Education
Varsity Crises: Beyond the Façade of Under-funding
By Chiawo Nwankwo
Watching the bedlam in the universities and the ruling elite looking inured is a tinderbox, which many of them have not appreciated just yet. Nigeria’s future is really bleak with this drama, despite all pretensions to the contrary.
The blocking of major highways, especially that of Ife-Ibadan and Benin-Ore, by irate undergraduates, de-mobilising security personnel in the process, and soldiers firing gunshots to disperse them in Ondo State on Tuesday, points to the possibility of carnage being in the mix soon. This should not be allowed to happen.Many observers had hoped that with the Chief of Staff to the President, Professor Ibrahim Gambari’s replacement of the embattled minister of Labour, Chris Ngige recently, as the chief negotiator, in a slew of meetings to resolve the trade dispute between the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and government, a bargain was well-nigh.
Any such optimism seems to have been misplaced as things stand. Even if a rapprochement is reached by the time you read this piece, it won’t change anything. The truth, and sadly so, is that the crisis has become an incubus. Besides ASUU, at the meeting were representatives of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities; Non-Academic Staff Union and the National Association of Academic Technologists – a tri-dilemma that indicates the depth of the miasma.
Curiously, the meeting ended with the usual official rhapsody: “We reached some agreements and we hope that by next week (this week), those agreements will start maturing,” said the minister. This sounds like déjà vu. Between 2009 and now, a countless number of such understandings have been reached. But if similar memoranda of understanding in the past had been effective, the universities would not have been shut since March 14.
At issue is the implementation of the 2009 agreement the Federal government reached with ASUU, which was renegotiated in 2013, for which N200 billion was released for the revitalisation of universities. A yearly release of this amount for five years, payment of “earned allowances” in excess of N284 billion in arrears, adoption of the UTAS payment platform, and increase in salary are among the charter of demands.
As it is well known, universities are pivotal to knowledge production through research, teaching and learning in developed societies all over the world. Sadly, the picture in Nigeria is different. Education enjoys no priority attention. And for evidence, look no further than the infrastructural decay in our presumed intellectual saloons: ill-equipped libraries and laboratories; shortage of classrooms; the paucity of research funds, dearth of skilled manpower and mismanagement of resources. What has complicated the matter is the proliferation of universities by federal and state governments, which some private rentier buccaneers have completed. Imagine 303 applications to the National Universities Commission (NUC) in 2019 from private individuals to set up “universities!”
The rot in public universities led to the 2012 Needs Assessment of Universities, which confirmed already known notorious facts. When the report was presented to the Federal Executive Council meeting under Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency, its attention was drawn to the fact that “students cannot get accommodation, where they get (it), they are packed like sardines in a tiny room,” and “No light and water in hostels, classrooms and laboratories,” among other shortcomings.
Yet, between 2011 and 2013, that regime set up 12 universities, nine of them in 2011, which it barely funded. It is ironic that President Muhammadu Buhari, who on assuming office, citing lack of funds, reversed the university status of Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Yaba College of Technology, Adeyemi College of Education, and College of Education, Kaduna, which President Jonathan had upgraded in the twilight of his tenure, could then proceed to surpass his predecessor’s folly.
His regime has not only ensured the establishment of a University of Transportation in Daura, his home town, but it also approved the creation of universities for the Army, Navy, Air Force and the Police, in addition to the Nigeria Defence Academy, which has university status. The National Assembly too has an Institute for Legislative Studies, producing degrees. At the last count, Nigeria has 45 federal universities, 54 owned by states and another 99 established by private individuals and organisations.
States have embraced this recklessness, among them Lagos and Delta States, with three and four universities respectively, despite their underfunding of existing ones. This explains why the ASUU jeremiad will not abate. It benumbs to hear a university professor at the highest salary bar, declare that N427,000 is his monthly income. This kills morale, hampers dedication to duty, and discourages brilliant young minds
With the humongous amount of funds needed to breathe life into the universities, if they are to be counted among the league of worthy citadels of learning globally, it is time a genuine national emergency is declared on education in Nigeria. The state of the union, in my view, suggests that government alone cannot provide all the funds required to run tertiary institutions.
The best universities we all envy didn’t achieve their statuses through such a financial model. It follows, therefore, that addressing the problem should be a shared responsibility between the government and parents. A denial of this reality smacks of playing the ostrich. Also, the corporate world, declaring hundreds of billions of naira in quarterly profits, amid a sclerotic economic climate, should be encouraged to contribute more.
Regrettably, there is enough blame to go round over the slough the universities are into. The Federal Government and the states are always the most criticised, and for obvious reasons, each time there is a public debate on the subject, to the exclusion of the universities. It is a squinty perception of the issue that doesn’t help the ivory tower. ASUU’s stratagem, as far as I am concerned, has been at best tepid and unconvincing since the struggle to enforce the 2009 agreement began.
Take, for instance, its predilection to fall for tokenism each time the government dangled a part of the so-called “earned allowances”, thereby betraying the bigger picture of ensuring the total rebirth of the system. What is needed to rewire the DNA of the system is not the drivel of rough policy patches, but a radical departure that will rupture the system for its own good. The Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, once suggested one of such options – closing down the universities for two years to fashion out a renaissance, the Ghanaian way. But nobody listened. The affliction of universities is gangrenous. Such an ailment requires a decisive surgery; it is like a revolution, which sometimes devours its own children for effect.
Quite frankly, the assumption that funding our universities to the desired level will be the only magic bullet is a farce, going by available evidence. Many university administrators are not in any way different from rogue public office holders in material acquisition.
Peter Okebukola, a professor and former executive secretary of the National Universities Commission, in dissecting the rot in the universities a few years ago, inadvertently noted this when he said: “Universities need to be in the hands of managers who can run the institutions efficiently and prudentially manage resources.” The universities that boast such quality managers are scarce. It is why a cocktail of abuses of university tradition, corruption, diversion of funds, and the hiding of financial records from governing councils, are rampant in our universities.
As regulatory bodies confirm, almost every public university admits students beyond its carrying capacity. This makes the delivery of quality instruction and evaluation of students a sham. Just in March, Professor Oloyede of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) raised the alarm about the discovery of one million illegal admissions. Only less than five per cent of beneficiaries of this perversity have been uploaded on the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) portal to qualify them for national service.
To correct this anomaly, the minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, had to legalise the admissions on the basis of appeals to enable those who have graduated to partake in the NYSC scheme. In 2016, the same NUC indicted 37 universities for running 150 illegal or unapproved courses, spanning engineering, humanities, law, sciences and education. This explains why lecture halls are filled up like political rallies, with students sitting on the bare floor and half of them peeping in from windows outside. The corrosive effect of these absurdities on existing infrastructure and university ethos stick out like a sore thumb.
I wonder what the Professor Emmanuel Osodeke-ASUU can make of Professor Oyewale Tomori’s 2016 philippic, during the University of Abuja Convocation Lecture, that NUC accreditations of courses in universities are allegedly compromised: “When there are allegations that some of the people who conduct accreditation exercise in the name of NUC receive brown envelopes, the NUC will ask: Are those who give or take the envelopes not your colleagues?”
Therefore, ASUU must wean its members and the university authorities of graft for the ideal academia they crave to thrive. It bespeaks ill of the Union that the interventionist Tertiary Education Fund (TETFund), which sprouted from its struggle, is being abused by its members.
A director of the agency, in faraway Dubai in 2020, accused some beneficiaries of research grants of using them to buy houses and cars, instead of committing them to the purpose for which they were given, just as the executive secretary of the TETFund, Abdullahi Bafa, said funds allocated for upgrading libraries were enough for institutions to set up world-class libraries but for malfeasance in these schools. Mr Bafa said, “I have seen a request that was sent to the Fund where a book that I know costs only N1,500 was said to have been procured at N150,000. This is how the institutions are squandering public funds.”
It is surprising that nobody is ever punished for these aberrations that negate the effort to revamp the system. This culture of corruption and lack of accountability, be it in tertiary institutions, in the lower cadre, or at the policymaking level, was why Nigeria was classified by UNESCO in 2014 to be among 37 countries globally, especially in Africa, Asia and the Latin Americas, that lose over $129 billion annually in funding education that is bereft of learning. Nyesom Wike’s lamentation as minister of state for Education at the Nigeria Economic Summit, with education as its focus, that the Federal Government had injected N7.97 trillion in education between 2003 and 2009, yet without much improvement, underscored this concern.
Nigeria has to make a choice between quality and quantity in education. If the preference is the former, then, the mushrooming of universities must be staunched for existing ones to consolidate. Every new university erodes personnel of older ones, especially those academics, whose ambition of becoming professors must be achieved by every means possible. Policymakers and regulatory agencies, especially the NUC, have crucial roles to play in halting this drift. It was not for nothing that the United Kingdom recently excluded Nigerian graduates, even PhD holders, from its special visa application process for 2022.
Our universities are not even among the top rank in Africa, let alone competing with the best in Europe and the United States of America. This is a shame, considering the fact that the University of Ibadan used to be among the best in the Commonwealth in the 1960s, a period when white students preferred the institution to the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, for a PhD in African history, where Professor Kenneth Onwuka Dike was the supreme deity.
In the ASUU/Federal Government impasse, I find a huge burden on Mr Gambari’s shoulders. He was an Ivy League-trained and respected academic during his time. He should work his talk, given his spot-on assessment of the malaise. He said, “Not long ago, we had professors and students from universities in other countries coming to work in our universities. Not long ago, we had a calendar that allows predictability of when a student enters the university and when he or she can graduate. But we all know that all of that has changed and the impact on our educational system and even the reputation of our universities has been devastating.”
If the future is still considered crucial in this clime, all the stakeholders must come together to fashion out a template to make our universities what they are meant to be and “insulated from the hot and cold winds of politics”, as the Ashby Commission counselled way back.
Chiawo Nwankwo is a member of the Premium Times Editorial Board.
A Federal Lawmaker from Ebonyi, Chief Chinedu Ogah, has declared that the usage of the Computer Based Technology (CBT) for the West African Examination Council (WAEC) would adversely affect science subjects.
Ogah, who represents Ikwo/ Ezza South Federal Constituency at the House of Representatives, made the declaration on Tuesday while speaking with newsmen on WAEC’s proposed plan to introduce CBT from 2026.
The lawmaker said that the move would affect several scientific applications practically used to access students in WAEC examinations.
“What will happen to several scientific.mixtures, equations, mathematical applications among others practically applied during WAEC examinations?.
“Such measures are evidently not feasible and will adversely affect sciences in our educational curricular.
“Science is practical and the earlier we understand this, the better for all,” he said.
He noted that the glitches recorded during the recent Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) examination was unfortunate.
“The registrar should review the activities of its Information Communication Technology (ICT) department.
“It is ridiculous for JAMB to conduct the examination without adequate provisions for the ease of candidates,” he said.
Ogah urged people from the south east zone which the glitch was touted to have targeted, to embrace the home grown technology it was known for.
“We are known for technology and innovation.
“Government of south east states should equip our schools with ICT so that students would be acquainted with its usage, early,” he said. (NAN)
By Ubong Ukpong, Abuja
House of Representatives Deputy Speaker, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Kalu yesterday, raised serious concerns bothering on the activities and competence of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), blasting the examination body for demonstrating gross incompetence, frustrating Nigerians and the nation’s education system in the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
Kalu, who addressed the House of Representatives Correspondents on his misgivings, said the examination body has cost Nigerian people so much pain, leaving candidates traumatized and hopeless.
“The mass outcry that followed the release of this year’s results, and the subsequent technical review, demands not only transparency but decisive action to restore faith in our educational system.
“First of all, let me begin by commending the candor, touching humility, and accountability demonstrated by the Registrar of JAMB, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, and his team in admitting to the technical errors that affected nearly 380,000 candidates across the South-East Geopolitical Zone and Lagos. The swift apology and the decision to offer retake opportunities for all affected candidates reflect a commitment to fairness and justice.
“However, we must recognize that these measures, while necessary, do not erase the trauma, disruption, and uncertainty experienced by our young people and their families. Nigeria unfortunately lost a UTME candidate to suicide, consequentially triggered by the ensuing results of this technical glitch. Our heart goes out to the loved ones of this brave young one.”
On the technical Issues in Detail, the Deputy Speaker who sounded quite displeased said, “The technical review results available to me have revealed that a critical system patch essential for the new shuffling and validation protocols was not deployed to the server clusters servicing 157 centres in the South-East and Lagos.
“One of the most critical discoveries made revolved around three major systemic changes introduced in the 2025 UTME. The first was a shift from the traditional count-based analysis to a more robust source-based analysis of results. In previous years, JAMB evaluated the integrity of examination sessions primarily by counting the number of responses submitted per session. If the majority of candidates in a session of 250 submitted a near-complete set of answers, the session was deemed valid.
“Any significant deviation led to the disqualification of that centre’s results.
However, in 2025, a more advanced model was adopted; one that focused on the actual source and logic of the answers provided, rather than just their quantity.
“The second change involved full-scale shuffling of both questions and answer options. This ensured that even two candidates sitting in the same session would not receive identical permutations, thereby enhancing test security. The third change was a series of systemic improvements aimed at optimizing performance and reducing lag during exam sessions. This was a major policy change that saw the best and highest obtained UTME score in 15 years; a remarkable achievement by JAMB in principle.
“However, while these improvements were technologically sound in theory, a major operational flaw was uncovered during the implementation phase.
“The system patch necessary to support both shuffling and source-based validation had been fully deployed on the server cluster supporting the KAD (Kaduna) zone, but it was not applied to the LAG (Lagos) cluster, which services centres in Lagos and the South-East. This omission persisted across all sessions until the 17th session, after which the error was discovered and corrected.
“As a result, approximately 92 centres in the South-East and 65 centres in Lagos, totalling 157 centres, operated using outdated server logic that could not appropriately handle the new answer submission and marking structure. This affected an estimated 379,997 candidates, whose results were severely impacted due to system mismatches during answer validation.
“To verify the scale and accuracy of this issue, JAMB collaborated with the Educare Technical Team, which had gathered response data directly from over 18,000 candidates. After deduplication and filtering, about 15,000 authentic records were analyzed. Of these, more than 14,000 originated from the regions serviced by the unpatched LAG servers, confirming the technical review’s findings. Comparative analyses between JAMB’s internal audits and third-party system evaluations revealed significant overlap, reinforcing the conclusion that the affected centres were indeed operating under impaired conditions.
“As a result, candidates in these centres were unfairly disadvantaged, with their responses improperly validated and their scores misrepresented. This was not a failure of our students, nor a deliberate act of sabotage, but a preventable human error within our system.
“We must not underestimate the toll this has taken. Parents and candidates have voiced legitimate concerns about the hurried scheduling of re-sit examinations, the overlap with ongoing WAEC assessments, the psychological strain, and the logistical burdens of traveling to distant centres on short notice.
“Reports from the resit examinations held on Friday include complaints of difficult questions, time management issues, more technical glitches, poor centre coordination, and a lack of adequate support for those still affected.”
The Deputy Speaker demanded that, in light of these revelations, urgent actions must be taken to protect all candidates that registered for the examination in year 2925.
He demanded a comprehensive review of all Reports, insisting that, “JAMB must immediately review all available technical and independent reports including those from third-party educational technology companies that have gathered candidate-level data to fully understand the scope and implications of the crisis. Only by triangulating internal findings with external audits can we ensure that no affected candidate is left behind.”
Equally, he demanded for an independent System audit, stating that, “Now that the rescheduled examinations have concluded, I urge JAMB to commission an independent, transparent audit of its entire examination infrastructure. This audit should involve external professionals, system engineers, and academic measurement experts to scrutinize every aspect of the CBT engine, question delivery, answer validation, and result collation processes.”
Kalu called for the safeguarding of affected Candidates, stressing that, “It is imperative that candidates from the South-East and Lagos who have already borne the brunt of these failures are not further disadvantaged.
“JAMB must provide a clear, accessible mechanism for remark and appeal, especially for those dissatisfied with the hurried re-sit or who experienced technical difficulties during the second sitting. Furthermore, coordination with WAEC and other examination bodies must continue to ensure that no candidate’s academic progression is impeded by scheduling conflicts.
He sought transparent communication and Data Release, maintaining that, “JAMB should proactively publish anonymized, candidate-level result data for independent verification and open its systems to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests as a gesture of transparency and accountability.
This will go a long way in rebuilding public trust.”
The Deputy Speaker called for the strengthening of Quality Assurance and Real-Time Monitoring saying that, “going forward, JAMB must implement stronger deployment validation protocols and real-time monitoring mechanisms to prevent recurrence.Every system update must be thoroughly tested and confirmed across all server clusters before deployment during high-stakes examinations.”
Admonishing the affected candidates, Kalu said, “Your frustration is valid, and your voices have been heard. The integrity of our national examinations must never be compromised by technical lapses or human error. As Deputy Speaker, Iassure you that the National Assembly stands ready to provide oversight and ensure that these reforms are not only promised but delivered.
“Let us turn this painful episode into a catalyst for lasting improvement. Our young people deserve a system that is not only fair, but resilient, transparent, and worthy of their trust.I end with this word of note to JAMB: “Strive even when you stumble; transparency and honesty builds trust, and trust propels us forward.”
Several candidates across the country have raised diverse concerns with the processes as superintendent by the examination body, JAMB.
Several candidates went to their centres but could not write due to technical issues in taking their biometrics and were recaptured with a promised reschedule, which has not been communicated yet, leaving candidates in panic.
Others were outrightly said to have been deprived from writing the examination for being minors, after all processes were completed and the Print Out issued.
Some who wrote the examination reported issues accessing their results with the issues code, averting that the network kept deducting their money, without offering the requested service.
Certain interests in the academic sector have continued to call for the scrapping of JAMB, insisting that the examination body was unnecessary, but allegedly profiteering from candidates.
JAMB: YabaTech Backs Oloyede’s Leadership Style, Urges Others To Take Cue
The Yaba College of Technology (YabaTech) has declared its total support for the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) leadership amidst the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) developments.
Dr Ibraheem Abdul, Rector of Yabatech, disclosed in a statement on Friday in Lagos.
Abdul said that Prof Oloyede’s heartfelt apology and assumption of full responsibility demonstrated commendable leadership and integrity.
“We stand in solidarity with Prof Oloyede, we are with him in the future he beholds for JAMB. We reaffirm our confidence in his visionary leadership and urge other leaders in the country to take a cue from his leadership style,” he stated.
According to him, YabaTech remains committed to supporting JAMB’s initiatives and reforms aimed at enhancing the integrity and efficiency of its examination processes.
The rector noted that the recent technical glitches that affected approximately 379,997 candidates across 157 centres, particularly in Lagos and the South-East states, had understandably caused distress among students and stakeholders.
“As the Rector, and a dedicated advocate for educational excellence in Nigeria, I extend my unwavering support to Prof Is-haq Oloyede, Registrar of JAMB, and his entire team during this challenging period following the uproar concerning 2025 UTME.
“His commitment to transparency and prompt corrective measures, including the rescheduling of examinations for affected candidates, underscores his dedication to upholding the credibility of our educational assessments.
“This incident serves as a catalyst for all educational stakeholders to collaborate more closely, ensuring robust systems that can withstand unforeseen challenges,” he added.
The rector noted that though the overall performance in the 2025 UTME had raised concerns, it was, however, imperative to recognize the complexities involved in administering large-scale examinations in a technologically evolving environment. (NAN)
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