A former Vice Chancellor of the University of Port Harcourt, Prof. Don Baridam, has identified key challenges impeding university education in Nigeria.
Such challenges, he said, include mismanagement of scarce resources and internal wranglings.
Prof Baridam, the 6th Vice Chancellor of UNIPORT, who stated this while delivering the 43rd Convocation Lecture of the Ignatius Ajuru University of Education (IAUE), titled “Effective University Management And Art Of Nation-Building: The Nigeria Experience”, noted that in addition to the above-listed challenges, there are also poor governance structure with other associated factors that also undermine the true ideals of tertiary education in Nigeria.
“In recent times, undue political interference has played a very detasteful role that has helpef to undermine the true ideals of universities in Nigeria.
“Worst of all is the appointment of practical politician to serve on the governing council of Nigeria universities.
“These mostly unruly politicians carry their dubious talent for institutional disorder and aggressive nature into the academic arena, where they predictably muddle-up everything in sight”, he stated.
Emphasizing on the crux of the lecture, Prof. Baridam said, “my position in this lecture is that effective university management is critical to harressing the full potential of over 210 Nigeria universities (private, state and federal) as drivers of true nation-building efforts.
“Academics cannot achieve this onerous task if they continue to pander to the whims and caprices of politicians”.
Speaking as the chairman of the occasion, Prof. Williams Okowa, harped on the importance of the position of the convocation lecturer in his presentation in which he picked holes in the role of politicians in the management of universities, saying academics cannot truly achieve effective management of universities, “if they continue to pander to the whims and caprices of politicians.”
According to him, this area needs to be truly reconciled.
Declaring the convocation lecture closed, the Acting Vice Chancellor of IAUE, Prof. Okechuku Onuchuku, emphasised the need for an academic institution to produce products that can achieve greatness.
He said, “one major thing we do here is to mould character, if we have people here with terrible character, it means that the nation will be terrible, but if we mould our people (students) correctly and ensure that their characters are properly moulded to fit into society, it means that we are going to achieve greatness.
“So, our jobs as university lecturers and university managers is to ensure that our final products will come out very solid, both academically, and as entrepreneurs.”

By: Sogbeba Dokubo