Dele Sobowale

Since embarking on this inquiry, into activities on Nigeria’s university campuses and talking to graduates, what the message revealed was found to be true of, not only UNILAG, but virtually every university. Further inquiry had also revealed that the most vulnerable students, male and female, are the final year students some of who have spent five years to undertake a three years’ course or eight years to graduate instead of six years – mostly on account of ASUU strikes.

The thought of not graduating with their classmates is always sufficient inducement for them to surrender to anything however corrupt.
The reader asked if there is any solution in sight. Certainly, there is. Like anything evil perpetrated by wicked individuals, it started with people; it will end only if other people rise against it.

The guilty Professors are not ghosts. In fact, they are well known and many of them had left a trail of evidence behind with their victims over the years. The first, and indispensable, element in finding a solution is to remove the veil of secrecy under which our corrupt academics operate.

That means continuous exposure. Victims of the Course Notes racket and sex trade, even as long ago as ten or more years should be able to come forward, perhaps under conditions of anonymity, to provide evidence. Obviously, if two hundred alumni of a university, who had never met, were to testify that a certain lecturer was actively engaged in one or both corrupt practices, that should constitute the beginning of a serious inquiry into the activities of that particular lecturer.

Even for someone almost inured to corrupt practices globally, I had been shocked to the marrows by some of the names that had been dropped during my discussions with graduates of our universities.
The deeper one looks the more shocking the situation on our university campuses have become. Now that ASUU had won its power contest with the Federal Government, I strongly believe that the time has come, indeed, is long past, when the Federal and State governments should insist on house cleaning.

To put it more strongly, the ASUU hunters, who had been relying on public support to achieve their objectives should now be placed on the run by governments exposing the corruption on campuses nationwide with the aim of putting an end to them. It is in the national interest for us to know that a student granted First Class or Second Class Upper actually merits the honour and not one who paid for it or slept her way through the faculty to obtain it. At the moment, given the pervasive occurrence of the Course Note racket and the Sex trade, it is difficult to know who is really outstanding.

RIGHT OF REPLY
For once there has been a deafening silence from our universities in response to the charge that academics are ruining our universities with the Course Notes racket and the Sex trade. Are we to assume that silence means admission of guilt? However, one lone voice spoke up in self-defense. I will like to appreciate a man who is so sure of himself on this matter. Please read on.

0803-389-8583.
Pose I have never lined my pockets with proceeds from the sale of course notes. My institution, Alvan Ikoku Federal College of Education, Owerri, can testify for me.
Dr Tony Ekwe.

How I wish many more lecturers would have sent that sort of message. It would mean all is not lost and those not involved in the racket can help clean-up the system.

LAST LINE: I know this is a repetition. But, has the NUC or the Ministry of Education ever conducted a study to determine what happened to the majority of those who bagged First Class in various subjects afterwards? Have they burnt the tracks in their professions or have the promises of excellence ended on graduation day?
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