By Dele Sobowale

Before writing the first two parts of this series, I knew what to expect. Teachers in Nigeria’s Ivory Towers, as universities are called abroad, have always had a field day criticizing top government officials – President, Governors, Ministers, National Assembly members, the Nigeria Police, Customs; in short the ‘usual suspects’ – for corruption.

Few, if any, had ever turned the searchlight on the campuses and their colleagues. The Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, NUC, was once a university don, like all the other NUC chief executives before him. If they are to be honest with themselves and with Nigerians, they were aware of the two prevailing forms of corruption pervasive on university campuses nationwide – the corruption associated with the Course Note racket and the sex trade which had turned virtually every university in Nigeria into trading blocks where, more often than most people realise, top grades are corruptly awarded to the highest bidder or, among female undergraduates, to the most liberal givers.

One male graduate, of a first generation university, once pointed out a classmate to me at a wedding party. Holding to her with love was her husband. She saw and waved to the fellow who then proceeded to tell me her exploits at the university where she was known in her faculty as pass round or never say no.

“If only her husband knows what that girl did in school, he would divorce her tomorrow’, he said. She, of course graduated Second Class Upper. Yet, none of her classmates ever saw her in the library or sitting down to study for examinations. She took her tests in the Guest Houses which littered the city.

Among the students who could never fail examinations irrespective of how they actually performed, especially when the nation was under military governments, were officers taking degree courses and their kids – if their rank was high enough.

Few people are aware of the number of Generals, Admirals and Air Marshals, who hold master’s degrees or are lawyers, yet can still not construct a complete sentence extempore. Can anyone point to a single top official who became a lawyer and who had made his mark in the profession? As a retired Professor and friend of mine said: ‘Who is brave enough to fail the Chief of Army Staff under a military regime?’

If we want to solve the problem of half baked and unemployable graduates in Nigeria, we must first of all start by acknowledging that we are not totally sure that we are actually graduating people who deserve the certificates our universities issue.

If corruption in high places is destroying Nigeria, and it is, corruption on Nigerian tertiary institutions’ campuses is guaranteeing that this nation will never bridge the knowledge gap between us and the advanced nations of the world.

If public service is replete with instances of promoting mediocres to high office, Nigerian university campuses are also guilty of awarding high grades to dullards and discouraging potential geniuses who cannot or refuse to participate in the Course Notes trade or the sex commerce.

While on the sexual corruption pervasive on campus, with the lecturers taking the lead, there is a more sinister aspect to the issue of sexual harassment; that is the phenomenon of lecturers, who like the Wild Dogs of the South African forest, hunt in groups. Once any member of the group experiences resistance from a potential victim, all the others wade into the attack until the poor prey succumbs or flunks out of the university. They are generally merciless and depraved. I had just reached this point in the column when, providentially, this text message came in. Read it and cry for our nation Nigeria.

“0803-577-0940

..I have a friend whose wife it took six years to do a Post-graduate course  in UNILAG because of a lecturer whose only condition of passing married women is to go to bed with them. If you refuse him, he would pass you but his co-criminals in other courses would fail you. It took prayers for her to graduate. Any solution in sight? I think not.