The appointment of General Ike Nwachukwu (retd.) as the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), has rekindled hope that the first truly indigenous autonomous university in Nigeria would soon regain its lost glory.
Popularly known as the Lion’s Den, the university was founded by the first indigenous Governor-General and later, President of Nigeria, late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, in 1955 and formally opened on October 7, 1960, six days after Nigeria gained political independence from Britain. The motto of the university is “To Restore the Dignity of Man.”
As a result of the American educational background of the great Zik of Africa and Owelle of Onitsha, he modelled UNN after the Michigan State University in the United States of America. Zik chaired the first Governing Council authorised by the Eastern Nigeria legislature and appointed by the Governor-General in April 1959. Other indigenous members of the maiden Council were Dr. Taslim Olawale Elias and Dr. Okechukwu Ikejiani. The Council also included J.S Futon from the United Kingdom, Dr. Marguerite Cartwright and Dr. Eldon Lee Johnson from the United States.
The university, which initially started with 13 members of the academic staff and 220 students, grew into one of the largest citadels of learning in Africa within two decades of its establishment, becoming a centre of excellence in science and arts. Regrettably, during the Nigeria-Biafran civil war from1967 to 1970, UNN suffered attacks from the federal troops who believed that the brains in the ivory tower were behind the numerous wartime innovations deployed against them by the Biafran side, including the “Ogbunigwe” (weapon of massdestruction), locally fabricated rocket propellers and military grade vehicles. The attacks did not deter the growth of the university.
Owing to the high demand for UNN in the education market after the war, the university expanded to the Enugu Campus in 1970. The main campus in Nsukka hosts faculties of Agriculture, Arts, Biological Sciences, Social Sciences, Education, Physical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine. The main campus also accommodates the School of Postgraduate Studies, as well as some institutes and research centres.
On the other hand, the Enugu Campus hosts four faculties. They are Business Administration, Environmental Studies, Law and Medical Sciences. The University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Ituku Ozalla, Enugu State, hosts the prestigious College of Medicine.
Strides in different fields of study. For instance, on the eve of the civil war, the university produced the first set of agricultural engineers in Nigeria. About the same period, the gigantic UNN agricultural farms excelled in the production of cassava flour, poultry fish.
At its peak, UNN was seen as the African version of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), leading in homegrown technology and witnessing several innovative and cash crops in commercial quantity.
In 1971, the university produced a vaccine for the deadly cholera disease and the World Health Organisation (WHO) approved it the same year. Nigeria eventually deployed the vaccine produced in UNN to stop the 1972 outbreak of cholera disease in Kano State. In spite of the setback of the war, the university became a centre of excellence in various fields of study, including medicine, engineering, computer science, education and the arts.
The institution provided quality manpower for the public and private sectors within and beyond the Eastern region.
Unfortunately, things took a dive in the institution beginning from the mid-eighties, especially when the military started interfering in the administration of universities in Nigeria. At a time in the history of the university, the military appointed a sole administrator to run its affairs. Vice-Chancellors were appointed and sacked whenever it pleased the military. Consequently, the once celebrated ivory tower became a shadow of itself.
Like other Nigerian universities, UNN faced several challenges, such as inept administration, inadequate funding, infrastructure decay, corruption, students’ unrest, and incessant industrial actions by academic and non-academic industrial unions. A combination of all these factors caused massive brain-drain from UNN and other Nigerian universities, affecting adversely the quality and standard of university education in Nigeria.
The return of civilians to power in the late 1990s did not change anything. Rather, the crisis in the university system escalated. The period from1999 till date, has witnessed the longest strikes by the university unions, especially the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). Besides struggling for better welfare for its members, ASUU is fighting for the revitalisation of Nigerian universities to return them to the glorious days when they attracted foreign academic staff and students.
The situation of UNN in particular is saddening. Recently, I watched a trending video, showing the sorry state of dilapidation of the hostels in the university. The hostels looked very dirty and messy to the extent that the citizen journalist sought to know if the hostels were meant to accommodate human beings or pigs.
There were maggots inside the toilets and bathrooms. The walls looked sticky with dirt. Undisposed refuse littered the floor. To say the least, the content of the video was an eyesore. The citizen journalist said if students live under this condition in the only university bearing the name of Nigeria, then something must be wrong somewhere.
Hence, the task before General Nwachukwu and members of the new Council is to find out what is wrong with UNN and fix it. While it is not their job to conduct the day to day affairs of the university, they have enormous role to play in university governance as members of the Governing Council.
Emeritus Professor Nimi Briggs (now late) defined the role of the Council and its nomenclature in a paper he presented at a retreat organised by the National Universities Commission (NUC) for the then newly inaugurated Governing Councils of Federal Universities in Nigeria on July 9, 2013.
Quoting Briggs: “The law of the university, typically invests Council with wide powers, including general control and superintendence of the policy, finance and property of the institution, as well as its public relations. The law also appropriates to the Council, the powers to invest, acquire and dispose of the university’s property. In effect, this translates into Council helping the university to grow and to meet its challenges.
“In order to exercise these wide powers, Council has a number of standing committees, through which it carries out oversight functions, outside its plenary sessions. Of these, probably the most important, are the Finance and General Purposes Committee and the Tenders Board, which are chaired by the Chairman of the Council.”
The foregoing demonstrates the herculean nature of the job of the new Council. Given the antecedents of General Nwachukwu as a former Military Administrator of Imo State, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Labour (under the military regime), and Senator for Abia North from 1999 to 2003, I can say with almost absolute certainty that he is equal to the task.
The first major assignment for the Council is to appoint a new Vice-Chancellor for UNN. An Acting Vice-Chancellor currently presides over the affairs of the university following the expiration of the term of the immediate past Vice Chancellor, Professor Charles Igwe, on June 7.
I expect General Nwachukwu and his team to perform this assignment with utmost patriotism and sense of responsibility. The process of appointment of the Vice-Chancellor should be done in a transparent manner, devoid of unnecessary politicisation and parochial considerations, to ensure that the best candidate emerges.
In conclusion, the word university is derived from a Latin word ‘universus’ meaning “entire or whole word.” At this critical juncture in its history, UNN needs an effective, visionary, innovative, versatile and experienced administrator as the Vice-Chancellor.
The right candidate should have the capacity to engineer domestic and global partnerships and collaborations to boost learning, research and development in the university.
Chekwube Nzomiwu, an alumnus of UNN, wrote from Awka, Anambra State. He can be reached via:chekmma@yahoo.com