Okojie condemns corruption in varsities

THE Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Julius Okojie, has blamed the decline in values in Nigerian university to the politicization of the appointments of vice chancellors.He said the development became so pervasive especially under the military rule so much so that the military leaders at that time cashed in to also manipulate the chief executives to do their bidding, thereby dipping the intellectual endeavours that formed the basis for the establishment of the universities in the first place.Corruption in Nigerian universities became pervasive when the position for Vice-chancellor became a political appointment rather than the responsibility of the universities, Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC) Professor Julius Okojie has said.Okojie made the comments at the opening of a one-day sensitization seminar on the effects of corruption in the Nigerian university system organized jointly by NUC and Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) in Abuja recently.He said after Vice-chancellors became political appointees during the military era, quality of leadership had dramatically declined as they were not responsible to the university community, but rather to those who appointed them.His words: 'Universities then lost focus in terms of research and productivity that industries lost confidence in us. The best brains did not want to remain in the university system. This also extends to the admissions and quality of governance in the system.Okojie said incessant strikes and demonstrations, states setting up universities without recourse to NUC, students buying grades and bribing lecturers, cultism and off-campus accommodation has scaled up the level of corruption in the Nigerian university system. He said for corruption to be tackled, integrity has to be restored in the system.The ICPC Chairman, Ekpo Nta, who was represented at the occasion said the seminar had become imperative as education was bedrock of developmental platform of any society. He said the commission just like the NUC was concerned about reports of corruption within the university system, saying ICPC was ready to partner with NUC to ensure that the incidences of corruption were minimized to the barest minimum.He hoped that the workshop would work out practical implementable solutions to the two bodies so that the glory of certificates of educational institutions would be restored.
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