The Day Research Died in Nigerian Universities By Tahir Ahmad
Once upon a time—not in myth or memory, but in the breathing pages of recent history—Nigerian universities were firebrands of discovery. They were not only campuses; they were crucibles.
Students came not just to learn, but to think, to challenge, to build, to break boundaries. In those days, professors were sages, laboratories were war rooms, and every research question was a battle cry for progress.
Foreign students flocked here. Yes, to Nigeria. They came for the minds—those brilliant, unrelenting minds whose ideas echoed beyond lecture halls into government policy and global journals.
Our universities were not resting grounds for tired syllabi and recycled slideshows; they were alive—buzzing with hypotheses and hope. But now? Our universities have become sterile lands of rote regurgitation.
Once fertile grounds for groundbreaking innovation now sit barren, hosting weary lectures in musty halls, with students memorizing to pass, not to understand. Where we once minted minds, we now mass-produce certificates.
The soul of academic inquiry has been traded for ceremony and survival. You do not need a stethoscope to diagnose the rot. Look around. Laboratories that once hosted revolutions in science now double as store rooms for broken chairs.
Research grants? Rare. Functional mentorship? Ghosted. Groundbreaking theses? Extinct. We now praise the completion of a four-year program more than the completion of a four-chapter journal article.
And every time a Nigerian breakthrough is announced from Harvard or Oxford, it is a painful reminder: the brain may be ours, but the backing is foreign. So, what happened?
Read Also:
Government apathy, for one. When budgets shrink, research is the first to bleed. When leadership stumbles, curiosity collapses. Our universities have become victims of bureaucratic chokeholds and uninspiring visions.
Meanwhile, our syllabi gather dust, refusing to evolve, even as the world dances with AI, blockchain, and gene editing. But it is not just the leaders. It is us, too.
A generation seduced by shortcuts—by social media fame, forex trading, and overnight wealth. Why endure the rigor of research when there are faster routes to relevance?
Yet, the most tragic loss is not the crumbling labs or faded libraries. It is that we no longer ask questions. We no longer wonder how to build solar-powered irrigation systems for our farmers.
We no longer obsess over turning cassava into energy or malaria into history. These questions—burning questions—once thundered through our institutions. Today, they are silent.
And so, we are left with universities that no longer lead thinking, only trailing behind it. Institutions that should be shaping the future are stuck parroting the past.
We need more than funds; we need fire. We need a revival of the research spirit. A cultural rebirth that starts from the first day of admission, where students are told: you are here to ask questions the world has not yet answered.
We need lecturers retooled and recharged—not just to teach, but to mentor. We need industry partnerships that ensure research does not end in dusty shelves, but in usable solutions.
If we do not reclaim our universities as engines of innovation, then we must admit: we are merely running glorified boarding schools, not institutions of higher learning.
The tragedy is not just that we have lost our research prowess. The tragedy is that we do not even seem to miss it.
Tahir Ahmad is a NYSC corps member serving at PRNigeria Centre Abuja. He can be reached via: [email protected]
