Those involved demean themselves – CONUA boss
By Alade Adisa
When Grace, a final year student in a federal university in the South-West was about concluding her programme, she was surprised when she and her colleagues were asked to contribute money to take care of external assessors that would look at their final projects.
That was after they have contributed money to take care of their own internal assessors. But the situation is not different from what obtains in many university campuses across the country.
For postgraduate students, having to contribute money for various reasons, especially to take care of supervisors and assessors, has become a norm.
Our experiences
“I decided I will never have anything else to do with Nigerian universities, the day I saw people defending their masters dissertation presenting coolers of rice, garden eggs and crates of drinks to their supervisors. I thought someone was getting married.”- Bibian U.
“We were told we will pay N60,000 each for both entertainment and logistics of external supervisor.” -Chiamaka O.
“We spent the night prior to my mother’s defense at the University of Ilorin, cooking coolers of rice with assorted meat for the lecturers.” – Omekagu.
” We fed the whole department. Paid a prior fee of N2,000. Still gave supervisor gift. This same supervisor then came on one of my Facebook posts to say how I’m too opinionated to get married. I blocked him for my peace of mind. I don’t have strength.” -Sylvia E.
“My husband was so frustrated by his UNIUYO supervisor for this, that he abandoned his MBA and finally got it from a UK university without any sort of bribery.” – Uche N.
“In ESUT, students have to buy brand new suits for their supervisors.” – Udeh O.
“Envelopes filled with money. Hotel bills. Payment to the school. External supervisor’s fee. The mental stress. Ah! The only reason I’m still doing it is because I’ve come too far to stop. After Master’s, I’ll never do anything school in this country again. Never!” – Bello A.
“Some departments will even provide you with a menu and list of people you’ll feed on the day of your thesis defense. I nearly wept for my friend, when one non-teaching staff started dragging her because meat had finished.” – Esther A.
“Ordinary B.Sc project I defended, my supervisor collected a bag of rice. On the defense day, we went to an eatery and bought food and drinks for all the supervisors in the hall.” – Harrison P.
“The money I spent on my supervisor was enough to buy a piece of land in GRA. A bottle of special nonalcoholic wine and MTN airtime worth N1,500 for “consultation” before he approved my topic. Two months DSTV premium subscription. N5,000 for every chapter I took to him for vetting. Except Chapter 4 – he made me pay N20,000 for it because, “all my project students know I do it better. The day of defence, we, (a group of about 15 students) paid N2,000 each for food and transport fare.” -Odichi R.
“We paid N40,000 each for ‘refreshment’ and ‘honorarium’ during internal defence. We are also going to replicate that amount, if not more, during external defence.” – Ịhụnanya A.
“For BSc project defense we contributed money to feed the supervisors.” -Oreva E.
“My project topic was originally on aquatic snails. My supervisor said I should bring some snails to his house, not even the aquatic snails that I was supposed to be working on. I bought half a bag of land snails for him.
A week later, he changed my topic to Catfish and demanded that I buy some catfish and bring them to his house for inspection. I had to do it. I wish he would ask for rice and drinks, like my colleagues were asked. I would have spent less money.” – Ruth D.
“The best thing I ever did for my life and mental health was to abandon my Masters programme halfway. My blood pressure was always high. They killed my zeal to study and do research. Nigerian universities? God forbid!” – Ene P.
“I abandoned my Masters programme because my supervisor wanted to have sex with me. I told him I’m a married woman. He said and I quote, “That’s even better! I like them married. If anything happens, we’ll both keep our mouths shut.” No one listened to my report.” – Annie U.
“And postgraduate students do multiple defenses – proposal, internal and faculty defense, then the very almighty external defense. Multiple seminars too. And refreshment is served in all. I swear, MSc/PHD in Nigeria was the most challenging thing I’ve done in my life so far.” – Olu A.
It is demeaning, inappropriate – CONUA boss
Speaking on the development, the National President of the Congress of University Academics, CONUA, Dr Niyi Sunmonu, described such practices as unethical.
“It is inappropriate and very demeaning to the calling of academics. It cannot be excused or justified under any disguise. It brings down the integrity of academics.
“I’ll suggest people engaging in it should stop forthwith. It amounts to corrupting the academic integrity.”
