How Prof Ikenna Onyido described Prof Joseph Ahaneku , Unizik Vice Chancellor during his one year in office

Prof Joseph Ahaneku had a happy time last week as he celebrated his one year in office. And the Director
Centre for Sustainable Development of Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka and Professor of Chemistry, Ikenna Onyido, FRSC, FAAS, FAS delivered the special anniversary lecture where he spoke eloquently of Prof Ahaneku’s vision in restoring the glory of Unizik……………………see the lecturer


RETURNING OUR UNIVERSITIES TO THEIR ANCIENT LANDMARKS


Ikenna Onyido, FRSC, FAAS, FAS
Professor of Chemistry and Director
Centre for Sustainable Development
Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka

Preamble
This is a happy week for us as we pause to mark the one year anniversary of the appointment of Professor Joseph E. Ahaneku, FAS as the Vice-Chancellor of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka.We offer our gratitude to God for the clear evidence of purposeful leadership which we have enjoyed in the past one year and for the peaceful campus this leadership has engendered. We pray that the next few years under the leadership of the Vice-Chancellor will demonstrate the fullness of the knowledge and wisdom of God in the affairs and fortunes of this university through him and that he, his dear wife and children, and all of us under his leadership, shall experience the abundance of God’s blessings. I thank the organizers of this programme for the honour done to me by inviting me to deliver this Special Anniversary Lecture. It is an opportunity for me to initiatea conversation on the state of the Nigerian university systemand what is to be done to bring our universities back to beneficial functionality and national relevance.

I have chosen to speak on the topicReturning Our Universities to Their Ancient Landmarks, in tangential reference to the Biblical injunction:

            “Do not remove the ancient landmark
            that your fathers have set” Proverbs 22: 28 (ESV),

In a civil sense, this was a clear injunction forbidding land-grabbing among the Jews, but in a theological senseit warned against the distortion of the doctrines and practices settled by the early church fathers. Infraction of this injunction attracted severe penalties on offenders as can be seen from the curse pronounced in Deuteronomy 19:14, which reads:

            “Cursed be anyone who moves his neighbours’
            landmark. And all the people shall say, ‘Amen’”.

Our forebears in the academia set boundaries of behaviour and attituderequiredfor the conduct of university business and for playing our role in the society, in the form of the academic culture that has been passed to us through several generations.Operating within this cultural milieu, which was founded on inviolable values, clearly set academic institutions at a vantage point to provide leadership and point the way forward for their societies. Unfortunately, these ancient landmarks have been moved in the Nigerian case –academic culture has undergone severe distortions which have compromised our societal role. In choosing this topic, therefore, I am particularly conscious of the Vice-Chancellor’s expressed desire to entrench proper academic culture, in all its ramifications, in the conduct of university business here as a leverage to our role in society. But before I proceed further, let me make a few clarifications upfront.

First, this Lecture shall be generic in scope and content. I shall be talking about the Nigerian university system as a whole, not about any particular university. Some of the issues I shall raise in this Lecture apply to this university, in small or large measures; others may not have been perceptibly expressed here. But this university is part of the larger Nigerian university ecosystem: we all, in general and personal ways, share in the glory or infamy attributed to the system, so enlightened self-interest demands that we should interrogate these systemic issues and their effects. Second, I shall,from to time, make reference to the issue of leadership in our universities. Let me make it clear that when I talk of leadership, I make reference to leadership at all levels, not just the Vice-Chancellorship. All of us, as staff of this or other universities, have leadership roles to play, whether we are in office or not. In generic terms, we bear the historical burden of leadership in the university system. Take count of those who wield one level of power or the other in the university, from the Vice-Chancellor, through his/her Deputies, to the Provosts of Colleges, Deans of Faculties and Heads of Departments and Units. Elected members of Council are all university staff, so are all members of Senate. In any case, any teacher standing before his/students is a leader. So, in a way, we all share a common vicarious responsibility for the fate of our institutions.

Universities – What Are They For?
We cannot talk about academic culture without seeking a clear understanding of the nature of universities and their role in the society. Unfortunately, many people who talk about universities, including some of those who teach and work in universities, do not understand what universities really are. For many, universities are just where their children are trained and given certificates. To some others, universities are where people get employed merely to earn a living. Some people are aware of universities only when staff unions go on strike; such people perceive universities and their staff as a nuisance to society. About 14 years ago, a highly placed Nigerian political leader stated publicly that all that academic staff do is to give a few lectures, make sexual advances to their female students, retire to their Staff Club to drink beer, and then agitate for higher pay on a perennial basis. I think therefore that it will be beneficial for this discussion if we first look at the ideals behind universities as institutions.

In 787, Charlemagne instructed ecclesiastical bodies to establish schools which taught arithmetic, grammar and music in the lower class, and the liberal arts and theology in the higher class. This reform triggered processes that eventually led to the founding of the first great university in Western Europe ca. 1096, now known as the University of Paris. But it is instructive to recall Charlemagne’s charge to the ecclesiastical bodies.He said, among other things1:

“Right action is better than knowledge, but in order to do
what is right we must know what is right.”

This appears to be the origin of the tradition of universities’ quest for truth and insistence on the truth as their cardinal objective.The search for truth demands that high premium be placed on integrity. Early universities and academics had to keep their ‘moral and philosophic distance’ from those in authority, so that academics could tell the truth to power. These points, although expressed in a diversity of lexicons these days, were aptly captured by John Henry Newman in 1872, when he wrote2:

"A university is a place to which a thousand schools make
contributions, in which the intellect may safely range and
speculate, sure to find its equal in some antagonist activity,
and its judge in the tribunal of truth. It is a place where
inquiry is pushed forward and discoveries perfected and
verified, and rashness rendered innocuous, and error
exposed by the collision of mind with mind and knowledge
with knowledge. Such is a university in its ideal and purpose."

Paraphrasing Newman in articulating the essence of universities, we can therefore say that universities are institutions where the intellect is given freedom to range and truth is the judge; where knowledge is generated and synthesized through inquiry to promote and verify discoveries, expose error, and blunt the force of foolishness.

Over time, universities have become key agents of social change and development, allocated with the explicit role of producing highly skilled manpower and research output that meet perceived economic needs3. In the process, the idea of universities as secluded ‘ivory towers’ that dream lofty dreams of Utopia that are far removed from the physical reality of societal challenges has been replaced with the idea of ‘town and gown’ institutions that belong to their societies and are rooted in their histories, concerned with their present and future as well as the preservation and propagation of the values that promote inclusive growth and equitable development. The modern university must therefore be intimately bound with its society and its challenges and fortunes: it must be proactively analytical and diagnostic to identify the challenges of its society, creatively prescriptive to chart the pathways for meeting those challenges, and sufficiently innovative and resourceful to provide solutions to the identified needs and challenges of society in the quantities, qualities and time they are needed. It is such a complex organization, with these societal expectations, role allocations and demands, along with its own internal dynamic for tensions, conflict generation and propagation that universities have become.

The good fortune,according to Sachs4, is that universities are uniquely endowed because of the presence and interplay of the following four fundamental strengths of universities, which he lists as follows:

•    Scientific expertise
•    The long view
•    An unbiased position
•    Mission of service to the society

Universities are ageless institutions, intended to be durable and enduring, hence they straddle the histories and aspirations of societies; they carry with them the knowledge, wisdom and experience which the society has accumulated over time, making these available to whoever or whatever institution that is committed to addressing the problems of the present time, while being in readiness to generate knowledge that can confront the challenges of the future5. They have a great tradition as change-making and precedent-setting institutions, as places of free speech, dissent, and the cultivation of wisdom.

Going Down Memory Lane:Universities in Nigeria – Then and Now
One of the exercises that gives me much pain, as I move towards the end of my formal service as a university academic scientist, is to compare the state of our universities then – when I was an undergraduate student, then a graduate student, and later a young lecturer at the University of Ibadan, and now – after 26 years as a full Professor and having held every conceivable administrative position in the university system, from a Head of Department through a two-time Dean of Scienceand Director of a Research Centre to a two-term Deputy Vice-Chancellor and later Acting Vice-Chancellor for almost one year, before I was appointed Vice-Chancellor 10 years after I was first recommended by Council for the position, but was bypassed because of my ethnic origin! If I tell you that I have not seen it all in the Nigerian university system, the good, the bad and the ugly, then I would be engaging in falsehood. Looking back at the promise of this country and its universities about 30-35 years ago and the sorry pass in which we find ourselves now as a nation, I cannot but agree with Wole Soyinka when he talks about our being a wasted generation. This is one country that has the unenviable record of having the hands of death – anything that it touches loses vitality, shrivels and consequently dies. Not just the universities. Nigeria once boasted of the Nigeria Airways, Nigeria Railways, NITEL, the Nigeria Shipping Lines, and so on. Where are they now? In fact, the universities have done much better than all other national institutions, that is why the kind of decay seen in many secondary and primary schools is not replicated in our universities. But the state of our universities today is a far cry from the standard and quality of yesteryears.

Our universities of old were reasonably funded. Our laboratories and libraries were reasonably stocked with modern hardware and books and journals. Lecturers and indeed all university workers had good work environment and derived personal satisfaction from their work. Of course, the level of materialism then was not anywhere near what it is now. From 1975 when I joined the University of Ibadan as a Graduate Assistant and into the early 80s, my Head of Department and most lecturers had Volkswagen cars, only a few had Peugeot 404. What everybody was preoccupied with was top quality research and in which highbrow journals their articles were being published. Now, an Assistant Lecturer would gleefully boast of how his SUV is newer, bigger, better and more fanciful than his Professor’s and would want to become a Professor without paying his academic dues, even if it meant plagiarizing his way through or enlisting his traditional ruler’s intervention to put in some word on his/her behalf when promotion exercises come alive! Today, a generation of professors called Internet professors has emerged in the Nigerian university scene – these are fellows whose research begins and ends with illegally appropriating people’s intellectual property!

Universities were respected by Government, politicians and the society at large and university workers, whether academic or non-teaching, professor, cook or gardener were highly regarded in the society, not because they were rich, but because they were the best in what they did. Let me end this section with two anecdotes we were told as young lecturers. While I was in Ibadan and the late Professor Horatio O. Thomas, a distinguished surgeon, was the Vice-Chancellor, a time came when the University found it could not pay salaries because its subvention had not been sent from Lagos and the month was coming to an end. Professor Thomas, the distinguished Vice-Chancellor with one of the most dignified carriages I have ever seen, got into his car and drove to the Federal Ministry of Education in Lagos. We understand that all he told the Minister, I think they were called Federal Commissioners then, was that if he got back to Ibadan that afternoon and found that he (the Vice-Chancellor) could still not pay his staff, he would close down the University and announce to the entire world that Nigeria was not ready to own and run universities. Before he got back to his office in Ibadan, money had been wired to the Central Bank branch in Ibadan and a warrant for the University’s subvention was waiting on his desk!

The second anecdote concerns Professor Ayo Banjo when he was Vice-Chancellor. There was this terrific religious squabble on campus and it arose as follows. There was a giant cross that symbolized the Christian religious ground which we understand was erected as far back as 1954. The Muslims had a very tiny mosque tucked away at an angle to the cross, definitely out of the way. Then in the mid-80s, the Muslims obtained grants from Saudi Arabia and a well-known businessman-cum-philanthropist who later became a politician, and decided to build a mosque, not only close to the giant cross but in such a location that worshippers in the mosque saw the cross in full view whenever they looked out from their mosque. They then turned round and insisted that their view of the cross during their worship was offensive and that the cross had to be removed. Before you knew it, they had gotten the sympathy of the then Minister of Education who was of the same faith. If there was anything close to a religious war, then that was it in the offing. Almost all Christian staff and students vowed that they would die rather than see the cross removed. The Vice-Chancellor, himself a Christian, was invited to see the Minister in Lagos to sort out the issue. We understand that it was a very brief meeting. On arrival, the Minister informed the Vice-Chancellor that Government had received security reports of the explosive situation on campus, that he (the Minister) had decided that the solution to it was for the cross to be relocated, and that he (the Minister) was directing the Vice-Chancellor to get back to his campus and relocate the cross immediately. We understand that Vice-Chancellor Banjo cleared his throat and said softly and politely. “Honourable Minister, it will be easier to remove me as Vice-Chancellor than to relocate that cross. Good afternoon”. That was the last that was said of that cross which stands on that ground till today. Vice-Chancellors were the face of their universities and the society had tons of respect for them and the remarkable institutions they led.

That was then! Now, Vice-Chancellors are summoned to meetings in Abuja by text messages, which usually end with, “It is mandatory that Vice-Chancellors attend in person”. It was exactly so in my time. Why did the university system lose its respect from government and society? The answer to this question will be the subject of another lecture. Suffice it to say that we academics sold ourselves and our universities cheaply to the military first and to the politicians later. When academics started lobbying the military for appointments, inviting them into the internal affairs of the universities, when academics started prostrating and kneeling before politicians for appointment as Vice-Chancellors or into other government jobs, when universities started chasing after politicians with mostly undeserved honorary degrees for the peanuts they gave back to the universities in exchange for what is very highly cherished in other climes, academics demystified the academia and the universities. When universities cheapened the appointment and promotion of professors and when we refused to play by the rules we made, society saw that we could not be trusted and the respect they had for us and the awe in which they held us effervesced like a glass of lemonade. We are today suffering the humiliation – the curse – for initiating and catalysing the moving of our ancient landmarks!

The Moral Tone of Our Universities
One area in which there has been disgusting putrefaction is the moral tone of our universities. Symptoms of moral decay were evident as far back as the 1980s. For example, Musa, a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation had this to say6 of our conduct:

        “Stories are told of pervasive indiscipline arising out of the
        undue advantage which some students with special relations
with erring dons are said to enjoy…… While, admittedly, the
        dons involved may be no more than a microscopic fraction
        of university staff, these are nonetheless disturbing
developments that require urgent action in order for
universities to regain and maintain better public image.”

This sentiment was re-echoed by the Cookey Commission, which in its report7, stated that:

        “There are factual stories about dons whose indecent
        behaviour within the university and in public places undermine
        the prestige and reputation of Nigerian universities at home and
abroad.”

There is both documented and anecdotal evidence of an increasing wave of ethical failures and moral erosion on our campuses with symptoms such as cultism, extortion, sale and use of narcotics, prostitution, sexual harassment, sex and money for marks and grades (this has been given the nomenclature of ‘sorting’), sale of hand-outs and books (students are forced to buy these and some of the books don’t even qualify as books – they are merely copied materials from existing textbooks), examination malpractices, admission racketeering, absenteeism, lecturers with multiple teaching jobs in the name of adjunct lectureship/professorship, plagiarism,  falsification of research data, award of honorary degrees to undeserving recipients, discrimination on grounds of ethnicity or sectionalism or faith, and many more – the list is virtually endless. The exploitation of students through ‘sorting’, forced sale of books and handout, payment of money to supervisors of student projects and theses, etc.constitute a form of what I call ‘academic terrorism’ and it goes on here, involving not just the lowly lecturers but also some of the high and mighty. I wonder whether those involved in these despicable vices do not realize that their names are on the streets and are echoed in homes across the country, that no matter how well-dressed and manicured they are and what posh cars they ride, they are held in derision and stink to high heavens before the students they are supposed to be their ‘in loco parentis’ – whenever they pass by their victims, there is giggling and chuckling and name calling. I understand that in one of our faculties, there are nicknames like ‘Madam 10K’, ‘Chief See-the-Class-Rep’, and the like. These miserable men and women have consigned themselves to the garbage heap of history, for they, like shepherds decimating the flock they are supposed to protect, have not only exploited their students but also grievously corrupted them by exposing them to toxic values which they then export into the larger society.

Part of the problem is the very rapid expansion of the university system, which is out of step with beneficial manpower development, with the result that many people who work in our universities, especially within the academic staff component, really have no business working in universities. I lost count when the number of Nigerian universities hit 130, with most of the recently created ones looking for academic staff and those who have difficulty paying salaries making do with the rag-tag assemblage they can muster. Elsewhere, I had given8 a typology of the academic workforce in the Nigerian university system, as presently constituted,arguing that there are four main types of people who now teach in our universities:

•    Type 1: Those who made up their minds at an early stage, probably during their undergraduate days, to pursue academic careers. These were good students themselves in the first place, fired by the thirst for knowledge and motivated by the simple but sometimes weird lifestyles of dedicated hard work, carriage and obvious distinction of their professors and lecturers.
•    Type 2: The second group is made up of those who had all the ingredients of productive scholarship outlined in Type 1 above, but they did not make up their minds early enough: they ventured into the world of the civil/public service or the private sector and made good success. But they found no satisfaction and were often in conflict with their setup because of their intellectual streak which continually yearned for expression. These people ultimately relocated to the universities.
•    Type 3: There is the third group which is made of those who never had any inclination for scholarship and its rigours; they went into other ventures and ran out when they were faced by either failure or punishment for their misdeeds. Others within this group sought relocated for convenience or family circumstances and took up academic appointments, but in both spirit and content, they did not have the makeup of the academia. The rapid expansion of universities and/or the fortuitous intervention of patrons and relatives got them places in the university.
•    Type 4: The last group is a motley collection of those who were neither endowed for nor interested in the academia; they were forced into it by unemployment. They got jobs in the universities mainly because there werevacancies created by a combination of brain drain and the existence of many newly created universities.

Types 3 and 4 obviously do not have the mind-set and predisposition for intellectual life and are unable to fit into university culture as originally defined. Quite a number of the new universities, especially those that are not well endowed resource-wise and who have proprietors with questionable motivation for establishing universities, will rake in their academic staff from Types 3 and 4. The rest is better imagined.
Another reason for the decline of the ethical tone of the university system is fact that the archetypal university culture has been watered down by the importation of toxic values from the larger society, with the result that there is emerging a ‘pseudo culture’ within the system that espouses the value attributes of the larger society. Thus when the academic sees his student as a means of making money for himself/herself or for gratification, the way our politicians see nothing wrong with pocketing funds meant for the good of their people, then we have a very serious situation on our hands. The shift from the isolationist, ‘ivory tower’ concept of universities to the ‘town and gown’ concept was to allow interaction between ‘town’ and ‘gown’ so that we can better understand the needs and tensions of the society, and so that the empathy which this better understanding evokes will make our knowledge and values better directed for societal good and for better relevance on our part. That shift in no way envisaged the kind of wholesale reverse osmosis that we have allowed, whereby our standards of what is good is being replaced by what is expedient and beneficial to self.

Returning Our Universities to Their Ancient Landmarks
I have given these anecdotes to underline the fact that both the internal and external environments of the universities have changed drastically because their ancient landmarks have been moved. Time permits me to highlight just fourareasfor action, among many,necessary for the restoration of the dignity and functionality of the university system. Other areas have been touched in the preceding paragraphs.

1.    Collegiate Leadership in our universities: The truism that no organization rises beyond the level of its leadership is applicable to universities as well. Universities must rethink the mechanism for the emergence of leaders at all levels. I realized quite early in my career that the cultural setting of the university promotes debate and decision-making through consensus building by enthronement of superior logic and that the more successful leaders are those who recognize that they are dealing with colleagues who are not inferior to them. Such leaders are therefore ready to listen, to argue, and to persuade. That was the beginning of my perception of and introduction to the subject ofcollegial leadership. Subsequent years which saw me work closely with different Vice-Chancellors convinced me that collegial leadership is the best leadership model in the university system. I am speaking experientially, not as a management expert. My empirical observation shows me that leaders who are dictatorial and who adopt the command and control approach, whether as Chairmen of Governing Councils, or Vice-Chancellors, or Provosts of Colleges, or Deans of Faculties, or Heads of Departments or Units, usually turn out to be factories of disaster which manufacture, package and dispense misery and pain for individuals as well as instability and retrogression for their units and institutions.

Nixon, after he fell from grace, reflected on leadership with the benefit of hindsight and wrote in his memoir titled In the Arena: A Memoir of Victory, Defeat and Renewal that:

        “What separates the men from the boys…..is that boys seek
office to be somebody, but men seek office to do something.”9

The Vice-Chancellor should exercise great care and judgment in the choice of people who work with him in leadership capacities by ensuring that they are people of proven competence and integrity, who have no moral burdens to carry and who are capable of exercising collegial leadership in order to drive for institutional cohesion and unity of purpose. It is the responsibility of those holding leadership positions to give loyal, committed and unqualified service. Given the fact that mediocre people are most likely to resort to barefaced sycophancy, about which I have written elsewhere, care must be taken to keep professional praise-singers at bay. They are the worst company any leader can keep.
2.    Emphasis on Ethical Reorientation: Normative prescriptions of behaviour and conduct are tied to the traditions and cultures of the academia, and raise such moral flags as:

•    The sanctity of truth and integrity
•    The pursuit of excellence and commitment to merit
•    The primacy of the common good
•    Enthronement of reason and rationality
•    Tolerance for different views, lifestyles, beliefs
•    Respect for the rights of others
•    Dedication and commitment to duty
•    Disciplined comportment (including management of time), etc.

Without question, modern society and its institutions, universities inclusive, are founded on such ideals. And it is because universities are supposed to deliver value based education that the Senates of our universities admit students who they have been found ‘worthy in character and learning’into their degrees and diplomas. Universities must start the process of emphasizing these moral flags as the foundational basis for character formation. Concerted efforts should be made to enact a process for ethical reorientation, which must be complemented by an active reward and punishment system as provided by the appropriate instruments.

3.    Return to the Culture of Mentoring:I was a beneficiary of the culture of mentorship. As early as my undergraduate days in the University of Ibadan, some lecturers noticed me and took an active interest in my career. The late Professor Jack Hirst was one of them. When he recruited me into his research group as a Ph.D. student, he simply told me in one of our many conversations, “I’ll invest in you”. While challenging my intellectual potentials and assisting me build my scientific skills, he was never far from me, always encouraging, always probing below my surface, fostering a bond between us that recognized me as a younger partner, not a subservient novice. After my Ph.D., I went on to Uppsala University in Sweden for postdoctoral work, to do some different chemistry to broaden my research horizon. On my return to Ibadan, I teamed up with Jack Hirst. We continued research together for a few more years before I struck out on my own. My association with him changed my perspective from a graduate student to an academic scientist. I learnt the tricks of the trade from him, how to prospect for research grants, how to deal with difficult reviewers of manuscripts and how to avoid hyperbolic overstatements which reviewers find disgusting, etc. He emphasized to me that for eminence in our field, I had to lay premium on quality of publications over quantity. Our association became a channel through which university culture and the culture of science were seamlessly transmitted to me. His name opened the doors to the club of the select elite of physical organic chemistry, who, because I had been groomed by one of them, accepted me without reservation and related to me, not patronisingly but with respect as an emerging peer. Other scientists like Professors John Beetlestone, Titus Bamkole, Joe Okogun, Domingo Okorie in Ibadan, Erwin Buncel in Canada, and Per Ahlberg in Sweden played supportive roles that made me grow in confidence and stature. Any modest achievements against my name have been possible largely due to the influence of these mentors in my academic life. As payback, I have over the years tried to help build the careers of my former graduate students and associates.This was the tradition during our time as junior academics which had a bilateral symmetry: senior academics were prepared to invest in their younger colleagues while the younger ones were willing and eager to undergo tutelage. 

What do we find now? In many of our universities, our senior colleagues do not care a hoot about the fate of their junior colleagues. Those who care to mentor at all adopt a curious and unacceptable model of mentorship whereby younger colleagues are turned into serfs. On the other hand, the younger academics these days are very much in a hurry to demonstrate self-assertion, many a time without substance. This unfortunate turn of events has silted the channel for the intergenerational transmission of university culture and tradition, leading to deleterious mutation of the genes of academia. In the absence of true academic mentors and the process of mentoring, these young academics seek other role models and it is little wonder that they admire the elaboration of material wealth and display of political power more than they value erudition and the simplicity of life and humility that go with it.
4.    Return to True Scholarship: Universities must return to true scholarship whose hallmarks are excellence, quality and intellectual rigour and move away from pedestrianism and lack of depth which are becoming pervasive in the system. We must aim to publish where the masters in our field publish and reject roadside journals where what we publish and use purely to play the number game for promotions are read by no one. In such a way, our work would begin to get back into standard textbooks read beyond the shores of this country and we would leave monuments on the sands of the academia.

Concluding Remarks
I have argued in this lecture that the university system is central to the destiny of any nation. From anecdotal evidence, I have shown that the Nigerian university system, once virile, productive and promising, has been stymied by the importation of toxic values from the larger society, a process that is tantamount to the ‘removal of the ancient landmark’;this hasconfined the Nigerian university system to leading our society from behind. My thesis in this paper is that getting the university system to its rightful role of relevance and productive functionality requires returning it to its ancient landmarks. To achieve this, the university system must embrace and practise the collegiate style of leadership and ensure that credible people who must emphasize excellence, meritocracy and other normative prescriptions of behaviour in the context of ethical reorientation, emerge as leaders at all levels.It is these leaders that must inspire the rest of us to know what is right and do what is right, and what is right includes the installation of the mechanisms for true mentoring and the return to true scholarship.

I shall now end with a quotation11 from a speech I made elsewhere, a passage that can be adapted to suit this occasion:

        “Together, we can join hands to make the difference… Let each
        one in this hall today resolve to make their lives count, and our
moments contribute to the common goal of leaving an edifice
behind, an edifice that is not only utilitarian in scope and content
but one which also conveys the best the human mind can dream of,
and the best human hands can mould. Let the symphony of those
whose lives will be blessed because we passed this waybegin to
resound in our ears and let our visionary eyes begin to see ahead
the sparkles in the eyes ofgenerations yet unborn who shall
be blessed because of us. Let those sights and sounds inspire us
to move our hands now. It is urgent and we must not fail. We
cannot afford to fail!”

Vice-Chancellor, Sir, we thank you for this one year of purposeful leadership here in this microcosm of the university ecosystem. We shall follow you step by step all the way, with our sleeves all rolled up to tackle, with your leadership, the challenges of driving this university to a position of pre-eminence, where the best of the culture of the academia is practised and emphasized. Our hearts shall beat in unison as we stand shoulder to shoulder, our sweat shall mingle, with none weak among us because those that are strong among us shall support the weak in our midst, as we journey towards where destiny beckons us. We trust that you will continue to lead us well and that you will continue to lead us by example. That is our compact today and for all time, as we call on you to lead the way to restore our ancient landmarks.

Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your kind and generous attention.

References and Notes
1.    Quoted by R.S. Hyer, The Purpose and Ideals of a University, inThe Campus (SMU Medical Department Annual), vol. 1, pp. 55-59 (1912-1913).
2.    John Henry Newman, The Rise and Progress of Universities, in Historical Sketches, London: BasilMontagu Pickering, p. 12 (1872).
3.    J. Brennan, R. King and Y. Lebeau, The Role of Universities in the Transformation of Societies: An International Research Project Synthesis Report, London: Association of Commonwealth Universities and The Open University (2004).
4.    J. D. Sachs, Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet, New York: Penguin Books (2009).
5.    I. Onyido, Universities as Pivots for Local Action in Sustainable Development, Paper presented at the NSDSN-FUTO National Workshop on Environmental Sustainability for Sustainable Development held in the Federal University of Technology, Owerri on May 25-28, 2015.
6.    S. Musa, quoted in Senior Staff Association Industrial Relations Lectures, eds. J.D. Ojo and J.B. Fadupin, University of Ibadan: Senior Staff Association Branch, p. 29 (1983).
7.    Federal Republic of Nigeria, Report of the Presidential Commission on Salary and Conditions of Service of University Staff, Lagos: National Assembly Press, p. 11 (1981).
8.    I. Onyido, The Ethics and Responsibilities of the Academic Profession, Lead Paper presented at a seminar organized by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, University of Agriculture, Makurdi Branch, June 2, 2004.
9.    R.A. Nixon, In the Arena: A Memoir of Victory, Defeat and Renewal, New York: Simon & Schuster, p.44 (1990).
10.    A. Robson, Leadership in Universities and Research Organisations, www.land-environment.unimelb.edu.au.
11.    I. Onyido, Eloquent Testimony to Purposeful Leadership: Speeches and Invited Papers as Vice-Chancellor, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture,Umudike eds. R.P.A. Unammaet al., Umuahia: New Edition Digital Press (ISBN 978-36891-58-0), p.99 (2011).
12.