Odukoya, UNILAG Prof, pays his academic debt

By Gabriel Dike

A Professor of Comparative Political Economy and Dean, Faculty of Social Science, University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka, Prof. Adelaja Odukoya, has paid his academic debt to the Nigerian University System (NUS) with the delivery of his Inaugural Lecture.

ASUU zonal coordinators at the lecture

He paid his academic debt when he delivered 6th the inaugural lecture in the 2024/2025 academic session titled: “Armageddon ‘’.

Vice Chancellor of UNILAG, Prof. Folasade Ogunsola, discharged Odukoya for paying his academic debt and the pronouncement by the VC attracted a thunderous applause from his colleagues, his family members and guests.

The lecture attracted UNILAG principal officers, two VCs, Prof. Kayode Adebowale of University of Ibadan and Prof Olatunde Kalilu of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, two former VCs, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe and Prof. Rahman Bello, former Ambassador, Prof. Alaba Ogunsanwo, two former Registrars, Dr. Taiwo Ipaye and Barrister Oluwarotimi Shodimu, Pro-Chancellor of LAUTECH, Prof. Ayodeji Omole, 13 ASUU Zonal Coordinators, Odukoya’s wife and children, his traditional ruler, Oba (Dr.) Abdulraseed Abayomi Banjo and colleagues in the Department of Political Science.

Odukoya stated that for too long, Africans have been fed with lies and outright misinformation about our past, which is the genesis of our present conditions. He observed that the banishment of History from our curricula has further complicated matters, noting, “this cannot be allowed to continue.’’

Odukoya, Lagos ASUU Zonal Coordinator said the African dominant classes and the states they control have become liabilities to the development of the continent as well as a serious threat to the flatting liberal democratic project whose liberal pretensions have given way to civilian-authoritarianism as shown by state vicious response to Nigeria and Kenya protesters.

He observed that the spate of military coups and their popular support by the citizens in Mali, Niger, Guinea, Burkina Faso attests to the decreasing utility and resounding failure of the democratic project on the continent.

The UNILAG don described Nigeria as a “crippled giant” that is seen as a faltering nation with stalled development, stating, the country is a classical reflection of the paradox of abundance.

“The driver’s seat of the Nigerian project is manned by foreign capital with hegemonic control as the ruling class. Since those who control the source of the revenue of a state control the state, foreign capital as represented by the multinational oil companies that operate the Joint Ventures in-charge of oil exploration, western financial capital and the multilateral financial institutions that borrow Nigerian money control the country,’’ Odukoya noted.

He stressed that the nation’s universities are equally experiencing energy crisis and have been without adequate access to power supply and unable to afford the new cost of electricity from April 2024.

Said he: “The Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria (was in total darkness for weeks), Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan and UNILAG, have been taken off the national grid for inability to pay the humongous and suffocating electricity bills they have to pay for being in Band A.

“Before the introduction of the new energy-pricing regime, University of Ibadan monthly bills oscillates between N80 million and N100 million. But with the placement in Band A, it is now between N185 million and 200 million. In order to cope, UI prioritizes payment of electricity bill by paying between 70 – 80 percent of it monthly bill to avoid disconnection.

“UNILAG monthly electricity bill has jumped from about N153 million in May 2024 to around N383 million since becoming a citizen of Band A. Like UI, the payment of electricity bill is a top priority for UNILAG. Given the outrageous electricity bill compared to its revenue, UNILAG now struggles to pay between N190m and N200 million monthly with its monthly bill jumping from about N153million in May, 2024 to around N381 million in December 2024.

“This is in addition to the 25 percent government takes from federal public universities from the money they make, which the government classifies as internally generated revenue. The truth is that the bulk of these incomes are for services such as identity cards, examinations, laboratory, medical, etc. Government actions hurt the country in this manner. “

Odukoya explained that as part of blaming the victims, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), have been blamed consistently and wrongly for the crisis in the Nigerian public university system on the account of strikes forced on it by a succession of governments, who have refused to fund public universities.

The dean recalled that the failure to fund public university led to the “Alli Must Go” crisis that consumed the Nigerian universities in the late 1970s, noting, “in 1996, the World Bank declared at a meeting with African Vice Chancellors in Harare, Zimbabwe that Africa is better off without universities.”

He maintained that if not for ASUU our public universities, which despite the best of efforts are glorified secondary schools, would long have gone the way of public secondary and primary schools; relics of the past abandoned for miscreants, snakes and cockroaches.

“The ASUU-FGN negotiation qualifies for a Guinness Book of record award as the longest university negotiation on funding in history with virtually no achievement, “he added.

Odukoya said the money made by JAMB is the rightful revenue of the various universities to which the candidates applied, stating, “JAMB has become a big behemoth whose utility has since expired. It is time we stage the requiem mass for it. “

He recommended that universities be allowed to admit their students without the meddlesomeness of a middleman institution whose claim is not in creating more access for students desperate for admission into higher institutions and with easy but being the admission body with the largest online presence in Africa.

The professor observed that global ranking process is heavily skewed against African universities, noting that these rankings are diversionary, time wasting, and irrelevant to the core values and developmental concerns of their immediate public in urgent need of their expertise.

In her remarks, UNILAG VC, Prof. Ogunsola, who was represented by the Deputy VC (academics and research), Prof. Bola Oboh, said the lecture raised some national dust and acknowledged the knowledge gap crippling Nigeria.

The VC said Odukoya brought to the fore, his knowledge in activism, wealth of research and detailed understanding of the continent, from her worrisome level of underdevelopment, to the trajectory of successive ruling class and the dominant capitalist system.

According to the VC, he brought the advocacy closer home with a search light on Nigeria’s crisis of governance and economy, the opulent lifestyle and insatiable greed of the elites at the expense of the masses, the surging insecurity, humongous internal and external debt profile as well as debt servicing which are all influenced by the trinity of politics, power and accumulation.

“Of major concern to our inaugural lecturer is the knowledge gap plaguing all developmental efforts in Africa at large and Nigeria in particular, and the resultant effects especially in the energy sector as well as the food crisis. These crises, according to him, have been the focus of his academic and scholarly research as well as praxis as a scholar activist.”

For Nigeria in particular, Prof. Odulaja also advocates genuine leadership anchored on collective goals and the agency of the people in the struggle for democracy, he also calls for social justice as against sectional interests as well as socialism embedded in Pan-Africanism.

Ogunsola added: “From the title of the lecture, I’m sure we all wondered what informed the choice of the word- Armageddon? I must however say that it was not until the end of the lecture that I heaved a sigh of relief that it is not Armageddon after all!

In discharging Prof. Odukoya of his academic debt, the VC said, “now that you have paid your academic debt, on behalf of the UNILAG Senate, I welcome you to the university community.