Vice- Chancellor’s Wives’ Association and their Nebulous Leadership Management Course

Vice- Chancellor’s Wives’ Association and their Nebulous Leadership Management Course

The Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities Spouses Association, CVCNUS, is a fact. It exists. But should it? Most thought it was a late April fool joke. But it is not. With the outrage and disbelief it has attracted, the first meeting has been postponed, perhaps forever. Sadly, other first ladies meetings for presidential and governor and LGA, and spouses of the armed forces, security forces, and other arms of MDAs have, almost without exception, become contaminated with peacock dressing, wild publicity, much noise and fury, signifying nothing”. “Such associations have uniformly turned morbidly farcical, as citizens see little in exchange for the glitz and glamour of the events surrounding them”.

I have my good friend, Professor Tunde Adeniran, former Minister of Education, to thank for his views on the totally irrelevant association  of the spouses of University Vice – Chancellors. In his letter to one of the Vice Chancellors,  he wrote: “I came across a forthcoming program of the CVCNUS as advertised in the social media and  felt I should convey my opinion on it to you as a concerned colleague. I see it as an unnecessary fad springing from Nigeria’s culture of absurdities. The association appears ill-conceived and may, very well contribute to depleting the resources of universities which are presently grossly inadequate. I am sure that you and I are aware that ASSU is currently on strike, and that negotiation with the government has stalled; meaning that our children remain at home since there’s no assurance that the universities will soon be opened for academic activities to resume. Given this situation, what is the sense in anybody organizing a conference for spouses of Vice – Chancellors with the attendant costs to be borne by the universities? The association of Vice- Chancellor’s spouses has absolutely no value, and no reason to exist. It can only lower the esteem of the Committee of Nigerian University Vice-Chancellors.”

These are extremely wise words especially at a time when not only Vice- Chancellors, but Governing  Councils of these universities, as eyes of government in the institutions, appear to have lost focus; nor does it appear like the Minister of Education, any longer, pays attention to what is happening in Nigerian universities.

Were this not the situation, these wives would not be contemplating going on a frolic, each  of them at a princely sum of N1.5m  besides  the generous estacodes which their respective husbands will decide, at a time university teachers are on strike and hundreds of Nigerian undergraduates are home, doing nothing meaningful.

But can we blame them?

Nigerian university teachers and many other workers’ associations within the universities may very well be on strike, but these ladies’ husbands are at such plum jobs they each can  afford to buy APC presidential nomination forms at its princely price of N100m. So why should they be bothered  even if their husbands  had proposed they go to the moon? Or why, in all honesty, would these wives not wish to rub  their opulence on the faces of the other poor university workers who get anything, at all, only through perennial strikes during which Labour Minister, Chris Ngige, regularly insults and ridicules them?

The news of the Turkey jamboree  had come to Nigerians like a bolt from the blues or, as Dr Mahinho puts it, like a late April fool joke because this is such a pitiable time in Nigeria that no rational mind should have conceived of such an absolute joke. They were all already set, in their numbers, to jet out to Turkey to attend  a  course which the most diligent check on Google is yet to locate, as was first revealed by Professor Niyi Akinaso in his article “VC’s Wives: How Town’s Rot Has Infiltrated Gown”, which spurred me into also trying to Google the very important course our University First Ladies were dying to attend. But in vain did I too check which  prompts me to now suggest that  federal agencies whose duty it is to get to the bottom of  scams should  please help ascertain that the Nigerian public was not about being scammed. This is not saying, however, that  the the course does not exist. Rather, all we are saying is that we are yet to find any concrete evidence of its existence, and I dare say that for purposes of integrity, and for their names, such an investigation should  be of interest, not only to the women, their husbands, the Vice chancellors,  but also to the Committee of Vice – Chancellors.

It is rather embarrassing that the would – be tourists could not spare a thought for the hundreds of thousands of Nigerian students who have already lost over 6 weeks, and are now starting another three months out of school, thereby exposing them to all manner of Nigeria’s prevailing insecurity as well as vehicular accidents.

What exactly were they thinking?

Leaving the women and their husbands aside, where for God’s sake, were the governing  councils of these universities? Granted that wives could sweet talk their husbands into buying into this programme, what of the councils, who are the very eyes of government in the9 institutions? Was the trip budgeted for? What has become of the role of Governing Councils in Universities? Or is honorariums alone, all that now matter to them? And, by the way, where  in all this, is the Minister of Education? Do we, in reality,  any longer have a government in this country that is accorded its due respect, or has everything just irretrievably  broken down that anything would pass muster in these institutions of higher learning?

I ask these questions from a background of  relevant  cognate experience as I was privileged to have worked, directly, with two  of Nigeria’s most respected University Vice- Chancellors, namely, Professors H. A.Oluwasanmi and Ladipo Akinkugbe, of Ife and Ilorin Universities respectively; and tangentially, with a no less distinguished third – Professor Oritsejolomi Thomas, at Ibadan when I served as Secretary of the Ceremonials Committee for the University of Ibadan 25th Anniversary celebration in 1973. These were all at a time when Nigerian Vice- Chancellors were worth their names in gold, and some of our current Vice- Chancellors were, at best, undergraduates. As Pro – Chancellors then, you had the likes of  Sir Samuel Manuwa and Alhaji Abdurrahman Okene at Ibadan, and the Rev. T. T. Solaru at Ife.

Do these distinguished personalities look, even now decades after,  like people some women would sweet talk into some meaningless jamboree?

Of course, there were VCs and Pro – Chancellors, just like there were Universities!

Why is everything in this country retrogressing at a time Nigeria should be taking its place amongst the comity of nations?

The other day, Britain specifically exempted graduates of Nigerian universities from its brand new visa category which provides routes for, especially youths, to work, live and study in the UK.

Why would things like that not spur our Vice- Chancellors to positive action? Do they seriously believe that their institutions can not count amongst the World’s Best 50 Universities?

Unfortunately, anybody feeding free on government, and in whatever capacity, must try  to rub it  on the faces of the rest of us.

In the meantime, should it be beyond these women, even if  only as mothers, to spare a thought for the victims, and relations, of those Nigerians who were kidnapped by bandits in the Abuja- Kaduna train fiasco, and who, for well over a month have  remained in captivity like there is no government in Nigeria?  Didnt they, as mothers,  hear that a delivered was delivered of a baby in that torrid circumstance?

Must opulence rob them of their humaneness?

Meanwhile, knowing these our upper class women for what they are,  it can safely be assumed that having chosen Turkey, a country known for its  attractive tourist centres, these eminent wives would  take time out to relax at some of the following fee paying tourist centres, among  others: the One Hour Deluxe Hot Air Balloon at Goreme Valley, the Bosphorus Sunset Cruise on Luxury Yacht, the Best of Istanbul: 1, 2 or 3-Day Private Guided Istanbul Tour or The1-hour Hot Air Balloon Flight Over the Fairy Chimneys in Cappadocia.

In the days of  the afore – mentioned Pro- chancellors,  no Vice – Chancellor would dare mention to them, even the mere proposal of  establishing  an association of  their wives, not to talk of reporting it as already a fait accompli.

What, in fact, were these women going to do in Turkey? Yes, Professor Yakubu Ochefu, Secretary – General, Committee of Vice Chancellors, in his letter  of 5 May, 2022  said that they were to honour an “Invitation to the Istanbul 5-Day Leadership & Management Masterclass, Fellowship Induction for Spouses of Vice Chancellors, Women in Academics and Higher Education Leadership’. Why  did it  not occur to Ochefu and company at the Committee of Vice Chancellors that this is a programme any university in Nigeria could very competently handle, if only to save CBN Governor Emefiele, the problem of having to source forex for them at a time he could more profitably have  spent  on his presidential campaign, to justify the confidence those very rich rice farmers see in him  to put together a whopping N100M for his APC nomination form?

However, tired of  the ‘hell on earth’  Nigeria has since become these past 7 years, how else would they be able to take full advantage of those tourist sites if the programme were to hold in Benin, Lokoja, Kaura Namoda or Ifaki?

A word of advice for our dear distinguished Vice Chancellors if they would like to see their names on the right side of history, because this office will one day.lapse, and all they would be remembered for is the good, or bad things, they did while in office. Rather than continue to antagonise ASSU which for decades have been dodgedly fighting for the upliftment  of Nigerian  universities, Vice- Chancellors, though eager to be seen by government as obedient servants,  must find a way of working with the unions which they have no way of doing without. I appreciate that some of these unions can be abrasive, cocky and, indeed, incorrigible which they regard as normal attributes of trade unionism, but VCs should know that they will not simply evaporate.

Indeed, my boss, the indefatigable  Chief J. S Okudu, then registrar of the University of Ibadan, once told me that University workers’ unions are as  evily minded as to deliberately  elect the most illiterate among them as union President just so they would have no meeting point with the University administration. A very tough President Afolabi at the University of Ibadan was archetypical. He gave the administration hell. But things have since changed. What remains to be done now is for Vice chancellors to climb down from their high horse, stop acting like Tzars, and, knowing full well that they cannot do away from the unions, try their utmost best to arrive at a Modus Vivendi with them. They should learn to work in synergy with the unions,  both for internal peace as well as for the upliftment of their respective institutions. That way they would come to see how  the unions could turn around to become agents of positive change.

In concluding, I hope one is not assuming too much to say that by now, that noxious Association of Vice – chancellors spouses has become as dead as dodo and their Turkey jamboree, history.

May Nigerian Universities, by the grace of God, receive their much desired renewal.