' Z s 2 a Professor Dennis Austin —E PLURIBUS PLURES? A University, said Disraeli, ought to be "a place of light, of liberty and of learning". A more utilitarian view prevails in Nigeria. Old and new universities alike are described as serving practical ends - unity, modernity, autochthony: "using the talents and expertise for material devel- opment ard decision-making, encouraging a spirit of service in the students and serving as effective instruments for cementing National Unity".+ Perhaps the greatest of these is unity. But whose unity? Institutions which pro- claim to be serving national interests frequently end up by being part of the interests served. But whose interests in particular? That the students naw being educated in the thirteen universities will become menbers (however humble their origins) of a privileged elite goes without saying: simply to read and write well in English is a privilege of great advantage. But will they be nembers of a national elite? The early intention enshrined the very British concept of training for leadership within the national institutions of the country but the growth in the number of universities since 1950, together with attendant changes in patterns of admission, places some uncertainty over the quescion whether in fact all thirteen institutions are "serving as effec- tive instruments for cementing National Unity". It is the question I would like to explore, without being too firm in reply. Ibadan in its early days was always seen as a nursery of leaders: Balliol in the sun, By 1962 however there were six universities (Ibadan, Nsukka, Lagos, Zaria, Ife, Benin). There was no longer quite as much talk about Ashby's insistance on the "gold standard of academic excellence". Indeed, Dr. Azikine and others adopted a more earthy, less elevated, notion of use. They were forerunners perhaps of what later began to be called ‘an intermediate techno- Jogy', @ kind of alchemy in reverse, producing base metal from gold. By the mid 70s chere were thirteen with the addition of Jos, Sokoto, Ilorin, Maiduguri, Port Harcourt, Calabar, Kano. There are more to come, under pressure from states that lack any institution of high status - Imo, Ondo, Ogun, Gongola, Benue, Bauchi, Niger. Eventually, no doubt, there will be nineteen or twenty, one or more for each state. They will vary one from another but certain characteristics seem likely to be true of most and I have attached a background paper which attempts to describe them. IWationa) Policy on Education, Lagos, F.M.Educ. 1978Do trey strengthen or weaken a sense of Nigerian unity? Who says state says bureaucracy, who says bureaucrat in Nigeria is talking about a westernised elite stratum of control, But the universities came too late to provide the country with a ruling class. The students are too few in number and still divided by their social origin (if Mr. Beckett's and Professor O'Connell's interesting surveys are still relevant) to play the role of a nineteenth cen- tury Oxferd and Cambridge. As time goes by they will gain in importance: yet still I wonder, looking back over the past year that is the focus of the seminar, whether the direction in which all thirteen universities have been moving has been towards a strengthening of national ties. Indeed I doubt it. Particularism is growing. The universities are now state centred rather than federal, locally recruited rather than national, and concerned with particular interests more than with general concerns. The signs of dispersal are there: the abolition of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, the demand for new universities to serve state ends, the transfer of control over higher education to the concurrent list, the 1979 banning of the National Union of Students (NUNS), and a pattern of recruitment that attracts students to state- based universities. A good deal of local comment is concerned with the phenomena of dispersal, some favourable, some critical. I quote selectively: "In 1978-79, out of 113,162 candidates that sat for the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) examination, Imo State had 19,702 candidates but only 2,126 or about 10% of them were offered admission. Therefore we need our own University." "For the academics the temptation to prostitute from one institution to another in quest of higher posts will be enhanced. Such migrations may arise from frustration and different criteria for appointment. and promotion that exist. Some might secure higher posts not because they have any- thing to show for them but because they come from the "right states’ (an unfortunate expression that has found its way into Nigerian vocabulary). .... The drifting of staff from the older universities to new ones established in their states of origin cannot be in the overall interests of the country .... Our universities are bound to tend more towards being tribal schools. Admissions and appointments are bound to be strongly influenced by tribal or ethnic affiliations. Instead of promoting the course of unity ethnic differences will be magnified, Standards will not be maintained since ‘Sam Mbakwe, State Governor of Imo, New Nigerian, 2nd Novenber, 1979. See, too, the remark’ by Alhaji Abubakar Barde, Governor of Gongola State: "A univer sity wes. needed due to the hardship encountered in seoking admission to the country's universities." Daily Times, 30th September, 1979,lesser qualified people may be admitted or appointed in pre- ference ta better qualified persons from the ‘wrong state! "1 Statistics, too, appear to indicate a pattern of narrowing admissions: (See attached sheet)? That a trend in this direction may be dangerous hardly needs stressing. OF the many descriptions that try to portray the recently independent states none is so telling as that which carries the suggestion of 'formlessness'. the stability of a jelly? It wobbles but does not break? But it could surely do with strengthening and who better Nigeria is surely a case in point: to provide such help than a graduate elite? It should offer a national view not simply as ‘trained manpower' but as an intellectual community. It has an immense task - to adapt the energetic living world of European civilisation to Nigerian needs. At an intellectual level it has to avoid mimicry, the tribute too often paid to colonialism by its victims, without lapsing into a state-centred parochialism that has neither Liberty, light nor Learning. tbr. 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[uoranaraeur | SL/7L8T S3IVIS AB INSNTOUNS WOTI Variety and Number It is now thirty years or mare since education reached university level in Nigesia. There had been degree courses at Yaba Higher College near Lagos in the .930s, plus a growing nunber of graduates from abroad, but Nigerian univers: ties are a post-1945 manifestation. Early British administrators were suspicious of what the effect of university growth might be, having no wish to encourage the spread of radical opposition among an educated elite. local patriots constantly pressed for higher education both as a matter of Fight and as an avenue for advancement. So it is today. The unflagging demand for university education at state level is now accompanied by federal unease about the cost and consequences of its extension. Growth has not been steady, It has been by an accumulative series of jumps masked by the Opening of new institutions: 1949, 1962, 1975. The result has been fascin- ating, sometimes tragic, often turbulent and, one must suppose, ineradicable in its offect on future decades. A large part of the educated leadership in Nigeria in the 1980s - and it is difficult to see how civilian rule can be anything but elite dominated - will come from within the universities. They witl have to bear the classic burden of all universities, of training the new ruling class of technicians, administrators, business executives, jawyers, doctors and engineers. . In this sense, universities mirror the politics of the immediate future and they are worth looking into in 1979-80 if only to try and see the blurred reflection of what may come. During the 1940s, Commissiorsof Inquiry from Britain led to the esta- blishmeat in 1949 of what is still the best known institution, the University of Ibadan, which remained the only university in existence at independence in 1960. Its initial growth was halting since the larger number of under- graduates still went overseas, but by the beginning of the sixties Ibadan was well founded as a federal university, with 1,136 full-time students. Others were taxing shape. By 1962 there was a second federal university at Lagos and three regionally-based universities: the University of Nigeria at Neukka in the east, what is now the University of Ahmadu Bello at Zaria in the north, and the University of Ife in the west. Variety was added to number. Zaria was distinquished by the spread of sub-degree courses in admini- stration, health and vetinary work, in addition to more familiar undergraduate degrees. Lagos paid special attention to business cancerns as a university on the edge of the capital. Ife had (until recently) a lively Institute of African Studies.Enrolment was carefully worked out and misjudged. Each calculation was outpaced by the growth in demand and by the acquisition of new wealth. "Nigeria", wrote Lord Ashby in 1959-60, "cannot suppart more than four univer- sities at the present time." The accompanying Harbison Report on manpower took as its target a total of 7,500 students by 1970. By the beginning of the new cecade, despite the intervening civil war and heavy damage at Nsukka, there were six universities, including Benin in the mid-west. Undergraduate numbers totalled 14,468. The Second Development Plan (1970-1974) - devised by soldiers who were emboldened by success and enriched with oil - proposed an additional 7,000 students. The 1975-1980 Plan took full account of the remarkable expansion from six to thirteen universities, but it also had to reckon with the huge costs of a national systen of education spreading out and up from its eleven million free primary base. [t was in April 1975 that the federal government announced the creation of six new universities ~ Calabar, Torin, Jos, Maiduguri, Port Harcourt and Sokoto, a list to which Kano was added later. All seven were expected to become full universities after an initial period of tutulege. Most are still struggling with basic problems of staff and buildings. Some, like Maiduguri and Lorin, have been able to grow outwards from an existing State College of Arts and Technology. Others, notably Sokoto snd Port Harcourt, are very raw: staff are being sought who have a "pioneering spirit’, an eloquent comment on the erratic supply of water, electricity, books, equipment and general commodities. All thirteen univer- sities were brought under federal direction in 1971, and made fully respon- sible to the F.M.G. in August 1975, But the draft constitution restored higher eoucation to-the concurrent list of powers and the result has been to renew pressure for Further expansion, particularly from state qavernments which do not huve the prestige or patronage of a university institution. Present undergradaute numbers are nearly 47,000 with 5,000 or so students in sub-degree and basic studies courses. Fifty thousand in a population of - how many? - seventy or eighty million is still a tiny constituency. Yet the problems are very great. The Annual Reports of the Nigerian Universities Commission, which still strives to co-ordinate the life of all thirteen institutions, offers a clear, intelligent guide to current difficulties. There are of course large differences between the ‘big five' each of which has been designated a centre of excellence: ABU at Zaria - Engineering and Nuclear Technology; Ibadan ~ Medicine; Ife - Nuclear Physics and Technology; Lagos - Mass Communication and Metallurgy; Neukka - Electronics. There are differences, too, in the reservoir availablefor local recruitment, as between (say) the former East Central State with over twenty thousand candidates in 1976 catering for the School Certificate/GCE '0' level, and Kano State with only 1,352 entrants. But all face conmon problems — if only because all thirteen are seen as a single university system which com- petes for federal money. The problems are simple enough to describe. First, accommodation is often bad - inadequate housing for staff, huddled rooms for students. Faculties in the older universities are terribly over- crowded. Many universities "maintain that the greatest hindrance to the expansion of enrolment is the lack of sufficient student accommodation. Because of their location and the general shortage of suitable living accommodation in the countoy, the Universities must be self-sufficient in housing."* But, a8 the Report notes, "a 500 bed Hall of Residence costs about 5,000,000 and takes more than 52 weeks to build." (A moderate estimate. ) Secondly, teaching staff are required in vast numbers. Hence the Full- page weekly advertisements in West Africa and elsewhere. Some three thousand additional lecturers are needed of whom only about one thousand are expected to be locally recruited, The shortfall is most acute in science-based sub- jects, and particularly serious at senior level. In 1976/7, money was pro- vided for 302 posts in engineering, but only 257 were filled; in medicine, it was hopec to have over 800 teachers but only 618 were actually available.” "In most departments, as in the pre-clinical Sriences, there was only a skeleton staff of two or three teachers and in some cases only one teacher." In the hope of remedy, the NUC opened offices in London, Ottawa, Washington and Cairo to recruit and place staff. But despite (or possibly because of) the tight academic market in Britain and North America, it does not seem likely that Nigeria will be able to find the number of university teachers it needs. The Udoji - Williams salary scales are not all that attractive, Living conditions are poor, Africa at large presents at best an unsure image of itself today, the United K:ngdom has ceased to supplement the salaries of selected numbers of British ecademics, leaving the Nigerian government to meet the bill. It is in such circumstances that uncertainties multiply. Thizdly, the eternal question of standards. Universities in Nigeria are expected to be part of a universal world of learning. They still teach and "1975-1977 Report of the NUC from which subsequent quotations are taken. *rigures exclude statistics of ABU. Staff-student ratios are not very far from those in Britain: an average of 12:1 compared with 10:1, although the Figure varies . good deal between disciplines. There is a marked absence of post~ graduat* schools of any size, though graduate courses are offered in the older univers:ties. '1 weite and publish in English and there are scholars who are as skilful and learned ac their counterpart in the western world. Yet there must always be doubts about the general level of attainment in a country where the standard Of school education is often low, not least because the bulk of the population is non-Enylish speaking. In that sense, universities in a country such as Nigeria necessarily stand not at the centre but on the margins of society. Moreover, despite the setting up of a local equivalent af UCCA, standards of entry do vary considerably between universities since there are additional, locally-determined, procedures under which the politics of state and ethnic loyalty ave at least as important as any notions of academic excellence. Fourthly, finance. il revenues have fallen, costs have risen, including those of primary and secondary education: money is short. For 1976/7, the Universitses asked for a total operating grant of N196,314,000. The F.M.G. provided "153 million. The shortfall of 14.5% was "far greater than the Universitzes could absorb", yet no one today quite knows what to do about the problem. Some are worse off than others, The University of Nigeria at Neukka was §1Zm. in debt, Ibadan N7m., ABU N1OXm. Universities are very expensive and - looked at from Lagos - they are very troublesome. But the ‘polities of Minerva’ deserves a separate account. ities of Learning Nigerian universities exhibit to a marked degree that familiar quarrel between unity and separation which characterises the federation as a whole. They are a narrow university world held together by a small number of univer~ sity teacners. Ibadan has played the Oxford and Cambridge to that world. Yet there have been fierce factional and conmunal conflicts among university staff anc students. Higher education has still enormous prestige in Nigeria: yet university - government relations have frequently been very bad. Students, too, are seen as eritically important in the national life of the federation: but they nave fought from time to time en masse against particular governments. Each side to this triangular conflict - government, students and staff - has to be seen es related to the immensity of political life in Nigeria in 1979-80 and it is symptomatic perhaps of a divided elite that it does not fully trust ite educated young. University life has been punctured by a series of explo~ sions, perticularly in 1965, 1975 and 1978. They were of serious consequence, since universities are, after all, important institutions not only as agents of change, or reservoirs of trained manpower, or centres of intellectualachieveme:t, but - in Nigeria at least - as centres of local economic import~ ance: seif-contained cities of employment and wealth as well as prestige. Reac:ng the reports of recent events, it would be easy to suppose that all thirte early as 1957, when students pulled down the enclosing fences around the College, N universities were constantly in turmoil ~ closures at Ibadan as closures st Nsukka after student riots over living conditions, dismissals of staff in ull the universities - expatriate and Nigerian alike - both before the civil war and under the federal military government. In 1963/5 Ibadan was almost toon apart by Ibo and Yoruba divisions between the Vice. Chancellor, pro-Vice-Chancellor, teachers and the university administration. So, too, was the University of Lagos in 1965 over the appointment of Dr. Biobaku (a Yoruba) ta succeed Professor Eni Njoku (an Ibo) as Vice-Chancellor. Ife was beset witn staff disputes in which faculty members were forced out, or resigned in protest, during the political quarrels between rival Yoruba factors. In this respect, the civil war solved very little, except that it concentrated authority in Lagos and brought the F.M.G. more closely into university affairs. In 1975, following the downfall of Cowon, came the purge of the civil service. In October, the universities came under review, primarily in relation to non- academic staff, but at the University of Lagos alone, among the 146 retired or dismissec, were the Registrar, Deputy Registrar, four Professors, an Associate Professor, Five senior lecturers and three lecturers: all Nigerian. Among the 345 removed From Ibadan wore the Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Bursar, together with a number of Nigerian and expatriate senior staff. Other univer- sities wore similarly affected. Of course there have been quiet years when teaching and research and graduation ceremonies are conducted. In April 1979, however, there was a sharp: renewal of conflict after the federal government, acting through the Nigerian Universities Commission, announced an increase in charges for students' board and lodging. Protests were widespread. A stu- dent die: in Lagos after being shot during clash with armed police. _ Six stlidents were shot _dead on the Sanaru Campus at Zaria by soldiers who opened “Fire to quell a protest march. Violence ran wild, The National Union of “Nigerian Students (NUNS) was incensed, the Vice-Chancellors were unsure whether to hold examinations or clove the universities, the NUC struggled to maintain its authority, the federal government saw itself at bay and refused to com promise. Eventually all the universities were shut, until tempers were assuaged by time if not by counsel. University staff have become increasingly uneasy. Falling university incomes «nd higher student numbers have soured relations with government.The Udoji - Williams Report fixed emoluments at a level seen as unfairly discriminatory in relation to government service and grossly unfair in rela- Lion to @ private sector where high incomes virtually make it impossible for universities to recruit teachers of accountancy or engineering or business administration. A familiar (British) picture? But all such complaints in Nigeria have to be seen against the hugely uneasy, politically-critical retuen to civilian rule. Nigerian university staff also see themselves, and are seen, as sore important politically than their western counterpart. They are menbezs of @ ruling - or would-be ruling - elite. Many university tea~ chers are drawn into government concerns. Many are close to the centre of politics in theirown states. Nearly all resented the directing hand of the F.M.G. and the NUC, and were particularly angry with the then Minister of Education, Colonel Ali. "It is clear that the unnecessary interference of both the Ministry of Education and the NUC in University affairs has led to a complete erosion of University autonomy, the consequences of which we are now witnessing." And (said the Lagos Association of University Teachers) the primary fault lay with the Commissioner for Education who “arrogated to himself the power to conduct the affairs of the Universities with the Vice-Chancellors as his quasi permanent secretaries". Stucents have been more outspoken still. They believed what the mili- tary frequently declared to be true, that past politicians were a bad lot. Seeking some form of popular mandate for their decrees, the military junta were quite willing in 1976-7 to bring in the students as heirs of a better future. They were allotted a high place in national discussions about political needs - though below, of course, that which they accorded themselves. The students respondec as would-be masters, often in language which upset the soldiers. The immeciate ground of disaffection had been the raising of charges, and the granting of what were seen as extravagant salaries and benefits to civil ser- vants anc soldiers. Then the whole system was attacked. Arrogance joined hands with anger over the deaths. "Many a regime have been toppled by what started with a students’ revolt against the system. The reason is obvious. Students are the conscience of any neo-colonial society. They are students because they possess a critical outlook to society. Having been equipped with the necessary apparatus of thought, they are able to make the required anajysis of any government action and, more importantly, act upon it." — The 1979) crivis was extravagantly reported. It brought "Lhe engine of repression at the gates of various universities .... Akintunde Ojo and others were mowed down in cold blood .... This is Soweto in Nigeria."7H It was not difficult to sympathise with the military government in Lagos. It was conducting the most difficult of all operations: an orderly retreat. Tt-held on until October 1979, amidst the tensions of the transfer of power to unknowns civilian rulers. University problems had to be seen alongside a plenitude of other disputes - over the Sharia courts, land reform, mob violence, the mounting costs of U.P.E, and second schooling, falling oil revenue, and the hidden pelitics of going back to politics. "Yield too easily to students", it is said, cnd similar pressures will mount from farmers, trade-unionists, market women, professional organisations, overseas companies and - who knows? - perhaps from the junior ranks of the army itself until not only the government but Nigeria itself will be overwhelmed. There is always that massive sense of desperate poverty and limited wealth which pervasively colours the life of the huge federation over which the present civilian government exercises at best ‘an uneasy control. If universities are mirrors of elite behaviour the immedi- ate reflection is not very encouraging for the future. On the other hand, it is easy to take a mildly hopeful view as it is to be pessimistic. Among all manner of Nigerians, even at elite level, optimism struggles constantly to triumph ever experience: If the extravagant hopes once entertained in respect of the thirteen universities have proved dupes, present fears for their auto- mony and existence may yet prove liars. Universities as cultural redoubts, or as the training ground for new rulers, always appear vulnerable to attack. But if future governments in Lagos remain as ideologically amorphous as their predecessors, the danger may be a good deal further off than it appeared in the stormy months of April and May 1979.