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A historian, revolutionary, and musician, Dr. Temitope-Maberu Fagunwa, has criticized higher education authorities for blaming students’ academic shortcomings while ignoring the subpar learning and examination conditions imposed on them.
Reacting to the paid “Summer Programme” introduced by Osun State University (UNIOSUN), Dr. Fagunwa in a statement made available to our Correspondent at the weekend, described the initiative as an unethical revenue-generating scheme that monetizes academic failure under the guise of remedial education.
“The programme commodifies students’ academic difficulties into a source of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), effectively making failure financially lucrative. While the administration presents it as a generous gesture to help students clear failed courses, the lack of any pedagogical foundation makes it akin to intellectual extortion,” Fagunwa said.
He also criticized the use of the term “Summer Programme,” describing it as a thoughtless adoption of Western academic terminology that disregards Nigeria’s climatic and institutional realities.
“In the Global North, summer programmes offer specialized study, professional development, or academic enrichment. They are not designed to auction regular semester courses at N50,000 each, nor do they compress standard curriculum content into a rushed two-week cycle,” Fagunwa stated.
According to him, these anomalies within the Professor Odunayo Clement Adebooye-led administration at UNIOSUN prompted his public intervention. He argued that genuine remediation requires addressing the root causes of failure and engaging alternative teaching methods rather than offering brief, costly instruction.
Dr. Fagunwa characterized the Vice-Chancellor’s response to his critique as an anti-intellectual reaction reflective of a broader crisis in university governance, where administrative power and profit motives overshadow academic standards and intellectual autonomy.
“A university is not a corporation whose success is measured by extracted revenue; its core purpose is the production, preservation, and transmission of knowledge,” he posited.
He linked this commercialization to state governments underfunding public universities while setting aggressive annual IGR targets for university administrators.
“State governments withdraw funding and then instruct administrators to extract money from students to cover the shortfall. This creates a predatory system where management collects revenue with impunity to justify administrative necessity,” Fagunwa added.
He cited this financial reliance as the context behind Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke’s decision on August 31, 2026, to extend Vice-Chancellor Adebooye’s tenure by two years. The extension moves the Vice-Chancellor’s exit date from January 2027 to January 2029.
Fagunwa argued that this move directly contravened the 2006 Osun State University Establishment Law, which originally stipulated a single, non-renewable five-year term.
Highlighting the financial dynamic, Dr. Fagunwa noted that in the 2025 Osun State Approved Budget, the government projected N6.375 billion in IGR from UNIOSUN, more than five times the N1.183 billion directly appropriated to the university.
“UNIOSUN has been repositioned as a revenue-generating tool rather than a publicly funded institution of higher learning. The illegalities and administrative extensions at UNIOSUN must be resisted. Progressive societies depend on institutions outlasting individuals, and academic culture must not be sacrificed for political convenience,” Fagunwa said.
