—Says Integrity is the ultimate currency of a varsity

By Dayo Johnson Akure

The Vice Chancellor of the University of Ilesa, Osun State, Professor Taiwo Asaolu, has lamented the myriad challenges facing Nigerian university administrators, citing diverse and conflicting stakeholder interests, land grabbing, and pressure from traditional rulers.

Prof. Asaolu said this while delivering the keynote lecture, entitled “Ethics Under Pressure: Managing Financial Risks and Integrity in University Governance at the Second Bursary and Internal Audit Annual Lecture of Elizade University, Ilara-Mokin, Ondo State.

He emphasized that integrity is the bedrock of university governance, warning that without ethical standards, credibility and sustainability are severely undermined.

“Administration of a university is not an easy task,” he said, citing examples of former VCs jailed for mismanagement.

The don highlighted the University of Ilesa’s struggles with illegal occupants, land grabbers, and stakeholder pressures.

He called for independent audit committees, whistle-blowing policies, and ethical training to detect fraud and promote accountability.

“The VC is facing challenges from traditional rulers, students, parents, management, staff, and teachers,” Asaolu said. “It’s not easy.”

The lecture emphasized the need for transparency, accountability, and strong governance frameworks in Nigerian universities.

Citing example of the challenges in his own university, Asaolu said that he had been facing series of challenges range from land grabbing to illegal occupants of campus land and pressure from other stakeholders.

“As I’m speaking with you, we have illegal residents on our campus, rearing, goats, chickens and others. We have taken the Osun rangers (local security operatives) there to chase them them but they are still there.

“We have land grabbers whose fathers have collected compensation. They said they didn’t know anything about it, so they want to retrieve the land back.

“Not only do they want to retrieve the land, they have started construction, only to know that they mean business and these are people who are bold enough to to take us to court.

“So, if we are talking about the university you can know what is in there .

” In ijesa land, we have traditional rulers, so many of them and when you talk about the university of Ilesa, of course, the university belongs to them, so whatever you are doing, recruitment, admission, and all others you must reckon with them .

“Also you have diverse and conflicting stakeholders’ interests are there . The University of Ilesa is a new university. We have recruited from other student unions. But you have us, like you have said here.

“We have recruited from student unions, tutors and staff. Academic, non-teaching, technologists and so many of them.

” But I will tell you it is not easy. We are dealing with the students, parents , management , staff , teachers and other stakeholders”

Asaolu charged the school managements “to implement a comprehensive whistleblowing policy and ethical training for the purpose of early detection of fraud and culture of accountability.”

Speaking on integrity in University administration, the don maintained that it “is sacrosanct, indivisible and cannot be fractionalised, emphasizing that ethical conduct must remain the foundation of university governance.

He said that academic ethics and financial ethics are fundamentally intertwined, noting that a failure in one inevitably compromises the other.

Also, he advised the universities to strengthen internal control systems, reinforce ethical training and ensure that governance structures are designed to withstand increasing financial and administrative pressures within the higher education sector.

According to him “ethical stewardship is the pathway to institutional stability,” adding that universities must deliberately foster a culture of transparency, accountability and responsibility at all levels of administration

Asaolu also advanced a number of policy recommendations aimed at strengthening ethical governance in Nigerian universities, which include “the call on the National Universities Commission (NUC) to develop a “Governance Integrity Index” for ranking universities, which he said would create healthy competition among institutions to maintain high ethical standards.”

Asaolu further proposed that university governing councils should establish independent Audit and Risk Committees made up of external experts to enhance objective oversight of financial management systems.

He also advocated “the implementation of comprehensive whistle-blowing policies and continuous ethical training programmes by university managements to enable early detection of fraud and strengthen a culture of accountability within institutions.

The don urged “universities to fully automate their financial ecosystems through their bursary departments, noting that digital financial systems would significantly reduce human error and eliminate manual leakages.”

Chairman of the occasion and Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Akure , Prof Adenike Oladiji, in her remarks, commended the guest lecturer, noting that the topic of the lecture was apt in the light of the pressure the varsity administors were passing through.

Oladiji said ” I think it’s just the best thing to do at a time like this. I salute the courage of the person who came about with this topic because I’m sure they know that we are under a lot of pressure, as it’s been said during the lecture.

She urged the stakeholders to always be guided by law for proper administration of the universities.

” We must be guided by our law in dealing with all of these pressures because you are always right when you’re on the part of the law.

“Then number two is for us to create sensitization. The university community must also know that there are stakeholders whose expectations and interests at times can be conflicting, but with a lot of education, I believe we can resolve all of these thing.

On his part, the bursar of the Elizade University, Mr Samuel Ajeigbe said the choice of the topic for the lecture was appropriate “now that there are confronting social, financial and political pressures contending with professionalism in the management of finances of universities and corporate entities. “

Ajeigbe observed that financial managers across Nigeria’s university system currently oversee the finances of about 309 universities, with 54 per cent (168) being privately owned and 46 per cent public institutions, a responsibility that often comes with enormous ethical pressures.

He said that “As professional managers of resources, we require strong leadership qualities, clear frameworks, uncompromising values and refined organisational cultures to resist undue ethical pressures in our daily activities.”

Ajeigbe stressed that financial managers must lead by example, foster transparency, build strong support systems and align institutional performance goals with high ethical standards, warning that rules must never be compromised in the pursuit of corporate or personal targets.

The annual lecture, organised by the Bursary and Internal Audit Departments of Elizade University, aimed at strengthening ethical consciousness and professional best practices in financial governance within Nigeria’s higher education system.