FG, varsities and catchment areas

RECENTLY, the Federal Government announced the abolishment of the policy of  catchment areas in admitting new students into federal universities. President Muhammadu Buhari announced this policy shift at the 45th convocation ceremony of the University of Benin, Edo State. Buhari, who was represented on the occasion by the Deputy Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), Suleiman Yusuf, directed all federal universities to ensure that all local governments, states and geopolitical zones were represented in their admission of new students. He warned that any institution found contravening the directive would be sanctioned, indicating that he had directed the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and the National Universities Commission (NUC) to ensure compliance from the 2020 admissions season. Buhari said: “If you look at the demographics of various Nigerian universities, they reveals a preponderance of over-localisation and over-indigenization, with only a few universities, including those owned by the Federal Government, having a semblance of national institutions in terms of the national spread of their staff and students population. Universities should be more broad-minded, less parochial, and eschew over- indigenisation.”

Truth be told, President Buhari’s observations about federal universities in the country are right on the money. In most of the universities, members of the host community or the most contiguous ethnic nationalities ensure almost complete take-over of the key organs of the Senate, Governing Council, academic and non-academic staff and other critical institutions, thus turning them into sites of ethnic dominance and warfare. Such a system certainly bodes ill for the universities as centres of knowledge production and models for the larger society. The situation in these universities has in fact been so debased that only persons from particular ethnic groups can be vice chancellor or even dean. For instance, going by the present arrangement in the universities, a professor from the South-East cannot emerge as the vice chancellor of a federal university in the North, and vice versa.

In some cases, candidates for the office of vice chancellor are even expected to be adherents of the major religious faith in the concerned states. The cumulative effect of this atrocious turn of events is that the universities have often been run by narrow-minded, intellectually unfit and morally bankrupt individuals banking on their connections as “sons of the soil” to turn the universities into local markets openly advertising parochial cleavages. Given the foregoing, the Federal Government’s complaint about the undue localisation of the universities should serve as a wake-up call for change. Nevertheless, we do not think that doing away with the “catchment area” policy in admissions is the way to make these universities global and progressive in outlook and orientation.

In other words, the Federal Government’s new policy, although aimed at solving real and persistent problems, has the potentiality to create new, and more potent ones in the process of doing so. The world over, institutions, be they businesses or universities, reflect local content. This, in more ways than one, gives members of their host communities a sense of belonging. Neither Buhari nor members of his cabinet can deny the fact that even private companies have catchment areas, drawing a reasonable percentage of their staff from their host communities.  When the sites of these businesses are being built, an agreement between them and the host community  may for instance specify that 60 per cent of the unskilled labour force to be used in the construction must come from the local area.

We find no logic in the proscription of catchment area policy in the affected universities. Host geographical zones, if they are not to turn hostile and make the running of the universities difficult, if not impossible, deserve to continue enjoying the privilege they currently have in the area of admissions. Besides, the difference between cut-off marks on these universities’ ‘merit list’ and the ‘catchment area list’ is not so huge as to justify the call for the scrapping of catchment areas. In any case, most of the students that apply to the universities are those from the areas designated as catchment areas, apparently for economic and geographical considerations.

It is quite apparent that the Federal Government is seeking to reinforce the principle of federal character in the public universities. But then every federal varsity is already subscribed to the principle, meaning that persons from other areas are accommodated. In other words, in principle, “all local governments, states and geopolitical zones”, as Buhari wishes, are represented in their admission of new students, provided that candidates meet the merit requirements. But the undue localisation of the universities’ leadership has to stop. On this point, we are in agreement with the Federal Government. The universities need change, and very quickly too, in the composition of their staff outlook and leadership.

That is what the government should ensure.