Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr Femi Falana (SAN) has decried the rot in the Nigerian university system.
Falana said this while making a contribution during a panel discussion at the just concluded Lagos Book and Arts Festival holding in Freedom Park, Lagos.
“Where are the intellectuals in our universities?” he asked.
“We now have ‘yahoo-yahoo’ professors. People are made professors now because of where the came from. It is not about your contribution to the intellectual enterprise. Now, a Vice Chancellor is elected on the basis of ethnicity.”
He urged Nigerians to make use of the internet in raising serious developmental issues as regards the future of the country.
Falana also condemned spiritual leaders who are merely concerned about building a more religious home at the expense of other institutions.
“Most of the richest pastors in the world are from Nigeria, yet our people are getting poorer. If many of us had not attended mission schools built by the Catholics and the Anglicans… school and hospitals but what are we building now? What are our churches giving us? They are promising to build churches in every street. All the warehouses in Apapa built by Awolowo have all become churches and business centers.”
