CHIDILI EDOZIE
U14MM1190
One of the more encouraging aspects of the onslaught on official corruption in Nigeria is the way in which the vice-chancellors of several federal universities have been accused of acts of staggering financial malfeasance, with some already facing prosecution in court.
Professor Olusola Oyewole, Vice-Chancellor, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), has been charged by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) with fraud totaling some N800 million. He has been arraigned along with FUNAAB’s pro-chancellor, Chief Adeseye Ogunlewe, and its bursar, Mr. Moses Ilesanmi. Oyewole’s counterpart at the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), Professor Adebiyi Daramola, is facing EFCC charges of fraud totaling about N24 million. The commission has charged him along the bursar Mr. Ayodeji Oresegun.
Both Oyewole and Daramola have been suspended by the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, although Daramola was subsequently reinstated by the Governing Council of FUTA.
In other federal universities, principal officers have been accused of similar offences. The succession crisis at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile Ife, was partly due to accusations of corruption levelled against the outgone vice-chancellor, Professor Bamitale Omole, by the local chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). The union claimes Omole mismanaged the N3.5 billion intervention fund meant for the upgrade of facilities. At the university of Calabar, the bursar, Mr. Peter Agi, was suspended in August 2016 for alleged fraud and impersonation. Agi is currently appealing his suspension in the Industrial Court in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.
If Federal universities are struggling with corruption and associated malpractices in spite of their supposedly better-developed management structures, it can only be imagined what the more opaque state-owned and private universities are currently facing.
While corruption in Nigeria’s university system may not be surprising given the entrenched nature of the phenomenon in the polity, it is still shocking that it appears to be so rampant in institutions that are supposed to be models of intellectual integrity. Vice-Chancellors, in particular, are idealized as the embodiment of the ethical and intellectual values that are the essence of the university idea. They are, after all, the individuals whose signature on university degrees, diplomas and certificates testifies to the belief that the people to whom they are awarded have been fond worthy in learning and in character.
When prima facie cases of corruption established against the principal officers of a federal university, it is obvious that a systemic failure has occurred. Most evident is the collapse of the concerned university’s own internal safeguards and procedures that were put in place to ensure that financial malfeasance is discovered before it wreaks havoc. University budgets are often improperly monitored; internal audits are rarely conducted on schedule, and seldom publicized; financial reporting systems are poorly designed and outdated; whistle-blowing is actively discouraged and harshly punished.
To make matters worse, power is concentrated in the hands of principal officers and influential professors who quickly build personality cults and establish cliques which transcend the statutory committees that are meant to ensure the equitable dispersal of authority and the democratization of decision-making.
In this regard, it is incredible that the Governing Council of FUTA should reinstate a vice-chancellor who is in court on corruption charges. Conventional decency dictates that a person facing serious criminal charges cannot continue to maintain his current office while his court case is pending; that is why senior officials who have been indicted are usually suspended and required to proceed on compulsory leave for the duration of their cases. Daramola is not above the law, and should not be treated as if he is.
The Federal Government must ensure that corruption on university campuses is fought with the same intensity with which it is confronted outside university walls. Visitation panels should be constituted for all federal universities, rather than only the ones set up during the Jonathan administration. University statutes and by-laws should be retooled to ensure that corruption is easier to detect, report and prosecute, regardless of the status of the culprit.
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