Ogundipe Seeks Sustainable, Harmonized Relationship between NUC, Professional Bodies 

Uchechukwu Nnaike 

The Chairman, Governing Board, National Universities Commission (NUC), and former Vice-Chancellor, University of Lagos, Professor Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, has called for a sustainable, harmonized relationship between the NUC and Nigeria’s professional regulatory bodies to curb what he described as double oversight.

He also urged the Nigerian university system to move from an accreditation-centred culture to a quality assurance culture, saying that accreditation should be the confirmation of quality that already exists, not the event that creates temporary quality. 

This he said requires universities to embed programme review, curriculum currency, staff development, infrastructure renewal, student feedback, graduate outcomes and professional engagement into their normal governance processes.

Ogundipe stated this recently, while delivering the 2026 convocation lecture of Osun State University, titled ‘Coping with Double Oversight: Harmonizing the NUC and Professional Bodies for a Sustainable University System’.

According to him, for decades, the NUC and Nigeria’s professional regulatory bodies coexisted in an uneasy peace. “Universities understood that they needed both accreditations and managed the process as best they could. But as Nigeria’s university system expanded particularly from the 1990s onward, with the proliferation of state and private universities, the structural tensions between the two systems became increasingly visible and increasingly costly.” 

He argued that Nigeria does not need less regulation of university education, but needs better regulation. “Quality assurance must remain non-negotiable, but it becomes counterproductive when multiple regulators exercise overlapping mandates, impose inconsistent requirements, duplicate processes, and leave universities and students to bear the consequences.”

He said that the NUC and professional regulatory bodies have continued to clash in areas like: curriculum ownership and content, accreditation timelines and costs, minimum standards vs. professional standards, institutional capacity and professional council resistance to new universities, the post-NYSC professional registration problem, data asymmetry and information gaps.

According to him, the unresolved tension affects institutional planning, academic staff who are burdened with perpetual  accreditation preparation, students, public trust in the university system, and national development.

“Nigeria’s development agenda whether articulated through ERGP, the Economic Sustainability Plan, or the more recent Renewed Hope Agenda depends critically on the supply of welltrained professionals: doctors, engineers, lawyers, pharmacists, nurses, architects, accountants. A regulatory system that impedes the efficient production of such professionals, that creates unnecessary attrition between university graduation and professional registration, is a drag on national development. It is a self-inflicted wound on a country that can afford neither the wound nor the delay in healing it,” Ogundipe said.

He therefore stressed that the regulatory calendar must become part of institutional planning, adding that the governing council, senate and management should know, programme by programme, the applicable NUC and professional requirements, the status of each accreditation, the next expected review, outstanding recommendations, and the financial implications. “Accreditation should therefore feature in the annual operating plan and institutional risk register.”

He added that Nigeria needs a stronger student-protection principle, saying that no student should discover at graduation that a programme has a regulatory problem that the institution or regulator knew, or ought reasonably to have known, years earlier. 

He insisted that accreditation status should be transparent at admission and continuously updated. “Where a programme is under an approved developmental or interim arrangement, students should receive clear information about the implications for professional registration.”

The chairman further recommended that professional accreditation should be developmental, rather than merely punitive. He said that where deficiencies are remediable and do not pose an immediate threat to public safety, the regulatory response should distinguish between serious quality failures and capacity gaps that can be corrected within an agreed improvement plan. “This is particularly important for young universities and programmes serving regions where access to professional education remains limited.”

He advised universities to accept responsibility, saying that harmonisation cannot become a convenient argument for lowering standards. “University leadership must ensure that curricula are current, academic staff are properly qualified, laboratories and clinical facilities are fit for purpose, students receive adequate practical exposure, and recommendations from regulatory visits are implemented. A culture of quality begins within the institution,” Ogundipe said.

He further stated that establishing a sustainable, harmonized relationship between the NUC and Nigeria’s professional bodies requires: legislative and policy clarification of jurisdictional boundaries; a permanent national consultative framework; harmonised accreditation protocols; student-protective developmental accreditation; and a shared national regulatory information platform.

He lauded the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa’s recent reform initiatives, particularly the establishment of a Ministerial Committee on Strengthening the Accreditation and Quality Assurance System for Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria, saying that his focus on harmonising accreditation protocols and instruments, as well as securing the active participation of professional bodies, is a critical step forward. “Achieving this buy-in, however, requires careful negotiation and sustained engagement.”

Ogundipe stressed that the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVC) has an important role to play in advocating, with a unified voice, for the outlined administrative reforms. 

He said individual universities often negotiate separately with regulatory bodies, leading to inconsistent outcomes and missed opportunities for system-wide reform. He said that a coordinated advocacy strategy, developed by the CVC, in partnership with the Association of Private Universities in Nigeria and the Committee of Pro-Chancellors, would carry greater weight than any individual institution can muster.

Ogundipe also advised the graduands and those entering the professions medicine, engineering, law, pharmacy, the built environment, the sciences, to understand the regulatory framework of their profession. “Know what professional registration requires of you. Know your professional body. Engage with it not as a bureaucratic obstacle, but as the institution that defines the standards of your calling and protects the public you are sworn to serve.”

“Do not wait for the system to come to you. Go to the system. Register. Participate. And in time, lead. The professional bodies of Nigeria, like all human institutions, are shaped by the people who engage with them. The generation that reforms the double oversight problem may well be sitting in this hall today,” he said.