We cannot keep abandoning our universities

By Abidemi Adebamiwa

I have been thinking about our universities again. Not to complain, but to remember and to face where we are now. There was a time these schools held dignity. Ife. Ibadan. Nsukka. Zaria. When someone said they studied there, you felt it. It meant something.

I grew up in the University of Ife quarters. Back then, even we, the children, were respected. People looked at us as if we were connected to something meaningful. And in truth, we were. The school admitted excellent minds. Lecturers were respected. The environment encouraged thinking. There was some seriousness in the air, even when people joked.

My dad, of blessed memory, told me that the reason these universities were strong was that wealthy Nigerians invested in them. They poured their resources into the schools here. They were not rushing to fund universities abroad. They believed that greatness could be grown here at home.

And, Chief Obafemi Awolowo believed that, too. He believed that if we took care of our schools, if we protected education and treated it properly, we would produce our own thinkers, our own inventors, our own Nobel-level minds. We would not be troubled when another country rejects a visa for one of our scholars. We would not even be shaken. Because we would have many more. A nation that grows its own mind does not beg the world to validate it.

But look at us now.

When the latest Center for World University Rankings results came out, the University of Ibadan was placed somewhere around 1062 in the world. The University of Nigeria, Nsukka, was established around 1615. The University of Lagos at 1758. Ahmadu Bello University and Obafemi Awolowo University were lower still. These are institutions that once led West Africa with pride and confidence.

Today, most of the news we hear about our universities is about strikes, closures, funding issues, and deteriorating facilities. Lecturers are struggling. Students are waiting. Time is going. And the system keeps stretching thinner.

The hardest part is that many of the leaders in government today studied in these same universities when they were strong. They enjoyed stability and quality. But when it became their turn to keep the house standing, they sent their own children abroad instead.

A country cannot outsource the education of its doctors, its scientists, its engineers, and its leaders and expect to grow. If you hand over your knowledge to someone else’s classroom, you will hand over your future, too.

But I want to speak directly to the young people who are still in these universities.

Do not shrink.

Read widely. Think deeply. Form your own habits of growth. Seek people who stretch your thinking. Protect your curiosity. Even when the building is old, your mind does not have to collapse with it.

Strong futures often begin in hard places. They begin with people who refuse to give up on themselves.

Our universities can rise again. But it will happen only when we return to believing that greatness can be grown here. My father’s generation believed this. Chief Obafemi Awolowo believed it. And they were right.

Adebamiwa is a Policy Analyst and Managing Editor @ Newspot Nigeria.