The University as a Moral Force: Exploring the Sovereignty of Truth

1. INTRODUCTION 1.1.Preamble

Let me start with an acknowledgement. I feel highly honoured to be invited to deliver the Founders' Day Lecture of my alma mater, at the anniversary of its forty-fifth year of existence. This is a rare privilege. As an alumnus, I am very delighted to be given an opportunity to speak to the public on a platform provided by the entire university/ the historic occasion of its birth day celebrations. I thank those who nominated me, and he who had the grace to endorse the choice. A few years ago, this would have been unthinkable.

1.2 Justification of the Choice of Topic

I chose the topic of this public lecture. I was granted the freedom to do so. There is therefore need to say a few words about why I selected it.

I have elected to speak about the university because it is the apex of educational institutions; and in our part of the world, education is the most important 'industry'. In general, education plays a critical role in the progress of society and the molding of civilizations It is of added importance to any nation troubled by the scourge of poverty. Nigeria is one such nations. In Nigeria, in general, and among the Igbo in particular, education is regarded as a potent lever of upward socio-economic mobility; as a mechanism for lifting an entire family out of a condition of abject poverty.

The number of people in poverty in Nigeria has been increasing over the years. According to the World Bank, the number was 18.3 million in 1980; by 1996, it had increased more than three-fold, to 67.1 million. In relative terms, too, poverty level in Nigeria has been rising. Data provided by the United Nations Development Programme show that, as a proportion of the total population, the number of the extremely poor in Nigeria was 28 per cent in 1985, 40 per cent in 1992 and 45 per cent in 1996/97. In the document embodying the National Economic Empowerment Development

Strategy (NEEDS), the Federal Government acknowledges that the situation has worsened even further since the 1990s. It reveals that by 2003,70 per cent of Nigerians were living in poverty. It is education, particularly, quality university education, that can banish poverty.

Education is of added significance for people of our "catchment area", the south-east zone of Nigeria, given its dubious distinction as a region of growing poverty. The pattern of the incidence of poverty shows that the people of the south-east geopolitical zone are being impoverished at a rate faster than the national average. For instance, in 1985/86, the incidence of poverty among the Igbo households of south-eastern Nigeria was 30.9 per cent;

but the national average was higher, at 43 per cent. By 1997, however, the positions had been reversed: the incidence of poverty among Igbo households had risen to 79.5 per cent; but, although the national average had also increased to 69.2 per cent, it was lower than that of the Igbo. The poor among the Igbo and the other peoples of south- east Nigeria place high hopes in education to grant them honourable exit from this condition and to give them socio-economic up-liftment. Indeed, the Wawa Igbo, among whom the University of Nigeria, Nsukka was wisely cited, by the great thinker and founder, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, attribute their condition of relative under-development to what they describe as "the historical accident of being exposed to Western education much later than their southerly Igbo brothers"[Eze, Mbah and Ezea,1994:4].

For us, therefore, and for all Nigerians, our future lies in education, especially, university education. The university is easily the most important tier of the educational system. It is at this level that the future is determined. The kind of education given to a people, for better of for worse, shapes their future, and molds their fate. This is why all civilized nations see the university as the soul of the nation and nurture it with great care [ASUU on University Autonomy Bill, 2002]. In such countries, the university is seen not simply as an industry for high level manpower production; but more significantly, as a storehouse of knowledge and an innovator and creator of ideas and strategies to stimulate national development.

1.2.1. Relevance for University of Nigeria.

The topic is about 'the University'- any university. It is not about the University of Nigeria. But then it is being delivered under the auspices of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The lecture is also not just about the university. It is about morality and truth as well. Sometimes, truth is a scarce commodity in our immediate environment. In justifying the choice of topic, charity should, therefore, begin at home.

To lighten the atmosphere, let us start with two anecdotes, drawn from the experience of our University, which illustrate the relevance and timeliness of focusing on the 'University as a Moral Force' and exploring the 'Sovereignty of Truth' The first story was told by Mr. Allison A.Ayida, who was the first Secretary of the Federal Military Government, under General Murtala Mohamed, with General Olusegun Obasanjo as Chief of General Staff, and second in command. The year was 1975, soon after the coup d'etat that brought down the government of General Yakubu Gowon. There had been a mass retrenchment of public servants in Federal and State Public Services all over the federation. The University of Nigeria, like all other federal universities, sent a list of those marked for sack to the Government in Lagos. However, the Head of State, General Mohammed, was dissatisfied with the list because it contained mostly the names of junior staff. Why was it that no Professors and Senior Administrators made the list? Suspecting injustice in the compilation of the list, he wanted it revised, but did not quite know how to accomplish this in time to meet the deadline. Fortuitously, he got the information that Professor H. C.Kodilinye, former Vice-Chancellor of the University, was in Lagos. Prof. Kodilinye, himself, had just been removed as Vice-Chancellor of the University. General

Mohammed immediately sent for Prof. Kodilinye. As soon as he arrived Dodan Barracks, he was given pen and paper, with the assignment:

Suppose you were still the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, and you were asked to recommend those who should be removed from their employment from the university, whom would you name?

Prof. Kodilinye, without hesitation penned down the names of several senior academics and administrators, especially those who had served as his closest advisers. And they were sacked. Prof. Kodilinye's reasoning was that if he had been well advised by those people, he would not have been removed from office. Was he right or wrong? Is his action morally defensible? There is a clear moral lesson for us all in that episode: in playing any role in the university system, let truth always be our master. In forty -five years, the university of Nigeria has had eleven vice-chancellors and a sole administrator-an average of one in two years. Out of ten Vice-Chancellors and one Sole Administrator who headed this University, before the appointment of Prof. Chinedu O. Nebo, only two completely served their terms of office. Four were removed from office in the wake of serious internal crises. One resigned in utter frustration and disgust: he was often inundated with petitions, some of them patently frivolous. One was transferred to another university, and left there prematurely. One left before the start of the Nigerian civil war, and became mad; another was frustrated out of the job because of his role in the civil war, and died soon thereafter. Each of the two that served their full terms escaped being lynched to death by students, by the breadth of their hair. One is still here serving: we shall tell his story later-at the end of his term. Was the moral environment in which each of those men served healthy?

The second episode is drawn from my own personal experience. In the year 2001,1 was requested by the Chairman of a Sub-committee of the Governing Council to prepare a memorandum to be used for raising special funds from the Federal Government of Nigeria .In that memorandum, I depicted the deteriorating physical condition of the University of Nigeria in the following words:

Any sensitive person who visits the University of Nigeria would be depressed to the point of shedding tears. The Streets, the academic and administrative buildings, and the halls of residence bear the names of foremost Nigerian nationalists and eminent Pan-Africanists. This cheers and instructs and wells up in one, an emotion of patriotic nostalgia. But then, the buildings, the streets, all of them, bear a dispiriting appearance of abandonment, nay of desertion. From Elias Avenue, through Ikejiani Street, Ado Bayero Way, and Zik's Avenue, to Mbonu Ojike and Imoke Streets, and from Russwurm Building (housing the Faculty of the Social Sciences), through Carver (part Chemistry and part Registry), and the relatively new Jimbaz (Biological Sciences) to Agbebi Complex (Engineering Faculty); from Okpara Hall (the oldest female hostel),through Akintola Hall (one of the oldest male hostels) to Ahmadu Bello Hall and Zik's Flat(newly converted to female hostel) the picture is the same It is a panorama of broken wings. Gaping potholes at the bellies of stranded roads with blistered lips; cracked and cleavaging walls resting on tired columns and quaking foundations; a procession of

uncompleted buildings, graying, moulding and mournfully enduring their desolate condition. Make to enter the halls of residence, to explore further how the reputation of the notable nationalists and Pan-Africanists, after whom they were named, has impacted on the upkeep of the buildings and you are repelled by unbearable stench oozing from the un-evacuated and overflowing sewage. Relevant pieces of equipment have broken down- water is scarce. The student population is too heavy for the available facilities.

I went on to draw attention to four main factors responsible for the physical decay of the University so poetically depicted. They were, I said, the gap between resources and needs; the inadequacy and non-completion of the Post Civil -war rehabilitation and reconstruction of the University of Nigeria by the Federal Government (especially the abrupt termination of the reconstruction efforts); the non reflection in funding of the peculiar dual campus structure of the University by the Federal Government and the sudden fall in the general level of revenue allocated to Nigerian Universities between 1984 and 1987; and the sharp decline in the proportion allocated to the University of Nigeria between 1981 and 1984.1 provided the facts and figures to support these points (see Appendix A, attached).

In respect of the last point, for instance, I stressed that while in 1982,1983 and 1984 the University of Nigeria received the highest amount of capital grants of all first generation Federal Universities, in!985, it received less than University of Ibadan and University of Lagos. In 1986 and 1987, it received the same amount as the others. [See Appendix A] By then the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) government of Shehu Shagari and Alex Ekwueme had been overthrown, and the University of Nigeria became the poorer for it. It was this development rather than the removal of Professor Frank Ndili from office as Vice-Chancellor that left the many buildings, which his administration started simultaneously, uncompleted.

For the University of Nigeria, the decline in funds was very dramatic. For instance, in 1982, it received N28.289 million in capital grants, the Federal University closest to it in amount, University of Lagos, got only N14.889 million. But, in 1985, the year Prof. Ndili was removed from office, the University of Nigeria got a capital grant of N2.2 million, compared with N3.5 million for University of Lagos. And in 1986 and 1987, each of the first generation Federal Universities received only Nl.7 million and N3.0 million, respectively.

In that memorandum, I was deliberately silent - some would say criminally silent - on a moral point. That is the mismanagement, misappropriation or outright embezzlement of University funds by several officials of the University. I know, as verifiable fact, that between 1993and 2003, the University of Nigeria lost heavy sums of money due to gross mismanagement of funds, bureaucratic tardiness, outright embezzlement, and fraud. The reports of visitation panels and administrative audit panels on the University of Nigeria cited in different sections of this lecture, amply illustrate the point.

Mismanagement was the immediate cause of these losses, but moral decay at the head of the fish, was the remote but root cause. You probably do not know this, but between 2001 and

2003, the National Assembly approved a special grant of N200million for the University of Nigeria; and the Presidency approved another N500 million, again as a special grant to the university, all partly due to the efforts of special committees of council and the university administration, on one of which I served. Out of these sums, a total of N500 million(N200 million for UNN, and N300 million for College of Medicine) was actually made available to the University. The Federal Government also approved the tarring of some roads on the Nsukka campus But what did we have at the end of the term of the last administration? Nothing significantly different from what the situation was in 2000, given the special capital and Education Trust Fund grants . Apart from the few roads tarred, all the others remain unrepaired. By and large the buildings remain broken and desolate.

Lesson

Money is important, but morality in University administration is even more important. Indeed, it is decisive.

This is one reason for choosing this topic. However, there is yet another, more significant reason. We are in a post-modernist era, the era of textuality, deconstruction, reconstitution and double reading, interpreting interpretations, rather than things. Today, texts are interpreted by some schools of thought while keeping in mind the notion that meaning itself is elusive (The Economist Dec.18,2004:129]. We are in a world in which language is seen as a product of power. The underlying idea here is that truth is not fixed or immutable; rather it is relative and flexible, and defined by whomever is in charge. [Michael Foucault, 1926-84-in The Economist, Ibid.]This moral relativism portends a serious danger to the concept of the university as a moral force.

Furthermore, we are in an era when Universities are beginning to be seen as global businesses or as profit -making enterprises. The name of the game today is 'entrepreneurial universities'. The transformation of universities to Global Businesses involves the "internationalization and'competitionalization' of universities ".Some mistakenly believe that this entails removing morality from, or at least downplaying it in university governance (The Economist, Feb 26,2005)They are wrong.

2. CONCEPTUAL ISSUES

Having introduced the topic, let us then clear the conceptual undergrowth.

What is the University? What is Morality? What is Truth?

2.1 The University: Meaning and Nature

The University has been accurately defined as a community of "scholars, all of whom are learning but the senior scholars spend part of their time teaching the junior scholars; and [they] also increase their own knowledge by adding to the store of human knowledge. This

they do by research". [Bruce Truscot; cited in Okafor 1971:4] It is a society of scholars, producing researched knowledge and, in the process, promoting the intellectual and moral growth of themselves and the society, at large.

As an institution, a university performs two basic functions: it develops the intellect and grows the morals, it makes one learned and at the same time improves one's character and conduct. It promotes the moral development of its inmates not through a separate, distinct and specific course of moral education, but through the same process by which it develops the mind. It performs a moral development function indirectly, but yet effectively.

The dictionary definition of a university as an institution of higher learning with power to grant degrees is shallow and misleading. A college is also an institution of higher learning with power to award degrees. So is a Polytechnic. What distinguishes a university is not the power to award degrees; it is the ability to produce researched knowledge, and thereby, add to the existing store of human knowledge. Its teaching is founded on this accumulation of verified truth. Through teaching and research, the University promotes the intellectual and moral development of both the community of scholars (the Ivory Tower itself) and the surrounding environmental.

The university is not just any community of scholars; it is a self-governing community with a peculiar structure and culture. It is self-governing and aloof, separated from the corrupting world of commerce and the suffocating embrace of state power .It dramatizes its relative autonomy from the rest of society, and its uniqueness by using mysterious rituals and adopting peculiar dress codes. Its structure is an elected hierarchy of academic peers; its culture is unflagging devotion to the pursuit of truth wherever it might lead, and insistence on integrity whatever it might cost. Part of its culture is also deep unflinching loyalty to, and enduring support for, each other and the community of scholars at large [Ross, 1976:13] Its traditional dress code is bohemian and yet sedate'; it is clerical, even monastic.

The university is a universal phenomenon. Its essence defies rime and clime. Its institutional incarnation may vary from shore to shore or from epoch to epoch, but its ethical content remains eternal and universal. As our union, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has observed, the university is "an organism that is open, liberal and ennobling. It serves all, civilizes all, admits all, and accommodates all. It is open to all manner of men and women, of all races and nations, of all classes and statuses"[ASUITs Comments on the Bill on University Autonomy, 2002]. Indeed, the university admits and tolerates people of all gender, male, female, transgender, male turned into female and male aspiring to become female, and people of all creed, conformists and confrontationists, believers and heretics, atheists and fundamentalists, agnostics and iconoclasts. It accommodates them on one condition: they all must be committed to the respect of university culture.

The university is a supranational organization; it strives to stand above and beyond parochial interests. It is insulated from society and roams in the rarified firmament of ideas, concepts and theories. As a self-governing community, it has powers to make its own rules and develop its own way of life. These characteristics are borrowed from the Church and the

monastery after which it was originally patterned. The first university, in this sense, was the biblical community of scholars, a community of Rabbi (Christ) and his disciples. In a sense, that was one of the earliest universities; it was universitas magistrorum. The university also per-takes of the character of the guild: it is a community of persons bonded by an oath of mutual support and obedience to an elected hierarchy of officials and with authority to elect its own members.

The raison d'etre of the university is fearless and unfettered search for the Truth. It is the courageous proclamation of the truth, when it is discovered, and the stubborn defence of it, even in the face of death or threat of death. In this sense the University may be defined as a community of scholars who have surrendered themselves to the sovereignty of truth. The great classical Greek philosopher once said: "The argument, wherever it leads, there we must follow"[Flew, 1973:17].

At the heart of the universal culture of the university is academic freedom. Let me once again have recourse to ASUU in clarifying this important concept. According to ASUU,

Academic freedom is as vital to the existence and development of the university as flowing water is to fishes. Academic freedom is the river of the intellectual; it refers to the freedom of masters and scholars to conduct research, advance the frontiers of knowledge, and disseminate the results of their research without let or hindrance. Academic freedom thrives in the university when it enjoys institutional autonomy and it, in turn, serves as a conditio sine qua non for preserving university autonomy. Indeed, academic freedom is an intrinsic element of the university [ASUU Comments on the Bill on University Autonomy, 2002].

Let me quickly add that academic freedom does not mean the right to say and do whatever one wants in a university environment.

2.2 The University, Morality and the Truth

There is a very close link between morality, truth and the University. To begin with, the University is, as will soon be shown, a "moral community". A moral community is a cohesive group of persons integrated socially and morally. Its members have extensive intimate social attachments and share a set of common beliefs about morality and behaviour [Marshall, 1994:341]. Also, as we argued earlier, the University may also be defined as a community of scholars who have surrendered themselves to the sovereignty of truth. The founding fathers of the University of Nigeria, in their wisdom, bestowed concrete institutional legitimacy on this definition when they couched the following pithy lines as a summation of its philosophy:

To seek the Truth

To Teach the Truth

To Preserve the Truth and thereby

To Restore the Dignity of Man

But what, may we ask, is "The Truth"? And what is morality? The ordinary meaning of 'truth' appears simple enough. It is "faithfulness, constancy, veracity". It is also "agreement with reality" [Macdonald, Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary, 1989:1448]. In practice, such simple definitions cannot be a guide to conduct. To some people, including certain university people, the reality today is that money rules the world. If the University is organized around this "truth", then by all means, we must transform every university from a not-for-profit educational institution into a profit making business enterprise. That may, however, violate the very essence of the university, and the foremost objective for establishing the University of Nigeria. That foremost end, let us remind ourselves, is "to hold forth to all classes and communities whatsoever an encouragement for pursuing a regular and liberal course of education". [University of Nigeria Calendar, 1999-2001:40]. We therefore need to explore further the meaning of "truth". To appreciate the profundity and complexity of the concept, we must link it with morality.

Again the ordinary meaning of morality is simple and apparently unambiguous. Morality, says the Dictionary, is the "quality of being moral". It is that "which makes an action right or wrong: the doctrine of action as right or wrong; ethics" [Macdonald, 1989:854]. According to the same source, the adjective 'moral' means "relating to character or conduct considered as good or evil", or pertaining to behaviour that conforms to, or is directed toward right; being virtuous and capable of knowing right and wTrong. [Ibid.].

So what aspect of University life conforms to or is directed towards right. If a University lecturer's take home pay can no longer take him home, is not enough to meet his legitimate social and family obligations, is it right that he should use what he has control over to supplement his official income? If he does not, is it a 'good' thing that he should stay alive and watch his children denied of high quality education ,the cost of which is steadily rising beyond the income of the lower middle class? What of the University administrator who no longer has a hope of retiring with pension and gratuity; is it "moral" for him/her to succumb to 'sorting' by students or to help himself with University funds under his/her control in order to put enough money aside or acquire some assets in lieu of pension and gratuity? Should he/she while, in office, pay himself the pension and gratuity that is likely to be denied him/her on retirement? To put it differently, can a University that can not pay its staff a comfortable living wage while they are in service, and which cannot pay them their pension and gratuity, on retirement, effectively serve as a moral force? Does a government that is unwilling, and unable, to provide universities with adequate financial resources to meet their legitimate obligations to their staff and students deserve the loyalty and respect of that group of citizens?

These questions illustrate the difficulty of conceptualizing morality in a simplistic manner. Let us have recourse to the root of the concept, as a platform for exposing its complex meaning.

The word "moral" derives from the Latin term "moralis"', which is a term coined by Cicero, the ancient philosopher. It was invented as a translation of the Greek word, "ethikos" into Latin. This much, we learn from Beongwan Chu [1996]. The word morality is used synonymously with the word ethics. Both words are concerned with issues of "right or wrong, good or bad, fair or unfair, responsible or irresponsible, obligatory or permissible, praiseworthy or blameworthy" [Ibid.].

From the beginning, it was difficult to apply the concept to practical situations. In classical Greek Philosophy, the complexity of the practical meaning of morality was demonstrated when Socrates asked Euthyphro to defend his decision to prosecute his own father in court for the alleged offence of murdering one of his servants. When Euthyphro defended the decision on the ground of justice, and was asked by Socrates to define the term justice in a manner that captures its essence, he failed. Nonetheless, he went ahead to prosecute his father (Ibid.). The episode ... demonstrates the immense difficulty of applying notions of morality, defined in a universal manner, to different cases, in varying circumstances, across diverse cultures. So, what is the solution?

Let us begin with what is not the solution The solution is not moral relativism. Moral relativists abound in many societies; they are found in universities as well. Their position is that what is right for one person is not necessarily right for another human individual [Hinman, 1999:27]. For them everyone is right; and everyone is wrong depending on how one sees a situation. Morality is, therefore, like beauty; its definition is purely in the eyes of the beholder, or in this case the mind of the beholder. This moral subjectivism is dangerous for society. A variant of it, which says that morality is culture-specific, is also destructive of community life, especially is the context of the university as a universe. The danger of moral relativism is that it is impossible for moral agreement or moral consensus to be forged on the basis of moral subjectivism. Similarly, it is difficult to strengthen the moral force of the University if the community of scholars believe that when one is in Rome (read Nigeria), one should do like the Romans (Nigerians). It is a philosophy that contributes to subjecting and subordinating the University to changing societal perverse culture.

At the other extreme is moral absolutism. It is equally unhelpful. Those who, in the University, believe that there is a single Truth, with a capital "T" are enemies of academic freedom. [Ibid:l]. Often, when moral absolutists lay claim to monopoly of knowledge of what is the truth, it is a disguise for their insistence on an acceptance of their personal position on, or perception of, social reality. Their position undermines the necessity for genuine disagreements on moral issues among very well informed people (Ibid.). After all, such disagreements are the very soul of university life.

This point demands emphasis. The university is a Tower of disputation. It is a place where encouragement is given to, and liberty granted for, the airing of heresies and profession of heterodoxies. It is a hallowed ground for the toleration of eccentrics. The tragedy

today is that, in some countries of the contemporary world, the university has become a secure abode for conformists, for defenders of orthodoxy, for haters of argumentation, for opponents of confrontation, worse, for sycophants.

The answer is moral pluralism. The position of moral pluralists is that, although there are moral truths, they do not form "a body of coherent and consistent truths" [Ibid:3]. Moral truths, they maintain, are real, but partial and plural. They contend that there are conflicting theories about what is good and what is right; and that such conflicts, which lead to disagreements and arguments, are healthy Consciousness and acceptance of the existence of differing perspectives on morality are in conformity with the culture of the university. It is through such debates that a high level of consensus emerges about moral issues. More important, it is through such dialectical interactions that progress is made, not only within the University community, but in the wider world as well. .

3. THE UNIVERSITY AS A MORAL FORCE

The central question that captures our imagination is not whether the University is a moral force. That is a settled matter; it is. The issue that requires exploration is how the University shapes the moral development of its products and its environment, Martin Trow, [1976:20-27] has addressed the same question admirably. The related issue is what factors facilitate that role for each University; and what factors impede it.

In the extant literature, higher education has been characterized as having two lives: a public life and a private life. The public life is the aspect of higher education that raises the problems of financing, organization, administration and governance of the institutions and systems. It is the view of the University, for instance, as a social institution, an ensemble of rules, laws, procedures, processes and physical and bureaucratic structures. In contrast, the private life of higher education is said to consist of the patterns, modes and quality of interaction "among students and teachers, the actual processes of teaching and learning", [Ibid: 27]. It is in this sphere, it has been argued, that the question of moral development of students arises and is most effectively addressed.

There is a school of thought that holds that the University promotes the moral growth of its students, but that the degree to which this is done, can not be easily established. I belong to this school. I fully subscribe to the argument that a whole spectrum of the private realm of University life has meaning only to the extent that it elevates the moral standing of the society in which the University is situated. According to this school of thought, the University may promote the moral development of its students and its environment in three main ways: the content of the University curriculum; the methods of teaching; and the personalities and moral standing of University teachers and administrators. The three media are said to constitute the cardinal elements of the University as a moral force, (Ibid:21). There are, however, some supporting elements, namely: peer group pressure; and the manner and style of University governance. [See Martin Trow, 1976:20-27]. Let us examine these elements in the light of our own experience in Nigeria in order to test the validity of the arguments of this school of thought.

Fig. 2: The University as a weak moral force

3.1 Moral Development Potentials Intrinsic in the Essence of the University

Intrinsically, as a producer of researched knowledge and explorer of the frontiers of truth, the University man is a moral being. Researched knowledge and moral development are like Siamese twins, joined at the head. They are inseparable at birth, and are severed in later life only at great risk to their lives. What they have in common is the power of choice. Essentially, morality involves choice between good and evil, truth and falsehood, fact and fiction, honesty and cheating, self-interest and the collective good, knowledge and ignorance, power and weakness. Knowledge empowers one and all to choose, at least to choose rationally. Conversely, ignorance constitutes a serious constraint on the exercise of the right to choose. Rational decision-making requires the knowledge of probable alternatives. More important, moral choice is enhanced by knowledge of the probable consequences of viable alternatives. [Ibid.]. Any University worth its salt increases the awareness, by its products, of the possibilities of alternative courses of action. It equips them with the capacity to clearly perceive the consequences of their choice among the alternatives. This is, in fact, the kernel of the contents of the curriculum of all disciplines in the University. What the University has and what it gives is the capacity to think, to reflect, and therefore to choose and act wisely.

Let us illustrate. We produce from this University, graduates of economics, sociology and geography. If the curriculum of each of these departments is well ordered and their courses well thought, each of these graduates would have some basic knowledge of demography. In particular, they would learn the relationship between population growth and both national economic development, and personal welfare. If any of the graduates from these departments becomes a chief social or economic adviser to the President, and fails to give proper advice about the dire consequences of a population policy that is borrowed, say, directly from either China (one parent one child) or India (a ban on pre-birth determination of child's gender), he may be considered a failure in professional terms; but not necessarily a failure in life. But if any of them fails to make the proper choice in terms of his/her own family planning, then his degree is useless. In that case, the University has failed, as far as that product is concerned. To teach in the service of the ethic of responsibility and the moral life of the University product, it is important to, always clarify the connection between cause and effect in social and natural phenomena.[Ibid.] This is why, for all disciplines, we teach in terms of theories and laws and general principles.

Another example is in relation to literature, especially concerning what the novel does to the student. Appropriately interpreted, the novel helps the student to mold his character; it imparts to him indelible lessons which enable him to distinguish between right and wrong conduct, and between right and wrong social relationships. If literature is well thought ,it will have a deep positive influence on the lives of students .It will make them see the world in fresh and new ways.[lbid.:22]

I do not know about you. As for me, as a young student in this university in the 1960s and 1970s,I was deeply influenced by the novels of Maria Corelli- A Romance of Two Worlds, Vendetta, Thehna, Barabas, The Sorrows of Satan, The Mighty Atom, Temporal Power, The Life Everlasting, Secret Power. I spent my income, (allowances, scholarship) on them. I was not satisfied with reading them. I liked to own them. They were my most prized possessions. Vendetta: The Story of One Forgotten was my favourite novel: I still have it in my study. After reading Vendetta, you will be a hardened person to be unfaithful to your spouse and an extremely foolish person to embark on revenge for any reason whatsoever.,

The content of what is taught in the Social Sciences can also determine the way in which students, as citizens, relate and respond to events in the world. If, for instance, we teach social determinism, students will learn to explain their personal failures away as product of their environment, or worse, as the handiwork of evil spirits, or the diabolical act of a powerful ethnic group or imperialist race, or exploitative and parasitic class or or patriarchal gender. Or they may attribute their predicament to the system or the environment -to anything but themselves. In consequence, people may reduce themselves to the level of mere objects and further prolong their dependency on other persons, groups, societies circumstances or the environment [Ibid: 22]. In short, the contents of the curriculum in the social sciences can be designed to produce either creative and resourceful persons or mere robots or automatons. The curriculum can be tailored to develop the human mind or knocked together to diminish the moral autonomy and freedom of the University product. Contrary to the view in some ignorant quarters, the Social Sciences, (Political Science inclusive) are critically important for the development of the intellect and morals of citizens. For this reason alone, every university in the world ought to have a faculty of Social Science. In fact, most do.

3.2 Methods of Inquiry as a Moral Force

The moral character of the student is also molded by the methods of inquiry employed in the university .How we come to know or believe what we do is crucial. The cannons of verification, which are part of our scholarly and scientific procedures, are not merely of academic interest. They have profound moral implications. This is most evident and manifest in the deliberate and conscious search for counterfactuals or negative evidence. As Martin Trow reminds us, it was Max Weber that argued that the primary task of a useful teacher is to teach his students to recognize "inconvenient" facts -1 mean facts that are inconvenient for their party opinions"[/b/rf.22].

The University is a school for moral development in an epistemological sense. It inducts its inmates into a habit of deliberate, systematic search for opposing views and contrary opinions, on the premise that knowledge grows, and truth is discovered through a dialectical process. The synthesis is of a higher moral value than either the thesis or the anti-thesis. The insistence on the search for positive and negative evidence, and the taking into account of pro- and con views is, in itself, a character-building measure that has impact well beyond the murals of the university, and prepares the student for the wider and wilder world.

In a more general sense, science and scholarship are 'moral communities'. Their members are expected to create and sustain a distinctive set of values in order to carry on with their work. They are required to develop "a scrupulous rectitude of behaviour, based on a set of values like truth, dignity, dissent, and so on.. ."[Ibid] One can not effectively engage in science without a moral code based on the sanctity of truth and the hollowness of integrity. A scientific community is, by definition, one founded on truth and integrity. This point is so important that the success of a university should be judged, not by the number of students it produces, but by the extent to which its products acquire the norms and values, as well as the knowledge and perspectives of science [Ibid: 23]

3.3 The Style and Quality of Teaching As a Moral Force

The teacher, as role model, exerts a moral force, making positive impact on the students if he is perceived as a model of intellectual virtues, that is if he brings "freshness of perspective and a steady seriousness to his materials in the classrooms and seminars". If he is the drab and formal, routine lecturer that relies on old notes, he inspires no student and serves as intellectual model to no one. In that case, his style of teaching emits no moral lessons, except perhaps a negative message to the students not to be like him /her. Thus, the quality of teaching is a moral force. Although this matter needs to be studied empirically, we can safely assert that the quality of university lecturing has strong intellectual and moral impact on students, perhaps far deeper than secular or religious sermons have [Ibid.24].

All the above points, derived from the excellent paper by Martin Trow, are important. But the two other areas, treated by Trow as subsidiary, are also of equal importance. In the university; it is not only the teachers that teach. Students actually learn a lot from one another. Their character is also molded by what they see and experience among themselves, including what they see university authorities do.

3.4 Peer Group Pressure and Moral Development in Universities

Trow places premium on the personal relationship between student and teacher. He contends that the nature of that relationship " increases the likelihood that the teacher can play a role in the moral education of the student"[Ibid: 25]. This is indeed true. But in some universities, especially in underdeveloped countries, the direct, personal contact between the teacher and the student is really minimum. More pervasive is student-student interaction, a sphere that is often neglected in policy, research and analysis. There are certain codes of behaviour, which students imbibe once they are on campus. First is the dressing code and the undergraduate lingo. Both constitute an attempt to evolve codes that differentiate the university student from the rest of the society .The effort is in line with university tradition in history, and world wide. But in these, the students experiment and innovate because; the university authorities have abandoned their responsibility to regulate this aspect of life. There are several occasions when I had to remind students that the lingua franca in this university is English - English, it is the pure unadulterated, Queen's English, not its American, German,

Chinese or Indian version. It is also not an underground variety. Bedford Nwabueze has given us a sample of the lingo of this sub-culture:

[Person wey] no dey fast,na him go board last; Dey there and board last; Na fast guys [dey win] Godfather; Longleg; Ojoro; Akpuruka; OBTand 419

[Nwabueze, 2000:53]

He translates this to mean: "To get what one wants, one should employ whatever means necessary to get it" [Ibid.].

As for dress codes, academic gowns are supposed to be won, not just on the days of matriculation and convocation. This should take care of the problem of improper dressing especially on official occasions involving an outing for the university. This might be resented and resisted on account of cost. But the process of negotiation on it could yield interesting results pertaining to dressing code.

A crucial area in which students have become their own teacher is in respect of general attitude to books, journals, the library and the bookshop. Over the years, students have developed the practice of relying on lecture notes and cyclostyled materials known variously as mimeographs or 'handouts'. As a corollary, most students shun the bookshops, the libraries and the archives. They, ignore text books and journals for most of their school years, resorting to them as sources of plagiarized materials only when they have to produce the final year research project report. In consequence, majority of Nigerian university students miss out on the skills of reading, reflecting, paraphrasing and summarizing and on the discipline of studying, thinking and finding solution to practical problems. They also fail to acquire the ability to produce good essays and compose acceptable scientific and technical reports. The teacher has little time to enforce a counter-culture.

Then there is the academic and personal relationship between the student and the teacher, Here too, it is the student that is the driver, the peer-group culture is not one of understudying, under-standing or, emulating the lecturer .It is one of 'sorting him, that is, manipulating the relationship to take advantage of him. Sorting takes many forms. The commonest and most effective is often material incentive or sexual gratification in return for high grades .The teachers who succumb to such offer in most cases use the instrument of continuous assessment to award arbitrary grades. In this respect, some have become very creative, unilaterally and illegally, raising the ceiling of the discretionary continuous assessment to fifty percent (50%) of the total evaluation grades. Another ploy is the strategy of 'missing scripts' and 'missing grades; often covered up with 'missing' attendance registers. A recent common practice is consensual plagiarism. The supervisor of a project sources materials that the student under him/her copies, and is willingly graded and given a pass mark on it. This is usually for a fee.

'Sorting' also takes the form of coming close to the apparently straightforward and morally upright lecturer, and seeking membership of his club. In this case, the students

present themse-lves as highly principled, moral-crusading, character. In reality, however, some of them are also seeking for special favour or help, and would ask for it by and by. They do not want to be influenced by the lecturer; they rather want to manipulate and influence him/her and, in the process, derive some unmerited academic rewards, usually in the form of high grades.

Administrators are also 'sorted' with a view to getting them to change grades and illegally issue statements of results. They are also manipulated to give special attention to the processing of students' results, or the processing of their papers for scholarship, transcripts etc.

The culture of 'sorting' is not really, at bottom, an invention by university students. It is an extension of influence peddling which characterize the wider society .The parents use the same strategy to secure admission for their wards, to change degree programmes for them; to obtain high marks and scores for them in entrance examinations, and to secure employment for them. Their children take the cue, adopt the strategy and improve upon it. We must admit, too, that this is not a peculiarly Nigerian phenomenon; it exists in some other societies as well. In China, for example, it is described as "connectionology"

'Sorting' represents a typical example of how the values of the wider society have invaded and conquered the university ethic. It is a case of reversal of directions of influence: rather than the university culture impacting positively on society, the materialist value system of the wider society has come to distort and destroy the idealistic ethic of the scientific community. This requires some explanation.

The student, rather than the university teacher is also the driver in respect to attitudes to examinations. Examinations are supposed to be a test of the student's mastery of the courses taught The tendency of the students of the contemporary Nigerian university is to see examinations as routine rituals, which mark the end of particular courses. They expect to obtain a pass mark in each course, whether or not they study, especially once they had bought the 'handouts'/mimeograph', or textbooks prepared for that course and sold either directly by the teacher of the course or by his/her accredited agent. Often the students are right: some lecturers stretch themselves to give everyone or virtually everyone a pass mark. One common strategy is to have most students score either C, D,or E. In such courses where no student fails, none passes very well either;-there are few ETs and often no A^s or at best one or two A"s irrespective of the size of the class. The idea is to avoid drawing the attention of the external examiner to the scripts of the particular course.

Treating examinations as end-of-semester routine rituals, rather than a test of knowledge, by university students is also manifested in the increasing incidence of impersonation at examinations. There are cases where university students had hired secondary school students or, at any rate, non-university students to impersonate them in end-of-semester examinations. Where the answers are actually read by the lecturer, it is not uncommon for such impersonated scripts to score either F or very low pass grade.

The general point is that peer group pressure forces university students to develop a sub-culture that contradicts and destroys positive university ethics. The worry is that the sub-culture is becoming dominant. The consequences for the university graduate and the wider society are disastrous. A female student with first class honours degree from a Nigerian university went for an interview for employment; but was unable to answer a single question correctly. Unknown to her, because of her class of degree, the interview panel was already biased in her favour. To the demand for explanation by a sympathetic interview panelist (a female member), the graduate cried ", it is my mother"; "she sorted my teachers at all levels. I do not merit any certificate that have" This could happen to that your pampered child.

There has always been a students" sub-culture in the university environment. However, in the 1960s and 1970s, the values it promoted were positive and reinforced the highest values intrinsic in university ethic. Two examples will suffice: the university female students for male students moral principle promoted by the house journal known as "The Arrow"; and the refined elite club life promoted by organizations like Beta Sigma and Ball Room Dancing Club (Victor Sylvester). The values promoted then were moral chastity, faithfulness in marriage, decency in public appearance, elitism in dressing, refinement of language, sophistication in conduct. At that time, it was easy to distinguish the university undergraduate from other members of the society, including what was mischievously described as "bush meat" by students ,that is what students now refer to as DFRRI, as distinct from MAMSER.

In those golden days university students competed to lead the class. It was considered prestigious and was, in reality, hugely rewarding to be regarded by all students and lecturers alike, as the authentic academic leader of a class, that is a group of students in the same year of study. The class leader was the most brilliant student, not the student that was the best at manipulating social relations. The class leader earned his position by constantly scoring "As" in class assignments (often read out in class by the lecturer) and examinations. In turn the class leader enjoyed some privileges and some rewards. He would be the first to receive a rare book from the class teacher on difficult subjects. He would be awarded the scholarship reserved for the best student in each year. If he was a young man, he was likely to be the toast of the pretty ladies in his department. On graduation, employers would be competing for him. But he shouldered enormous responsibilities too. If a teacher was derelict in his duties, he was expected to lead a protest to, or against him. I assure you it was not an entirely pleasant task, as I learnt to my chagrin.

All told, it was a different world then. It was a world of ready jobs for university graduates, with saloon cars added to the bargain. It was when society actually placed premium on intellect and merit. It was easy to be a disciple of the Truth.

3.5. University Authorities and Morality in the Temple

The role of university authorities in shaping the level of morality in the temple is crucial, and takes various forms. The style of university governance tends to set the moral tone for the university community. Their response to external assaults on the unity and solidarity of the university as a moral community, tends to convey messages of either hope or despair to

staff and students alike . The way and manner the authorities resolve the frequent moral challenges which confront the university community strengthens or weakens the university as a moral force. The personality, as well as the conduct, of the key members of the university management and governance may provide negative or positive role models for university students.

There is a link between the pattern of authority structure in universities and the capacity of university authorities to impact positively on morality in the Temple Democratic authority structures tend to create the enabling environment for the emergence of transformational leadership in the university setting. And authentic transformational leadership is, of necessity, grounded in moral foundations.[Bass and Steidlmeier, 1998:1]

In specific details, there is a variety of patterns of university authority structure. There are, however, also shared common features. In Britain, for instance, there is a variety of structures; but two sub-types predominate. These are the three-tier system, represented by the University of Manchester and the two-tier system exemplified by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

The Manchester model is analogous to a combination of oligarchy and representative democracy[Ross,1976:163]. The 'government' consists of a Court, a Council, and a Senate. The Court is composed of representative graduates of the University and important citizens with interest in the university. The Council is made up of administrative heads of the university, lay representatives appointed by the Court, members of faculty nominated by senate, and a few other members at large. The Senate comprises faculty members entirely.

In this model, the Council is the effective decision-making body and there, faculty voice is dominant. The Senate acts as an adviser to Council on general policy matters; but it has authority over academic affairs [Ibid].

The second British sub-type is the Oxford-Cambridge model. It is a two-tier system, approximating 'direct democracy'[Ibid:163]. Its institutional structure consists of a supreme legislative body and a council. In Oxford, the supreme legislative body is the Great Congregation; in Cambridge, it is the Senate. The composition of the supreme legislative body, if it is the Great Congregation, consists of masters of arts, as well as holders of degrees in divinity, medicine and civil law, who have paid the required dues. The Council is a smaller body. It is made up of Senior Officers of the university; the heads of colleges; a small number of professors (four or six); and an equally small number of persons elected by the supreme legislative body. The council is the central governing body of the university: the actual power of initiating proposals rests with it [Ibid].

In general, the British model of university governance is marked by the following features: the placing of decision-making power mainly in the hands of university teachers; provision of a limited role for students in some committees, especially since the 1970s; making representation on the governing body largely democratic; and the high circumscription of the powers of the Rector or Vice-Chancellor. In Britain, the university is a self-governing group of scholars. The administrative/executive head is an academic drawn

from the university system, with highly limited powers(for instance, he has no power to hire and fire). The power to hire and fire is reserved for the faculty. In state-owned universities, however, the government hires staff. Even then, the recommendations of the faculty are usually solicited and hardly questioned. Faculty autonomy is firmly established[MacIver,1955:76;Ross, 1976:180],

The American model is in cold contrast with the British pattern. We may illustrate the American model with the structure of governance in the University of Yale. It is a single-tier structure, dominated by a highly authoritarian board of lay people; The governing board is usually the Board of Trustees. Composed of external lay members, the Board is given power to control property, contracts and finance. It also has authority to regulate relationships with students, faculty and administrative personnel. The Board elects the President of the university, and appoints the Deans. The Deans, in turn, designate the departmental executives of heads, all without consultation with the teaching staff. The Board of Trustees also appoints the faculty members and prescribes staff discipline.

The alumni are represented in the Board of Trustees. The faculty are also represented in the Board of Trustees. Initially, especially in the 19th century, they were reluctant to include faculty in the Board of Trustees. The argument was that the teaching staff were employees and therefore should not participate in the making of the laws that govern them. This has changed since the last decade of the nineteenth century. As universities expanded and the status of professors improved, some power was ceded to faculty in the determination of academic policies, including making curriculum changes.

Initially, too, the President of the university was all-powerful. He was appointed by the Board, invariably from outside the university. He is the executive head of the university and presents faculty and departmental recommendations to the Board of which he is a member. He is responsible to the Trustees for the general administration of the university. He is a member of all faculties and generally presides over faculty meetings. He possesses a veto on faculty decisions [Maelver, Ibid, 8].

However, in some American universities, the Board of Trustees has lost some of its powers of interference in the internal operations of the university. Students have secured the right to be included in discussions of university policy. By the 1970s, the trend in American universities had been to establish a university-wide body, usually a senate, whose membership included student representatives to advice on university policy. Academic matters were now left to faculty councils, subject to review by senate, where the faculty shared power with many other groups.[Ros,1976:178-179] Despite these changes, in practice, the legal structure of the American university remained authoritarian. Democratic governance and academic freedom remained under-developed in comparison with the situation in British universities.

The trend of democratization of the structure of university governance, by including students in governing boards has also been embraced by universities in Canada. The Canadian model is a two-tier system of governance. Its decision-making bodies are the Board of Governors and the Senate. The role of laymen is dominant in the Board, while the

role of academics is dominant in the Senate. The Board of Governors has, sitting on it, some faculty members and some students .The composition of the Senate includes student representation[Ross!976:172;234].

The authority structure in the Nigerian university system is a cross between the British tradition and the American tradition. The Governing Council and the Senate are the key policy making bodies. While the Governing Council controls general policy and superintends over the finances and property of the university; the senate holds sway on academic matters There are however subsidiary organs, such as the Congregation and Convocation. This is the formal structure, but in this case reality is complex. Most federal universities are, not in reality, governed from where they are located. They are directed from the seat of Federal Government, Abuja, with the hapless Vice-Chancellors acting as viceroys of a triumvirate of distant emperors The three manorial lords of the Nigerian university system are the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC); the Federal Minister of Education and the visitor of federal universities, President and Commander in chief of the armed forces of Nigeria.

Wrong signals about the rule of law are sent to members of the university community, especially, confusion is infused in the impressionable minds of the university student, when the law is so brazenly ignored. Concerning the powers and functions of Council, the prescriptions of the law are far removed from the existential realities. Council is, for instance, empowered, by law, to determine, subject to the directive of the NUC, fees to be paid by students or any other person attending the university for the purpose of instruction. It is Council that is authorized to provide for the residence, discipline and welfare of all members of the university community. It is Council that is empowered to institute professorships, lectureships, and other posts and offices in the university as it deems fit. It is Council that has the authority to grant, on the advice of Senate, honorary degrees, fellowships or other academic titles. In reality., many of the powers of Council are exercised by government and its bureaucratic agencies. For instance, policies on university finance, on whether or not to charge tuition fees; policies on level, and mode of payment of staff salaries, policies on recruitment and promotion of staff (e.g. on how many professors there should be in each university in relation to senior lecturers and other levels), policies on retrenchment of staff, and policies on conditions of residence in university accommodation by staff and students, are now all made by government and imposed on universities.

The best moral example that university authorities can set for students and staff is to govern their institutions democratically .In Nigeria, most panels set up to review the university system has emphasized this point. The Udoji Commission, for instance, recommended that vice-chancellors "should administer their institutions on democratic principles of enlightened leadership and sharing of power with academic members of staff". Similarly, the Longe Commission observed that the committee system "appears the most suitable for universities" It therefore recommended that it "should be continued and improved upon". Some Vice-Chancellors do not seem comfortable with the principle and practice of democratic governance, through statutory committees,

hence they often resort to the use of 'task forces. In the University of Benin, for instance, a Vice-Chancellor made a representation to a Visitation Panel complaining about too many committees, resulting in a recommendation by the Panel that some of the Standing Committees in the University should be dissolved [University of Benin Visitation Panel Report, Views and Comments...,1087:20]. Following a similar representation, the Mohammed Visitation Panel to the University of Nigeria observed that the committee system "stands the risk of becoming unwieldy, time-consuming, and slow for decision-making". It therefore, recommended