talk about training (training university lecturers to recognize that raping their students is an abominable crime that should put them in jail?), or we can advocate for ALL public and private universities to develop clear policies on sexual harassment and sexual predation with NUC guidance and ASUU buy-in, policies that demonstrate zero tolerance for taking sexual advantage of students, enforce termination for probable cause, and REQUIRE immediate reporting of offending lecturers to the police for prosecution. 

DEMAND FOR THOROUGH AND URGENT INVESTIGATION AND PROSECUTION OF PROF. CYRIL OSIM NDIFON OF THE FACULTY OF LAW, UNIVERSITY OF CALABAR FOR RAPE AND OTHER OFFENCES

September 14, 2015.

The Commissioner of Police,

Cross River State Command,

Calabar.

Dear Sir,

DEMAND FOR THOROUGH AND URGENT INVESTIGATION AND PROSECUTION OF PROF. CYRIL OSIM NDIFON OF THE FACULTY OF LAW, UNIVERSITY OF CALABAR FOR RAPE AND OTHER OFFENCES

Introduction

We are alumni of the Faculty of Law, University of Calabar, Calabar. We are all barristers and solicitors of the Supreme Court of Nigeria and are spread throughout Nigeria and well beyond. Professor Cyril Osim Ndifon, the disgraced and suspended Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Calabar, was one of our law lecturers. He taught us the course Nigerian Legal System sometime in the year 1999.

We heard with alarm the allegation that Professor Cyril Osim Ndifon raped Sinemobong Ekong Nkang, one of his students, following her refusal of his sexual overtures. While we know that by section 36 (5) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), a presumption of innocence inures in favour of anyone accused of having committed an offence, we note with dismay that the allegation is all too familiar and is an enduring theme of the over two-decades-old academic career of Prof. Ndifon. Ndifon’s victims number in the hundreds, if not thousands. Our own class, which is approximately 200-stong, teems with victims of his intimidation, sexual harassment and sexual predation.

The Facts of the Rape

Professor Cyril Osim Ndifon had scheduled a test for his 400-level Law of Equity & Trust class to be held on Saturday, August 29, 2015 in one of the halls of the Faculty of Law. The test held as scheduled. Forty minutes into a sixty-minute exercise, he entered the hall and asked everyone to hand in their answer booklets. As invigilators moved from desk to desk collecting scripts, those who were yet to be reached tried feverishly to round up their answers. Professor Ndifon walked up to one of these students, a 20-year-old girl whom he had been admiring for ages, grabbed her script and tore it to shreds, dumping the shreds on her desk. The hapless and totally bewildered girl gathered the shreds and stuffed them into her bag.

About half an hour later, she was on her way out of the faculty building and was bound for her hostel in the company of friends when Prof. Ndifon drove in. He had left shortly after the drama in the examination hall. On seeing her, he asked whether she still had her shredded answer script. Yes, she answered. Prof. Ndifon then asked her to gather them, get a fresh foolscap sheet of paper and go up to his office to copy out her original answers. She went up to his office where she met his secretary and two other persons. She explained her mission and was allowed to sit with them in the outer office to copy out her answers. The Dean’s office is on the first floor.

Shortly thereafter, Prof. Ndifon walked in. He directed her to go to his private office on the second floor so she could use the table there. She had been writing with the answer script placed on her thighs and had been uncomfortable. She gratefully went to his office on the floor above and settled down to work. About five minutes into her writing, Prof. Ndifon walked in with his trademark swagger. He had a glass of wine in his hand. He took a sip of it and, without swallowing it, asked a kiss of her. She declined and continued with her writing.

He went out. About five minutes later, he returned. This time, he locked the door and removed the key from the lock. To put the girl’s mind at ease, he told her he wanted to work and could do without distractions. He sat on his chair and seemed to be working when he suddenly stood up, walked up to the girl and solicited for a kiss. Again, the girl turned him down. He seemed to take her rejection in his strides and told her to go on with her writing. However, he remained restless. A few minutes later, he planted himself before her and tried to force her to drink his wine. When she again refused he poured some of it into his mouth and tried to force a wine-laden kiss on her. The girl fought him off, causing some of the wine to spill on the floor and on her clothes.

Determined to have some reward for his exertions, he dragged her from her seat to the settee a few metres away and told her pointblank that he wanted to have sex with her. She told him that she would not have sex with him. He tried to forcefully undress her. She screamed. With no one answering her screams, he undressed himself and fetched a condom from a shelf in his office. He put it on and, pinning her down, forced his manhood into her body, inflicting a great physical and emotional pain that was as brutal as it was mindless.

While he continued to hurt her, there was a knock at the door. The fellow knocked and went away, the footfall receding. Prof. Ndifon got off the body of his young victim, wore his clothes and helped her into her own clothes. He apologized profusely, telling her that he did not know what had come over him. He opened the door and went out. The girl looked round for her mobile phone so that she could place an SOS call. It was nowhere to be found. She went to the door and tried the handle. It was locked. In her traumatized state, she had not heard him locking it. With nothing to do, she imposed some composure on herself. She had gone there to write her test. She had to follow through as she was anxious not to fail the course of no less a lecturer than the Dean of the Faculty himself.

About thirty minutes later, her nightmare turned the key in the lock and entered. He was carrying a bottle of Guinness Stout which he opened and began to drink out of. He offered it to her but she declined. He tried to force the bottle into her mouth. Some of the drink entered her mouth which she promptly spat onto the floor. He took a swig of the bottle, dragged her close and forced the drink from his mouth into hers. Yet again, she spat it out on the floor.

He flew into a rage and ordered her to undress at the count of three. His victim had not eaten all day. Her ordeal lasted from around 3 to 5pm. She was very exhausted and told him as much. But Prof. Ndifon was having none of it. He counted to three. When his victim refused to obey him, he dragged her to the settee and, suing his knees to pinion her, ripped the zipper on her trousers. She was weak both from hunger and her ordeal and, in tears, pleaded with him to let her be. He was deaf to her entreaties. He told her that she was so great an actress that she could win an Oscar, assuring her he had met many girls like her in the past.

After more struggling, his weary victim was momentarily free. She got down on her knees and pleaded with him to let her go. He simply pushed her down, wore a condom and once again forced his manhood into her body. When he saw that she was at the point of losing consciousness, he got off her body and told her she could go. He offered to drop her off in his car. But she refused his offer. She got dressed and was staggering down the stairs when he caught up with her and asked her to carry his bag to his car. She complied. Only one of his staff was left. He assisted his boss to lock up the Dean’s office after which they drove off in Prof. Ndifon’s car.

By this time, all her friends and course mates who had been waiting for her had all left, except one who refused to leave. According Sinemobong, the said friend saw her

’’…in tears and rushed up to help me. He asked what happened to me, but I could not still put myself together to tell him what happened. I asked him to help dial my mother’s number in my phone, and I narrated briefly what Ndifon did to me. My friend, with the help of a Good Samaritan drove me to the Police Station where I made a written statement”.

The Issues

1. It is against university regulations for a lecturer to hold a test on a Saturday in a programme that is full time. The law programme is full time;

1. Assuming that the girl had been guilty of examination malpractice as alleged by Prof. Ndifon, tearing up her answer script was not the proper course of action to take as the university has a clear protocol for dealing with examination malpractice issues.

1. Assuming that the girl had been guilty of examination malpractice, Prof. Ndifon had no authority whatsoever to forgive her as she broke university rules, not his private rules. In asking her to re-copy the answers on a fresh sheet, he therefore acted ultra vires as a lecturer; and, in covering up a wrongdoing, he fell foul of university regulations. In fact, he broke extant law;

1. There is no satisfactory explanation for why Prof. Ndifon took the girl from his office as a Dean where there were two or three other people to his personal office as a lecturer– where there was absolutely nobody. The facts reveal that the girl had been carefully chosen as a target;

1. Prof. Ndifon had previously claimed that his sex with the girl was consensual. Assuming but not conceding that girl actually gave herself to him voluntarily, such consent is invalid at law as a presumption of undue influence inures against Prof. Ndifon considering his position as her course lecturer and also the Dean of the Faculty of Law;

1. Professor Ndifon has not been accused of anything that is not within his perverse and perverted nature.

Other Crimes

Prof. Cyril Osim Ndifon was a law undergraduate of the University of Calabar in the 1980’s. However, in his second or third year, the University rusticated him for cultism-related activities. He went to the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) where he later obtained his Bachelor of Law degree (LLB) and the University of Jos for his Master of Laws (LLM). We are dismayed that the University of Calabar eventually offered him a position as an academic staff and thus gave him a platform which he used to pursue his mischief for about two decades now.

It is our opinion that based on the character deficit which his rustication typifies; the University should not have employed him. There is thus no doubt in our minds that by its negligence or perhaps even outright refusal to carry out a thorough background check on Prof. Cyril Osim Ndifon, the University of Calabar unleashed an absolute monster on the hapless students of the University in general and students of the Faculty of Law in particular. The University of Calabar therefore shares direct blame in the unfortunate incident of August 29, 2015.

Prof. Cyril Osim Ndifon attended the Nigerian Law School. From our experience, we know that before a law graduate is offered admission by the School, he must fill out a form– which is on oath. Part of the information that the form seeks to elicit is whether the applicant had ever been rusticated from the university and whether he was or had ever been a secret cultist. An applicant who answers those questions in the affirmative is invariably denied admission. Considering that Prof. Cyril Osim Ndifon was offered admission and that he went on to pass out of the School, it is clear that he lied on oath.

Prof. Cyril Osim Ndifon is also an academic entrepreneur albeit in a negative sense. He carries on a thriving money-for-grades trade and habitually solicits for money from students in exchange for grades. In our time, one of his agents was our classmate. He habitually failed students who either refused to bow to his extortionist scheme or yield to his rabid sexual advances.

The Intrigues

Prof. Ndifon is a powerful man. He is a legal practitioner, a professor of law and a Dean of the Faculty of Law. He also has a huge sentimental capital. He is Cross River State’s first (and, to the best of our knowledge, only) Professor of Law. People in the highest echelons of power in the State and beyond are working hard to help him escape justice. They argue that Cross River State will be the loser if he falls from his exalted position. It does not matter to them that his sexual rapacity knows no tribe or tongue.

Prof. Ndifon himself has never been guilty of displaying any ethnic sentiments in his selection of victims. In fact, he has an eclectic taste: whether Igbo or Efik, Ejagham or Ibibio, Yoruba or Ijaw, Yakurr or Yala, everyone is fair game. Besides, it is disingenuous for anyone to suggest that Cross River State can be best served by a serial rapist. No glory can sprout from a foundation of shame and infamy. He is not an asset to Cross River State but rather a heavy liability.

Already, Prof. Ndifon and his proxies have taken to social media, especially Facebook, to plead his case. Firstly, they leaked the identity of the victim by publishing her name and picture; their aim is to traumatize her further into perpetual silence. All previous press reports had withheld the information as to the identity of the victim. Secondly, they have tried to shape the narrative in a way that casts the victim as a morally loose person. But that cannot stand. Even if a lady is a whore, it is no less rape for any man to have sexual intercourse with her without her consent.

Again, Prof. Cyril Osim Ndifon and his sympathizers are piling tremendous pressure on the girl to drop the case. They have also subjected her to threats and intimidation. In fact, her lawyers have taken up the matter of an Army captain who called the victim to threaten her.

Our Prayers

On the strength of the foregoing, we earnestly and respectfully urge on you the following demands:

1. That you thoroughly, professionally and impartially investigate the case of rape against Prof. Ndifon with a view to charging him to court to answer for his evil. His reputation as a skirt chaser, sexual harasser and rapist is the stuff of legends. For about two decades, the randy academic had blackmailed many female students into hopping onto his infamous table by threatening to frustrate their graduation from the law programme unless they had sex with him. The monster must be quarantined before he does more damage. The reign of impunity must stop.

1. That you liaise with the Nigerian Law School to investigate Prof. Cyril Osim Ndifon for perjury and to prosecute him for same.

1. That you bind Prof. Cyril Osim Ndifon over for good conduct to the end that no harm will come to any of the signatories to this petition.

We urge you to ensure that this matter is not compromised or even compounded. As the police often remind us, it is an offence to compound a felony. Rape is not a matter for amicable settlement. Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

The Law Class of 1997,

University of Calabar

Signatories:

1. Adamade, Odey Simon
2. Adula, Sampson Adula
3. Agi, Anne Uruegi
4. Ajara, Michael Ayambem
5. Akpanke, Richard
6. Akunefo, Tony
7. Amadi, Perpetua
8. Aniefiok, Tom Sunday
9. Ariku, Tom
10. Attoe, Bassey
11. Damba, CC
12. Effiom, Nnanke
13. Ekeng, Edem
14. Ekpo, Philip
15. Elezuo, Eziaku
16. Eyo, Glory
17. Ibia, Bassey
18. Igboanugo, Winifred
19. Inaku, John
20. Martins, Gloria
21. Mbu-Ogar, Chris Njar
22. Nsidibe, Brooks.
23. Ntui, Panam
24. Nuesiri, Daniel
25. Nwosu, Philip
26. Ofoha, John-Bede
27. Ondale, Innocent Ondale
28. Sokolo, Solomon
29. Ulaeto, Nelson
30. Unoh, Emenobazi Usetu
31. Urubulam, Daniel Iyo

Cc:

1. The Solicitor General, Ministry of Justice, Cross River State
2. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Ministry of Justice, Cross River State
3. The Inspector General of Police, Louis Edet House, Abuja.
4. Assistant Inspector General of Police, Zone 6 Headquarters, Calabar,
5. Director-General, Department of State Security, National Headquarters, Abuja
6. The Vice Chancellor, University of Calabar, Calabar
7. The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Abuja
8. The Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission, Abuja
9. The National President, Nigerian Bar Association
10. The Chairman, Nigerian Bar Association, Calabar Branch, Calabar
11. The Chairman, Council of Legal Education, Abuja
12. The Director-General, Nigerian Law School, Abuja
13. The Chairman, Legal Practitioners’ Disciplinary Committee, Abuja
14. FIDA, Abuja

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[BEN NWOSU]

Moses,

I hardly make submission on this listserve. But I am prompted to personally communicate you due to your very compelling narrative on the subject. I am myself a lecturer in Nigeria and had thought that what goes on within the country is only a local knowledge, but you have an impressive detail, interestingly.

A higher dimension of this problem is that students in several universities have accepted this pedagogy of the oppressed syndrome as appropriate and would hardly lift a finger against it. There are several cases of extortion of postgraduate (including undergraduates of course) students which when the concerned student completely denies when confronted. Of course the reason is clear - they want to avoid troubles that range from further punitive behaviours from their advisors to a gang up with their kind in the business of extortion. Besides, established cases that have been reported to University authorities are suppressed to the effect that the case is turned against the student who ultimately suffers severe academic  and other setbacks. I have a story of an instance in which a certain amount of money (bribe of course, because it was outside of fees set by the University) was demanded from a PhD candidate who was ready for viva and he could not afford it. One member of the gang that specializes in the extortion business within the Department where the student was enrolled bluntly advised the young man to go his (the student's) village and sell a land to raise the money which runs into hundreds of thousands. This is a mere tip of the iceberg. There are more awful stories that could be worse than this. Thus, living in denials about problem both renders it more complex and nurture intellectual dishonesty. I would salute your courage in confronting not only the issue, but also the rejectionists.

Best.

 

Ben Ugochukwu Nwosu, PhD
Lecturer
Department of Political Science
University of Nigeria
Nsukka

---

From: Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com>
To: USAAfricaDialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Sent: Saturday, 19 September 2015 2:28 PM

[kenneth harrow]

my university (michigan state u) recently had a "training" for all the faculty, which consisted in taking a long quiz and then getting the proper answers. the quiz involved questions about what was acceptable/legal behavior and what was not.
my own sense is that the university, having received some bad publicity concerning how they handled sex abuse cases, wanted to demonstrate to the federal govt that it was doing something about it.
and there were some figures or officials who somehow believed that by forcing all the faculty to read definitions of sexual abuse, they would become more sensitive to it, become more fearful of legal actions, change their behavior, change their minds??
i am 100% skeptical of actions like that this attempt to impose a regimen through the compulsions of legal processes, rather than to convince people to change by conversation or even shame. the problems of sexual abuse due to power should lead to prosecution when laws are violated. but it is a mindset which needs changing, and that won't be accomplished by law. i agree with gramsci that hegemony is needed, and to accomplish that is the work of long discussion, i.e., persuasion.
i would add that that work is always on-going.
ken

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Ben,

Thanks, but I actually don't consider my intervention courageous. After all, I am safely tucked away from the scene of the crimes so to speak and thus removed from the potential backlash that might befall a whistle-blowing Nigeria-based scholar from colleagues who would be miffed that the said scholar is exposing and bringing shame to the brood. For me the courageous people are people like you, who, despite being in the system, speak publicly against these abuses and ethical malfeasance. I know that it is not easy to do so, and that there is a culture of "mutual protection" in Nigerian academic settings, which isolates and thus punishes whistle-blowing, principled academics.

This past summer, in my stay at a university in Nigeria, I became privy to an egregious case of blatant extortion. In this case, the lecturer involved was so foolish as to make his monetary demand on the student in a text message, a message which the student saved and forwarded to the authorities. I was shown this text message. When the case came up, the student was subjected to all kinds of intimidation by other lecturers who were showing solidarity with the extortionist. 

Fearing retaliation and gang-up against him, the student nearly recanted the allegation despite the existence of the text message. It took the dogged and I must say lonely insistence on justice by one principled lecturer for the case to go forward. Even so, several committees set up to investigate the case deadlocked and could not recommend sanctions. Their strategy was to simply let the matter die. When this lone voice for justice pressed for clarity and finality to the investigation, she came under intense pressure from many of her colleagues. They told her to take it easy on the accused lecturer, that they knew he was guilty but that she should realize that he had a family to feed and that if he was terminated his family would suffer, etc. When I left Nigeria, the case was still stalemated and was clearly on the path of being quashed over the objection of this lone, principled lecturer.

Did I also mention that the student had in fact been failed because he could not afford to pay the demanded bribe? 

This student's future has virtually been destroyed, barring any extraordinary intervention from some powerful person, because he most certainly would never graduate as he would be failed in more courses and rendered ineligible for graduation for daring to speak out.

What I'm driving at is that, yes, you're absolutely right that student victims of extortion and sexual predation rarely report the offenders because they fear further victimization and a failure to graduate. Some of the predators even threaten their victims with non-graduation. Some use that threat to have their way with the female students in the first place. And yes, there are extremely few cases of predatory lecturers being disciplined by universities--being held accountable. The norm is to protect the lecturer involved and hope that the student accuser keeps quiet out of fear of being ganged-up on. In the case of sexual victimization, one also has to consider shame and stigma and a pervasive culture of male sexual infallibility as another obstacle in the way of coming forward to report these crimes.

Thanks for your courage and honesty. We need more voices like yours.

[Ikhide]

"my university (michigan state u) recently had a "training" for all the faculty, which consisted in taking a long quiz and then getting the proper answers. the quiz involved questions about what was acceptable/legal behavior and what was not.
my own sense is that the university, having received some bad publicity concerning how they handled sex abuse cases, wanted to demonstrate to the federal govt that it was doing something about it.
and there were some figures or officials who somehow believed that by forcing all the faculty to read definitions of sexual abuse, they would become more sensitive to it, become more fearful of legal actions, change their behavior, change their minds??
i am 100% skeptical of actions like that this attempt to impose a regimen through the compulsions of legal processes, rather than to convince people to change by conversation or even shame. the problems of sexual abuse due to power should lead to prosecution when laws are violated. but it is a mindset which needs changing, and that won't be accomplished by law. i agree with gramsci that hegemony is needed, and to accomplish that is the work of long discussion, i.e., persuasion."

Interesting perspective. Well, as I shared earlier, I just completed a 2-hour mandated online training on child sexual abuse, an initiative we were persuaded to implement after a couple or so of well publicized sexual abuse cases in our classrooms (we have 155,000 children, but one case is one case TOO MANY). We got incredibly bad press and it just seemed that the entire community of one million people was baying for our heads. We set up a stakeholder group and I believe they did incredible work, several good things came out of it, including the need for training for all. I thought the training was helpful for a number of reasons:

1. It exposed thousands of employees to the dizzying plethora of guidelines, rules, regulations, policies and laws out there and our culpability. It was news to many for instance that as employees working for a school system, they are legally required to report any suspicion they have of child abuse of any form.

2. In the 21st century, the demographics of our county has changed immensely. Folks come from places in and outside America where children and women are afforded second class status and are at the mercy of many misbehaving male adults. Training about expectations and consequences helps set the tone in the classroom and in the workplace, and hopefully, ultimately, at home. It can't hurt.

3. We live in a very litigious environment and ignorance is expensive. Our employees need to know the rules of engagement everywhere.

4. Finally, a judicious mix of training, dialogue, and enforceable laws go very far in modifying behavior and morality. The honor system can only do so much.

In the case of Nigeria, time is not on our side. Technology is now allowing victims to fight back. I am surprised that Ngerian university students have not set up their own Rate My Teacher Dot Com to pillory and affirm teachers as appropriate. Right now, they are having a great time skewering folks, and even mentioning names. Go read this thread I put up on my wall yesterday. Very interesting:

https://www.facebook.com/ikhide/posts/10154238720069616?pnref=story

What stops university authorities from setting up something that provides feedback from their students?

Ken, I do hope this email gets to you, this is my second try, I think someone hacked my account. I am sure it is not the yeye APC, SMH...


- Ikhide

 

Stalk my blog at www.xokigbo.com

Follow me on Twitter: @ikhide

Join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ikhide

---

From: kenneth harrow <har...@msu.edu>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2015 9:33 AM

[Obododimma Oha]

Really very disturbing. Shameful indeed. Many colleagues with whom I have discussed this issue are very sad and hope that this case would cause a change of attitude in the system. Personally, I am shocked that a professor of law was involved in such a mess! Of course, we know that some female students sometimes operate as "mercenaries" that ruin some vulnerable male lecturers. Given that any male lecturer could be a target, why go ahead and make yourself highly vulnerable? Why dig your own grave?

If a male lecturer has nothing else to think about except sex, why rape a student? (Oh, on a lighter mood, I hear that too much brainwork in academic life harms a man's sexual urge!) Many male lecturers are already  (probably) sexually doomed! So, our female students are safe! But, does a man even need to rape a woman when he could go out there and get those who are also looking for IT? He could have many wives, too, if he is dying for IT! What more, the lecturer's public image as alagba has improved!

Anyway, Ndifon is in deep shit. Other sexual monsters in Nigerian higher institutions, too. If Ndifon goes to jail for raping a student, you could imagine how the "government" of the jailbirds would receive oga professor rapist. Poor him.

-- Obododimma.

--
--
B.A.,First Class Honours (English & Literary Studies);
M.A., Ph.D. (English Language);
M.Sc. (Legal, Criminological & Security Psychology);
Professor of Cultural Semiotics & Stylistics,
Department of English,
University of Ibadan.

Fellow,
Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies,
University of Ibadan.

COORDINATES:

Phone (Mobile):
              +234 8033331330;
              +234 9033333555;
              +234 8022208008;
              +234 8073270008.
Skype: obododimma.oha
Twitter: @mmanwu
Personal Blog: http://udude.wordpress.com/

[dAme jOo]

I understand that at the University of Benin (Uniben), when female students complain about sexual harassment, they are told to "set up" the harasser in order to gather irrefutable evidence. How can the school administrators expect these girls (as young as 17 years old) to set up their lecturers who are often much more older and physically stronger without further endangering themselves?  There has to be a way for administrators to investigate complaints of sexual harassment/rape without placing the onus on the students to go on dangerous expeditions of evidence gathering. 

In 2013, Uniben took the welcome step of sacking some faculty members for sexually harassing and or extorting money from their students (see list below). On this list of ignoble men and women is one Dr. A. Jideonwo, who as far back as the 1980's was already notorious for preying on female students and failing those who refused to sleep with him. He will not only fail them, he would also get his friends and fellow predators to fail the same students in their courses. 

one of Jideonwo's victims right before he was sacked in 2013a 19 years old girl was so traumatized by his relentless sexual advances that she fell into a deep depression and wanted to drop out of Uniben at year 3 in the sciences to re-write Jamb and apply to study a different course at another University.  Imagine how many lives have been ruined by the likes of Jideonwo and how many budding female scientists have been traumatized into developing a phobia for the STEM fields in Nigeria. 

It is unconscionable that these despicable men and women received a slap on the wrist as punishment for their heinous crimes and are now free to apply for employment at other Universities where they can continue preying on students unabated. 

List of people sacked at Uniben (2013)

1. DR. ENDURANCE OPHORI - MICROBIOLOGY - SEX AND MONEY

2. MRS. AKORTHA - MICROBIOLOGY - MONEY
3. ENGR. GODFREY ARIAVE - MECHANICAL ENGINEERING - SEX AND MONEY
4. DR. FRANK OSAGIEDE - MATHEMATICS - SEX AND MONEY
5. MR. CHETE - COMPUTER SCIENCE - MONEY
6. DR. MIKE OMIOGBERALE - ZOOLOGY - MONEY
7. MR. ONI OJO - PHYSICS - SEX AND MONEY
8. ENGR. ALUYO - ENGINEERING - SEX AND MONEY
9. DR. A. JIDEONWO - CHEMISTRY - SEX
10. DR. CY ISIKHWENE - MATHS - SEX AND MONEY

Saludos,

joan

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Sexual harassment training only makes sense in the context of already existing sexual harassment policies as well as guidelines for handling it. In such a context, the training aims at acquainting employees with the policies, so that as Ikhide says no one can plead ignorance as an alibi for violating the policy and/or engaging in sexual harassment. In the absence of such policies, training is useless. In Nigeria, training would amount to putting the proverbial cart before the horse. More power to the University of Ibadan for developing a sexual harassment policy. They've moved to the sensitization and enforcement stages of the effort. I may be wrong--I am happy to be wrong--but my sense is that 95 percent of Nigerian public universities have no clear sexual harassment policies and so handling cases, which rarely come forward anyway, can be quite improvisational and discretionary. The universities without policies have to develop them urgently. And then we can talk about training.

The content of the policy is critical as well. As I stated earlier, a policy has to satisfy two basic conditions--be grounded in zero tolerance for sexual harassment, and require mandatory reporting to the police.

On the repetitive, circular nature of these discussion, I'll say that Ikhide has a point. Sometimes it is exasperating. In the aftermath of the last ASUU strike in 2013, I remember Professor Falola once saying that if ASUU was serious about helping to reform/improve the university system as they claimed, they now had a virtual encyclopedia of ideas, knowledge, diagnosis, and solutions on this forum to draw on. Has the ASUU leadership even bothered to look at the archive of this forum to access the rich, lengthy conversations we had on these issues in 2013? They got what they wanted from government and went back into hibernation and have barely been heard from. Other stakeholders like NUC and TETFUND are, like ASUU, stuck in the status quo of five yearly confrontational dramas about giving more money to lecturers. They remain out of the loop of these discussions.

So, unfortunately we keep having these same conversations, making the same points, albeit with new evidence and new scandals. There is also new momentum for accountability with social media naming and shaming campaigns and petitions now big factors in the struggle. The culprits and their enablers want to wish this discussion away. Nothing would please them more than for us to refrain from the discussion and keep the previous ones buried in the archive.

One final thing. The young college kids of today are using social media to rail against professorial misconduct, whether it's sexual predation or sorting or dereliction of duty or plain tyranny. In our days, we did not have that weapon. Ikhide, you mentioned the absence of a platform for anonymous student testaments on their lecturers, a Nigerian RateMyProfessor.com. Four or five years ago, I and another member of this forum discussed establishing such a platform, but we had a bigger, broader vision for it. We envisioned it as a place where, in addition to the usual teaching and commitment evaluations and comments, whole stories could be told by students about professorial predation and professorial mentorship--the good and the bad. I even discussed it with Sowore of Saharareporters, who was very interested in hosting such a platform. I got busy and the member I was trying to co-opt into the enterprise got busy too. He recently told me that we should revisit the project when he settles down at his new gig. No wahala. This is just to let you know, Ikhide, that I've been thinking for some time about going beyond our repetitious internet critique to actually do something about this problem, to put my money where my mouth is.

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Joan,

You have pointed to another dimension of the problem--lecturers who are disgraced from one university (shamed to resign as they are rarely terminated), can easily move across to another university for a fresh appointment. There are several examples, including several who were dismissed for lying about their education and certificates. A few years ago, it was reported that some notorious guy with face certificates had managed to secure appointments with three successive institutions despite having been found out and fired by his previous employer. The problem is twofold. One side of it is that the offenders and predators are rarely criminally prosecuted, so their dismissal or disgrace would not legally stigmatize them. The second part is the absence of some kind of database of lecturers dismissed or disgraced by various institutions, which institutions can search before appointing applicants coming from other institutions to positions.

[Ikhide]

"One final thing. The young college kids of today are using social media to rail against professorial misconduct, whether it's sexual predation or sorting or dereliction of duty or plain tyranny. In our days, we did not have that weapon. Ikhide, you mentioned the absence of a platform for anonymous student testaments on their lecturers, a Nigerian RateMyProfessor.com. Four or five years ago, I and another member of this forum discussed establishing such a platform, but we had a bigger, broader vision for it. We envisioned it as a place where, in addition to the usual teaching and commitment evaluations and comments, whole stories could be told by students about professorial predation and professorial mentorship--the good and the bad. I even discussed it with Sowore of Saharareporters, who was very interested in hosting such a platform. I got busy and the member I was trying to co-opt into the enterprise got busy too. He recently told me that we should revisit the project when he settles down at his new gig. No wahala. This is just to let you know, Ikhide, that I've been thinking for some time about going beyond our repetitious internet critique to actually do something about this problem, to put my money where my mouth is."

Moses, you are doing just fine. You have worked hard to become a respected voice among this generation of young people on social media. Your Facebook posts are extremely well sought after and the demand for your long form essays put paid to the lie that young people don't like to read. You wield your influence responsibly, you are doing exactly what I envisioned many on this forum would be doing, using the new platform to make a difference in the lives of young people. You are not the only one, there are a few others, but there are fewer still that have integrity and credibility and you are one. I ask you not to let up, many young folks look up to you for leadership. 

Social media is pretty much all we have for holding these people's feet to the fire. I hope that you can still collaborate with folks to set up what you just talked about. It is sorely needed and it is in the interest of these lecturers. As the thread on my wall indicates, these young folks are not waiting. They are naming names and doing their own rating. It is not pretty. 

Just read the comments about lecturers on my post on Facebook. It is not pretty. 

https://www.facebook.com/ikhide/posts/10154238720069616

- Ikhide

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

There have been several cases of sexual harassment by faculty in my university.

So about two years ago the university introduced an annual on-line course about
sexual harassment that all faculty must take annually. You get a certificate
of compliance at the end. The state of Connecticut was fully involved in
this.

The course or training seems similar to Michigan's.
I find it useful in that it clearly defines sexual abuse and the legal implications of abuse.
There are some technicalities that were brought up in the process.

This did not stop a recent case about two months ago. The faculty was arrested
and will be dismissed.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora

________________________________

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kenneth harrow [har...@msu.edu]

Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2015 9:33 AM

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Press Release - ASUU Take Note

1. It is against university regulations for a lecturer to hold a test on a Saturday in a programme that is full time. The law programme is full time;

1. Assuming that the girl had been guilty of examination malpractice as alleged by Prof. Ndifon, tearing up her answer script was not the proper course of action to take as the university has a clear protocol for dealing with examination malpractice issues.

1. Assuming that the girl had been guilty of examination malpractice, Prof. Ndifon had no authority whatsoever to forgive her as she broke university rules, not his private rules. In asking her to re-copy the answers on a fresh sheet, he therefore acted ultra vires as a lecturer; and, in covering up a wrongdoing, he fell foul of university regulations. In fact, he broke extant law;

1. There is no satisfactory explanation for why Prof. Ndifon took the girl from his office as a Dean where there were two or three other people to his personal office as a lecturer– where there was absolutely nobody. The facts reveal that the girl had been carefully chosen as a target;

1. Prof. Ndifon had previously claimed that his sex with the girl was consensual. Assuming but not conceding that girl actually gave herself to him voluntarily, such consent is invalid at law as a presumption of undue influence inures against Prof. Ndifon considering his position as her course lecturer and also the Dean of the Faculty of Law;

1. Professor Ndifon has not been accused of anything that is not within his perverse and perverted nature.

Other Crimes

Prof. Cyril Osim Ndifon was a law undergraduate of the University of Calabar in the 1980’s. However, in his second or third year, the University rusticated him for cultism-related activities. He went to the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) where he later obtained his Bachelor of Law degree (LLB) and the University of Jos for his Master of Laws (LLM). We are dismayed that the University of Calabar eventually offered him a position as an academic staff and thus gave him a platform which he used to pursue his mischief for about two decades now.

It is our opinion that based on the character deficit which his rustication typifies; the University should not have employed him. There is thus no doubt in our minds that by its negligence or perhaps even outright refusal to carry out a thorough background check on Prof. Cyril Osim Ndifon, the University of Calabar unleashed an absolute monster on the hapless students of the University in general and students of the Faculty of Law in particular. The University of Calabar therefore shares direct blame in the unfortunate incident of August 29, 2015.

Prof. Cyril Osim Ndifon attended the Nigerian Law School. From our experience, we know that before a law graduate is offered admission by the School, he must fill out a form– which is on oath. Part of the information that the form seeks to elicit is whether the applicant had ever been rusticated from the university and whether he was or had ever been a secret cultist. An applicant who answers those questions in the affirmative is invariably denied admission. Considering that Prof. Cyril Osim Ndifon was offered admission and that he went on to pass out of the School, it is clear that he lied on oath.

Prof. Cyril Osim Ndifon is also an academic entrepreneur albeit in a negative sense. He carries on a thriving money-for-grades trade and habitually solicits for money from students in exchange for grades. In our time, one of his agents was our classmate. He habitually failed students who either refused to bow to his extortionist scheme or yield to his rabid sexual advances.

The Intrigues

Prof. Ndifon is a powerful man. He is a legal practitioner, a professor of law and a Dean of the Faculty of Law. He also has a huge sentimental capital. He is Cross River State’s first (and, to the best of our knowledge, only) Professor of Law. People in the highest echelons of power in the State and beyond are working hard to help him escape justice. They argue that Cross River State will be the loser if he falls from his exalted position. It does not matter to them that his sexual rapacity knows no tribe or tongue.

Prof. Ndifon himself has never been guilty of displaying any ethnic sentiments in his selection of victims. In fact, he has an eclectic taste: whether Igbo or Efik, Ejagham or Ibibio, Yoruba or Ijaw, Yakurr or Yala, everyone is fair game. Besides, it is disingenuous for anyone to suggest that Cross River State can be best served by a serial rapist. No glory can sprout from a foundation of shame and infamy. He is not an asset to Cross River State but rather a heavy liability.

Already, Prof. Ndifon and his proxies have taken to social media, especially Facebook, to plead his case. Firstly, they leaked the identity of the victim by publishing her name and picture; their aim is to traumatize her further into perpetual silence. All previous press reports had withheld the information as to the identity of the victim. Secondly, they have tried to shape the narrative in a way that casts the victim as a morally loose person. But that cannot stand. Even if a lady is a whore, it is no less rape for any man to have sexual intercourse with her without her consent.

Again, Prof. Cyril Osim Ndifon and his sympathizers are piling tremendous pressure on the girl to drop the case. They have also subjected her to threats and intimidation. In fact, her lawyers have taken up the matter of an Army captain who called the victim to threaten her.

Our Prayers

On the strength of the foregoing, we earnestly and respectfully urge on you the following demands:

1. That you thoroughly, professionally and impartially investigate the case of rape against Prof. Ndifon with a view to charging him to court to answer for his evil. His reputation as a skirt chaser, sexual harasser and rapist is the stuff of legends. For about two decades, the randy academic had blackmailed many female students into hopping onto his infamous table by threatening to frustrate their graduation from the law programme unless they had sex with him. The monster must be quarantined before he does more damage. The reign of impunity must stop.

1. That you liaise with the Nigerian Law School to investigate Prof. Cyril Osim Ndifon for perjury and to prosecute him for same.

1. That you bind Prof. Cyril Osim Ndifon over for good conduct to the end that no harm will come to any of the signatories to this petition.

We urge you to ensure that this matter is not compromised or even compounded. As the police often remind us, it is an offence to compound a felony. Rape is not a matter for amicable settlement. Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

The Law Class of 1997,

University of Calabar

Signatories:

1. Adamade, Odey Simon
2. Adula, Sampson Adula
3. Agi, Anne Uruegi
4. Ajara, Michael Ayambem
5. Akpanke, Richard
6. Akunefo, Tony
7. Amadi, Perpetua
8. Aniefiok, Tom Sunday
9. Ariku, Tom
10. Attoe, Bassey
11. Damba, CC
12. Effiom, Nnanke
13. Ekeng, Edem
14. Ekpo, Philip
15. Elezuo, Eziaku
16. Eyo, Glory
17. Ibia, Bassey
18. Igboanugo, Winifred
19. Inaku, John
20. Martins, Gloria
21. Mbu-Ogar, Chris Njar
22. Nsidibe, Brooks.
23. Ntui, Panam
24. Nuesiri, Daniel
25. Nwosu, Philip
26. Ofoha, John-Bede
27. Ondale, Innocent Ondale
28. Sokolo, Solomon
29. Ulaeto, Nelson
30. Unoh, Emenobazi Usetu
31. Urubulam, Daniel Iyo

Cc:

1. The Solicitor General, Ministry of Justice, Cross River State
2. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Ministry of Justice, Cross River State
3. The Inspector General of Police, Louis Edet House, Abuja.
4. Assistant Inspector General of Police, Zone 6 Headquarters, Calabar,
5. Director-General, Department of State Security, National Headquarters, Abuja
6. The Vice Chancellor, University of Calabar, Calabar
7. The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Abuja
8. The Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission, Abuja
9. The National President, Nigerian Bar Association
10. The Chairman, Nigerian Bar Association, Calabar Branch, Calabar
11. The Chairman, Council of Legal Education, Abuja
12. The Director-General, Nigerian Law School, Abuja
13. The Chairman, Legal Practitioners’ Disciplinary Committee, Abuja
14. FIDA, Abuja

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https://mzagams.wordpress.com/2015/09/17/demand-for-thorough-and-urgent-investigation-and-prosecution-of-prof-cyril-osim-ndifon-of-the-faculty-of-law-university-of-calabar-for-rape-and-other-offences/

On Sat, Sep 19, 2015 at 7:15 PM, Samuel Zalanga <szal...@bethel.edu<mailto:szal...@bethel.edu>> wrote:
And in addition to that the "God of the market" in America is not forgiving, and not as patient as the Abrahamic God. Implication: American educational system is by and large disciplined by the market. The market can teach a university system a bitter lesson and there are many examples.

In effect there are many ways that universities in the U.S. receive feedback beyond just from the government or accreditation agency. I was told that one professor said in the U.S., they will grant someone a Ph.D. because he has consumed too much resources in the department and even though is work is not fully up to standard, they will excuse him because "the market will take care of him. "

The feedback from the marge is sometimes instant and it is unforgiving. In effect, university administrators or even faculty can be disciplined by the market to a great extent. That kind of market does not yet exist in Nigeria, otherwise it would clearly allow those doing bad things to fail.

Samuel

On Sat, Sep 19, 2015 at 12:33 PM, kenneth harrow <<mailto:har...@msu.edu>har...@msu.edu<mailto:har...@msu.edu>> wrote:
don't forget the "U.S. System" is enormously variable, from "teaching colleges" to Research One universities, to 2 yr colleges, etc.
each should be framed by the local constraints and ideals


On 9/19/15 10:51 AM, Moses Ebe Ochonu wrote:
Toyin,

Now we can have a productive discussion, since you're no longer simply dismissing my points and are actually engaging them. This is encouraging, since you don't solve a problem by dismissing or wishing it sway but by discussing it in an unfettered manner.

I actually don't think that a wholesale implementation of the US research valuation and/or promotion system in Nigeria would work. I talked about it only as a reference for alternative systems that work fairly well to check the problem of bean counting elsewhere. What I envisage for Nigeria is a hybrid of some sort. That is why I advocated a national GUIDELINE for both pay and promotion/publication metric, rather than a rigid, uniform national metric. Such a guideline would supply or recommend a range within which institutions can operate, but it would also give individual institutions room to reward good teaching and excellent research output and punish bad teaching and bad research commitment. At present there is no such latitude.

You mentioned England and Germany but I have friends in the British university system and no academic in that system will get away with not showing up for class for no legitimate reason, publishing in junk venues, and treating students like dirt.

I'm open to creative hybrid solutions, as long as they depart radically from the rotten status quo, but first we must acknowledge depth and scope of the problem. As long as we acknowledge the problem and the urgency of tackling it, we can brainstorm on innovative but indigenous solutions that take into account some of the socioeconomic and political factors you outlined.

Now let solution ideas pour in. No more denial.

On Sat, Sep 19, 2015 at 9:19 AM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Addition to Last Post

I agree that quality of teaching should be rewarded and neglect of teaching punished.

thanks

toyin

In Germany, a central example of this difference is the habilitation<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habilitation>, a scholarly book required for a permanent job in the university, to present a basic sense of my understanding of the role it played in the careers of such scholars as Martin Heidegger.

The habilitation requirement represents a unifying metric in the systems that use it, and it has produced a number of great works but its correlation with a specific time range has been described as slowing down progress of academics.

It is being reviewed<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v415/n6869/full/415257a.html>, however, as indicated by the linked article from 2002 and this from 1999<http://www.sciencemag.org/content/285/5433/1525.full?ck=nck>, in relation to the sciences.

This document from presents the current state at the Technische Universität München.<https://portal.mytum.de/archiv/kompendium_rechtsangelegenheiten/habilitationsordnung/engl.Vers._HabilO_mit_AES_13.12.05.pdf/view>

On 19 September 2015 at 11:17, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>> wrote:
What this discussion needs, Basil, is critical thinking, not an umpire marking scores or the mere taking of sides.

Uncritically presented anecdotal evidence, generalised to demonise an entire social system, which is Moses primary strategy, is worse than unhelpful.

In your wisdom you believe 'the last couple of years' is enough to reduce the generality of Nigerian universty academics to the monsters Moses depicts, in the abscence of large scale breakdown of society?

Do you have any exposure to how social systems work or any idea of the very system you are happy to belive the worst about just bcs someone spins stories of tales he claims he was told?

Moses has presented little in terms of fact.

Accounts of stories you are told are not fact.

They are hearsay.

One does not need to visit a Nigerian university to see through the limitations of Moses logic and the improbability of his fantastic claims.

His argument is that the Nigerian university academic is generally a monster, a distortion of rational humanity whom it would be an insult to animals to describe as bestial, feeding greedily on wealth gained througjh fraudlent means by ASUU from the federal govt, yet doing little or no research, little or no teaching and making preying on female students his primary occupation.

The height of the ludicrous.

When you are able to point out how I have changed the goal posts and desit from imputing false statements to me " I can also see you have now interjected "poor remuneration" to perhaps justify why teachers can't teach/research or why the Dean of Law somewhere stalks and rapes a student under his charge. Are you or whoever raised it initially for real?" then we can discuss.

Do you have any opinions of yours on this subject that will not require piggybacking on Toyin or Moses?

On what grounds do such opinions stand- empirical evidence, hearsay or logical examination of issues?

Thanks

toyin

On 18 September 2015 at 16:41, 'basil ugochukwu' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <<mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com>usaafric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com>> wrote:
Toyin,

I have followed much your exchanges with Moses and my conclusion is that you are living inside an unrealistic bubble. You have to come out of there quickly if your goal is to help the Nigerian University system. The system needs a lot of help and you know it. So it is a disservice to the search for solutions if all you do is dismiss relevant anecdotal experiences while bringing none to the table. Or when it pleases you bring up your undergraduate experience at the University of Benin of donkey years ago in the context of a rot that has escalated over the last couple of years. I also see that each time you raise a query and Moses answers, you shift the goal post without responding to the answers he provided for your own queries. First you say Moses has no "experience" of the system. When he deploys facts that prove otherwise you quickly change it to he has not "lived" the experience. That's disingenuous on your part. Nothing in the exchanges I have read remotely even suggests that you have had any recent interaction with the system you are defending or "lived" it beyond those years you spent at UniBen as student and Lecturer. By your own logic you shouldn't say anything because you have also not "lived" the issue being discussed. Or you "lived" it donkey years ago. When was the last time you visited a Nigerian University?

I can also see you have now interjected "poor remuneration" to perhaps justify why teachers can't teach/research or why the Dean of Law somewhere stalks and rapes a student under his charge. Are you or whoever raised it initially for real?

Basil


________________________________

From: Oluwatoyin Adepoju <<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>>
To: USAAfricaDialogue <<mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com>usaafric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com>>

Sent: Friday, September 18, 2015 7:45 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Press Release - ASUU Take Note

Beautiful summation from Samuel Zalanga.
We need to hear more voices of academics in Nigerian universities.

Much of what we are hearing on this forum is people either speaking on behalf of those academics,recounting their experiences of some years ago in the system, or summing up what are described as recent experiences of a system they visit but dont live in.

Is it true that there is little correlation between reward and effort in Nigerian universities?

What kind of reward- promotion and its attendant economic value?

On a different, recent post, Chid Okpara decried the poor remuneration of Nigerian academics while Moses Ochonu is fixated on what he describes as the financial greed of ASUU.

Whose story is accurate?

thanks

toyin

On 18 September 2015 at 12:21, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>> wrote:
On Promotion Criteria in Nigerian Universities

Its important to distinguish truth from falsehood in Moses' summations on this subject :

'How the heck can you set a single salary structure for all academics on the same rank without regard to productivity, research distinction, and teaching excellence? It is a recipe for disaster. It is an outmoded incentive and compensation structure. It is killing teaching and research in the Nigerian university system. But an unimaginative ASUU clings to that template as though it is the capstone of a religious canon.

As for promotion being tied to publications, I advise you to go and look up the phrase "bean counting." That is what the NUC has inadvertently authorized in imposing a uniform set of publication metrics on all universities it supervises. Bean counting has become a scourge in the Nigerian university system. It is killing the system and many conscientious folks have already compellingly critiqued that growing phenomenon on this and other forums.'

I have explained why his trying to rope ASUU into this subject has no merit.

Secondly, it is not true that Nigerian universities operate in terms of "a single salary structure for all academics on the same rank without regard to productivity, research distinction, and teaching excellence?"

Academic promotions are gained through productivity and research distinction.

They are not automatic rewards bestowed regardless of achievement.

The publication criteria for each rung on the promotions ladder is spelt out.

These criteria may also be regularly reviewed upward, as was consistent from my observations at the University of Benin.

For the professorship, assessment was not only in terms of number of publications but research impact, assessed in terms of international range of dissemination of one's work, a criterion reinforced by the requirement of at least one assessor from outside the country.

Uniformity in Publication Metrics for Nigerian Universities

In what sense is uniformity of publication metrics for all Nigerian universities negative?

I understand England does the same for its universities, which have high global ratings.

Strategic Issues in Relation to Promotion Criteria in Nigerian Universities

There exist strategic issues in relation to promotion criteria in Nigerian universities which I earlier made the mistake of thinking Moses was addressing hence I gave some credence to his critique.

These are grounded in questions of the philosophical, social and economic factors shaping the development of knowledge in higher education.

I will try to address this later.

thanks

toyin

On Tue, Sep 15, 2015 at 8:07 PM, Samuel Zalanga <<mailto:szal...@bethel.edu>szal...@bethel.edu<mailto:szal...@bethel.edu>> wrote:
Someone earlier today mentioned with nostalgic feelings the high degree of intellectual exchange and fertile scholarly environment at Ibadan and I will say other universities as well in Nigeria of the past. I know as an undergraduate, I followed the debate between Yusuf Bangura and Yusuf Bala Usman. It was a debate that truly raised many insightful conceptual issues that I believe are still relevant today. That kind of stimulating intellectual environment is not available in many Nigerian universities today. The kind of vibrant debate that existed between John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich von Hayek in London School economics does to really exist in Nigeria today.

There may be good reasons for that, but the fact remains that the environment is not as intellectually stimulating as before. I can make very specific comments to back up my assertion by I will not do so because my goal is not to tarnish anyone's image. But at least I can say that when I taught this summer at UJ, I administered a course evaluation and I have it with me here. It is eye opening to me given that the students shared their thoughts freely.

The issue as I found out out is not that there no students that have intellectual curiosity. But for people to be intellectually curious, one has to create the appropriate environment. And when I say "appropriate and conducive environment" I mean many things. The more you know the more easier it is for you to learn. If students have excellent and thorough background or foundation in their discipline, and they understand the debates at a deeper level, it is far easier for them to be curious than people who in the first place have not been taught to grasp the issues.

I decided for one meeting to focus on neoliberalism and globalization and their impact on contemporary research in Africa. We did not discuss the two processes as mere economic discourses but that there is a moral philosophy and vision of humanity that is built into them. I was amaze at how the students started asking questions and they immediately could relate some of the public policies implemented or that are still being implemented in Nigeria to the vision of neoliberal utopia. We should bear in mind that according to the Social Science encyclopedia, there are utopias of the right and utopias of the left. Neoliberalism at its deeper and extreme level is a Utopian movement on the right. Through my interaction with the students, I learned that with patience, caring attitude and training, we can create a fertile ground for imagination and intellectual curiosity in Africa. It is something we can learn, nurture and encourage. This challenge is not just in Africa, it is even a problem in many communities or schools in the U.S. but our situation back in the continent is far more challenging.

With regard to scholarship as a vocation, note that in many Nigerian universities, recruitment is not just a function of merit now. This is not to say that recruitment tin the U.S. is not influenced by some other variables, but no institution here can operate sustainably with such a policy. In one story I heard, in one Nigerian university someone with second class lower division got employed as a graduate assistant while others with superior performance were ignored.

When you embrace your work as a vocation, it makes a huge difference. John Merrow did a documentary on teaching in California public schools by examining different kinds of mandated teaching methods or strategies,. His conclusion was that even if you get a bad philosophy or official teaching strategy, teachers who are committed to their work as a vocation, find a way to make it work and relatively succeed. But even if you have a situation where the facilities are available, and support is there but if the teacher has no passion in his or her work and does not see it as a vocation, the performance is poor.

There are a lot of things that can happen in an environment that can discourage or promote creative thinking, deep thinking, and intellectual curiosity. Too much hierarchy and authoritarianism or intimidation can discourage intellectual exploration. Anything that affects young people's ability to be imaginative can threaten intellectual curiosity. When you leave people hungry, worry about their survival because of serous threats owing to their gender, their ethnicity, religion etc. etc. then they will have to deploy a lot of their brain power and energy to think of survival issues. The more such brain power is wasted for such things, the less there is to be deployed in creative thinking thereby lowering their learning capacity and their intellectual development and imaginativeness. Such a situation may lower the potential intelligence of the students, no matter how you measure it. There are certain conditions that are more conducive for promoting creative thinking, intellectual curiosity and problem solving.

In one story I heard, in one Nigerian university, the professor according to his male students looks at attractive women in his class in a manner that leaves no doubt that he is committing what some call "lookry" or showing lust. The problem here is that just being a woman and being attractive can put the woman in some trouble because someone wants to sleep her for being a student. This by no means all faculty members do that. There are indeed great men of honor and respect.But as for the others, the question is: Is the woman going to deal with pursuing her education based on merit or how to manage or navigate such a situation?

The learning environment that produced some creative, imaginative and intellectually curious scholars in the past in Nigeria was not magical. There were certain things in place. Many African scholars in Diaspora perform better just because the environment allows them to do so relatively. If we can create such environments in Africa, we will see wonders.

I was shocked when one professor quoted the Bible telling me that too much critical analysis and evaluation of ideas is wrong because the bible says it is dangerous, presumably it will lead to arrogance or something like that. If we want to promote an intellectually curious environment, there are many ways we can promote it. At least we need to create a true marketplace of ideas where people encounter thinking that challenges their taken for granted worldviews .Research indicates that there are certain kinds of mothering that better promotes creative, logical and critical thinking in children than others.

The issue is not whether black people can be creative, intellectually curious and inquisitive, but rather whether we are willing to see a connection between factors and conditions that promote these virtues and whether or not, we are willing to sincerely invest resources for that and create organizations that incarnate such virtues.

Samuel

On Mon, Sep 14, 2015 at 2:22 AM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>toyink...@gmail.com<mailto:toyink...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Thanks for those balanced comments, Gloria and Samuel.

Moses, who prevented you or any one else on this forum from doing a 'full critical audit' on ASUU?

Were your efforts in that regard prevented from being posted on the forum?

Your comments show little knowledge of ASUU's history.

It was ASUU, for example, that proposed to the govt the creation of an education trust fund, sourced by taxing companies, which I understand is the basis of the current TETFUND, which, after govt allocations I expect is the largest financial source for university funding.

ASUU had a history of pushing for broader social change in its negotiations with govt,up till the 1980s.

ASUU made academics in Nigeria gain some respectability only by decades of dogged fighting.

Is there any value in criticism of ASUU that is centred on ahistorical and total condemnation?

thanks

toyin






On 14 September 2015 at 04:00, Samuel Zalanga <<mailto:szal...@bethel.edu>szal...@bethel.edu<mailto:szal...@bethel.edu>> wrote:
Yes, indeed. Being there, seen that! With changes within ASUU members, the transformation in Nigeria's higher education will be phenomenal. They can help in holding corrupt administrators accountable.

Interestingly, many of the ASUU members went to school overseas and saw how the systems are functionally relatively well. They returned there and are professors and by virtue of that, members of the senate (a major administrative organ of the university), yet, not all of them are committed. One hardly gets impressed with commitment to scholarship as a vocation or the beauty of intellectual curiosity.

There are surely some that are committed but they are a minority. If Nigeria is going to change, it is only if Nigerians set a high standard for themselves, and hold themselves accountable that the country can begin to see a path forward. For most part, as Buhari long ago said, for most Nigerians, they do not have any place to migrate to. So it is better to remain and salvage the country.

Things can indeed improve if there is a higher level of commitment among the academic staff, not just in pursuit of their own interests but national interest, which includes the students'. I am glad that I started my university teaching here in the U.S. and have learned to always feel I am an ordinary mortal human being. It is one thing for a person to command the respect of others, but it is another to terrorize people to respect you. There is some aesthetic joy in learning to live and feel like a normal, regular human being.

Samuel

On Sun, Sep 13, 2015 at 8:43 PM, Moses Ebe Ochonu <<mailto:meoc...@gmail.com>meoc...@gmail.com<mailto:meoc...@gmail.com>> wrote:
The NUC should step in and formulate a comprehensive sexual harassment policy to be adopted by all universities. Forget ASUU; they will not push for it.

ASUU will not comment on let alone lead the effort to combat the abuse of our female students by their members. Suddenly, all the ASUU stalwarts who tried in vain with their defensive loquaciousness to prevent us from doing a full critical audit on ASUU during their strike have gone quiet. You will not hear them condemn and call for a stop to this abominable rapes committed by their members. Quite frankly I won't be surprised if ASUU uses its funds and organizational muscle to help its accused rapist members escape sanctions.

When ASUU was busy fighting for largesse and making noise about trying to sanitize and improve the Nigerian higher education system, some of us laughed in derision and called them out on the deception. Many opportunities had presented themselves for ASUU to back up its hollow rhetoric of trying to improve the system. In each case, ASUU officials looked away, content to collect from government what they claim they deserve.

Here is an opportunity, a very cheap one, for ASUU to demonstrate to us that it indeed cares about improving learning, holding its members accountable, and giving our young people a safe space to come of age intellectually. But as usual, ASUU members have gone quiet. They will pretend not to have been following the gory cases of rape committed by their members. And they will pretend not to know that for every reported lecturer rape case on Nigerian campuses there are at least ten unreported ones.

In private some ASUU members condemn their colleagues for this crime of raping female students (a crime row which there are all kinds of euphemistic terms among the Nigerian university faculty), but will they push for meaningful sexual harassment policies that prescribe zero tolerance for sexual harassment and abuse by lecturers? NO!

What else is new? After all, did some ASUU members on this forum not tell us that in fact they, lecturers, are the real victims of sexual harassment, that their female students sexually harass them, and that they, not female students, deserve sympathy and protection? ASUU will not support the formulation, let alone the implementation, of sexual harassment policies by public universities.

Introduce a topic on this forum bashing government types for their familiar crimes and see how our ASUU academics will jump into the discussion excitedly with glib selective outrage. But here's a topic on the sexual atrocities that ASUU members use their positions to commit against their vulnerable students, a topic deserving our unqualified outrage. What's the reaction from our ASUU members? None. Ikhide is absolutely right; the accountability we seek has to start with us. ASUU is part of the problem of university education in Nigeria. I will continue to say it.

On Sun, Sep 13, 2015 at 5:18 PM, OLADMEJI ABORISADE <<mailto:olaabo...@msn.com>olaabo...@msn.com<mailto:olaabo...@msn.com>> wrote:
Dear Sirs,
This is sad. Indeed, a disgrace. NUC must borrow a leaf from the United States Institutions on how to handle cases of this nature. Individual concerned must be disciplined in line with academic law. Dismissal. Label the offender. Have the offender Register so that other Institutions may know. It is a serious form of corruption in Nigeria. It has to stop.
Thank you,
oladimeji aborisade.

________________________________
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2015 11:26:36 -0600
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Press Release - ASUU Take Note

From: <mailto:jmb...@weber.edu> jmb...@weber.edu<mailto:jmb...@weber.edu>
To: <mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com> usaafric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
CC: <mailto:iheom...@yahoo.com> iheom...@yahoo.com<mailto:iheom...@yahoo.com>

It is important for Nigerian educational institutions to have clear and enforceable policies regarding sexual harassment and other forms of abuse of female students. However, it is even more important that national laws against these types of crimes be enforced and the perpetrators brought to book for their crimes. Apparently, the Nigerian national police and other law enforcement agencies are failing in their duties--it is their job to protect the integrity and safety of all Nigerians, including especially vulnerable groups. The continued sexual abuse of girls and women reflects poorly on us as a people and it is time for us to speak up. The NFF needs our support--the next woman or girl abused could be someone close to you.

Tel: +234 1 7615407
Email: <mailto:n...@alliancesforafrica.org> n...@alliancesforafrica.org<mailto:n...@alliancesforafrica.org>, <mailto:nigerian...@gmail.com> nigerian...@gmail.com<mailto:nigerian...@gmail.com>
Facebook: <http://www.facebook.com/nigerianfeministforum> www.facebook.com/nigerianfeministforum<http://www.facebook.com/nigerianfeministforum>
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About the NFF;
The Nigerian Feminist Forum is a biennial conference that brings together Nigerian feminist activists to deliberate on issues of key concern to the movement.




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kenneth w. harrow
faculty excellence advocate
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
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room C-614 wells hall
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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

'But, does a man even need to rape a woman when he could go out there and get those who are also looking for IT? He could have many wives, too, if he is dying for IT! '

Obododimma Oha

I think academics also would benefit from mutual mentoring on this subject.

They need to share information on intelligent behaviour.

 I consider it a sign of poor social skills to prey on weaker people in seeking satisfaction of one's needs,  particularly when those needs can be met without such destructive behaviour.

I think it is almost impossible, in an academic setting, not to get free sex, particularly  as a teacher.

So, why get it by force?

An academic friend of mine in a university in England, telling me of accounts by a colleague of his, says the lecturer will  always  attract sexual attention, but the problem with the extortionists  is that they wont to be play an excessive  role in determining  how this resource is  provided.

The teacher needs to operate in this context with a degree of both passivity and action.

If you want attention, make yourself attractive.

Dress  smartly. Use good deodorant and possibly aftershave and perfumes.

Also make yourself intellectually attractive.

Intellect is power, with its own sex appeal.

The attention you will attract might then mean you will need to be particularly selective.

Beware of relationships with your students. The pitfalls are too many.

You could  also put an eye on the various female  communities outside your direct influence, thereby avoiding conflicts of interests-people in other depts, other schools, etc.

Practical solutions for situations that will not go away.

thanks

toyin

On 21 September 2015 at 14:31, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com> wrote:

Stories from Nigerian Universities

   

20/09/2015 15:09

Frank Ugiomoh

    Professor of Art History and Theory, University of Port Harcourt

    Dear Toyin: I am fine and to hope that you are too.

 

     I read some response to your post on the  university.

 

    The responses were exaggerated and appears to emanate from non academic students.

 

    Yes such demands make the round in the universities no doubt.

 

     But where students have the courage to report such and they are found to be true, such teachers loose their jobs.

 

     I chair the Professional Ethics Committee (PEC) in my university.

 

    We investigate unethical conducts.

 

    Cheers.

On 21 September 2015 at 14:26, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <toyink...@gmail.com> wrote:

Please Read Responses on Ikhide's Wall

Nigerian Universities On My Mind

If you dont have a Facebook account, get one.

Ikhide asks students to sum up their Nigerian university education, giving it a grade. People are also asked to name their best and worst lecturers. He asks for their views on ASUU.  Finally, what are their views on sexual harassment by teachers- is it an epidemic?

The entire exchange between Ikhide and his respondents sums up my position.

Question : what is the state of health of Nigerian university education?

Is it defined by good or evil or something in between?

It would seem the jury is out on this.

thanks

toyin

...

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[Ibukunolu A Babajide]

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About the NFF;

The Nigerian Feminist Forum is a biennial conference that brings together Nigerian feminist activists to deliberate on issues of key concern to the movement.

 

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