Dike Onwuamaeze
A professor of finance at the Faculty of Management Sciences, University of Lagos, Wilfred Iyiegbuniwe, has cried out that the government is unkind to the country’s university system by denying it a suitable environment for academics needed to think and produce.
Iyiegbuniwe lamented that things are so bad that some lecturers have to sleep in their offices because they cannot afford accommodations near the university campus where they are employed.
He made these observations recently after the public presentation of a book titled ‘The Frontiers of Management Sciences in Nigeria: A Festschrift of Prof. Wilfred Chifumnanya Iyiegbuniwe’ held at the University of Lagos to mark his over 40-year career.
Over 90 academics wrote the book in Nigeria, Europe and the United States of America.
Iyiegbuniwe said: “Government has not been kind to the university system. It is like there is a conspiracy to bring down academia. The Greek philosophers that laid the foundation said that academics should have an enabling environment where they can think and produce.
He added, “But in Nigeria, a lecturer is thinking about how to put food on the table and transport himself to the university like an itinerary worker. People won’t believe it that some university lecturers sleep in their offices because they cannot afford to live within a short distance to the university. I think that we in the universities should tell our stories that we are inadequately taking care of.”
The professor, therefore, warned that university education in Nigeria would die if the government failed to do something.
Speaking during the event, the Group Managing Director of Sahara Group, Mr. Kola Adesina, who was a former student of Iyiegbuniwe, said that he felt privileged and honoured to be the chairman of this event.
Adesina said, “This is a very unique occasion for me primarily because I am a product of the University of Lagos. I am not just a product of the University of Lagos, but I am a product of the lessons and knowledge transferred by Professor Willie Iyiegbuniwe, the celebrant.”
But, he was worried that undergraduates were not adequately represented during the event.
The guest of honour, Prof Temitope Ogundipe, also the immediate past vice chancellor of the University of Lagos, said that Iyiegbuniwe taught him during his MBA classes at the university.
Ogundipe said, “Under his watch as the postgraduate coordinator in 1984 the department produced the first Ph.D in Management Science in Nigeria, which was supervised by Prof. Joseph Abiodun Bello. In the Department of Finance of this University, Prof. Iyiegbuniwe supervised the first PhD degree graduate in finance.”
