Named after the fiery women’s rights activist, and politician, the imposing structure with its soaring arches and cavernous dining hall, stood as a monument to generations of students who passed through the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Within those walls, students did far more than eat.
The refectory used to be an intellectual marketplace where politics wrestled with philosophy, where literature met ideology, where friendships were forged, movements conceived, and ambitions nurtured. It was where future professors debated future politicians; where union leaders rehearsed themselves into becoming the nation’s conscience; where the pulse of Nigeria could almost be palpated. It was, in every sense, a university.
You can therefore imagine my horror when I recently watched videos from student hostels, particularly the iconic Eni Njoku Hostel, showing overflowing toilets, broken plumbing, collapsing ceilings, filthy bathrooms, and students living amidst sewage and squalor. One news outlet described the conditions as “repulsive,” reporting that students had resorted to cooking outdoors while enduring maggot-infested surroundings. How the mighty have fallen.
Sadly, the rot extends far beyond crumbling infrastructures. The UNN’s own Quality Assurance Strategic Plan paints an even more troubling picture. It identifies declining academic standards as one of the institution’s principal threats, citing weak graduate programmes, inadequate staffing, unstable academic calendars, poor teaching and learning conditions, limited staff development, weak research support, and poor digital readiness. Coupled with brain drain, administrative inefficiency, and a gradual erosion of institutional prestige, the evidence suggests that UNN’s crisis is no longer merely infrastructural, it is institutional.
As a cultural Nsukka man who grew up in the shadow of the university, I could not hold back tears watching those videos. The University of Nigeria has always been more than a university. Founded by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe with the inspiring motto, “To Restore the Dignity of Man,” it became one of the institutions that helped restore the dignity of an entire people.
Following the devastation of the Nigerian Civil War, few institutions contributed more to the psychological and intellectual rebuilding of the Igbo nation than the University of Nigeria. Enugu Rangers restored our sporting pride. UNN restored our intellectual confidence and shaped our post-war worldview.
For a people politically marginalized after the war, hosting an institution called the University of Nigeria carried enormous symbolic significance. Yet UNN was never merely symbolic. It attracted some of the finest scholars from Nigeria and across the world. It was a destination university. It was once home to the legendary Chinua Achebe and the world-famous Chimamanda Adichie, spent her formative years within its wall. It represented excellence. To gain admission into Nsukka was itself a badge of honour.
Like countless young people of my generation, it was UNN or nothing.
I sat for JAMB more than once because I wanted to become a Lion. Although I was eventually admitted, it was not into my preferred course, forcing me to accept admission elsewhere. Yet every time I heard a graduate proudly roar, “Lion!” or “Lioness!”, it reminded me of a childhood dream left unfulfilled. Perhaps that is why this decline feels so personal.
In my view, we all failed UNN. And yes, successive federal governments bear considerable responsibility for decades of underfunding public universities. But that explanation, while true, is incomplete. We must also confront our own failures.
Vice Chancellors, Governing Councils, Pro-Chancellors, politically connected contractors, students, alumni, and indeed the wider university community all share some measure of responsibility. Too many people treated UNN as an inheritance to be exploited rather than a legacy to be preserved. Everyone came to harvest; few came to cultivate.
Ironically, the university itself acknowledges this reality. UNN’s deterioration is not simply the product of inadequate funding; it is also a consequence of governance failure, weak resource management, inadequate accountability, and ineffective stewardship. To their credit, the university’s alumni have helped keep the institution afloat over the years. That deserves recognition. But they can and should do much more.
UNN’s alumni network is arguably one of the strongest on the continent. Within its ranks are globally respected academics, celebrated writers, captains of industry, distinguished jurists, accomplished physicians, influential politicians, and billionaire entrepreneurs. Few African universities possess such extraordinary human capital. If properly mobilized, they have the collective capacity to transform UNN.
The first priority should be safeguarding the integrity of its leadership. The office of Vice-Chancellor must never again become the reward for political patronage or internal patron-client networks. The future of the university depends on appointing leaders whose loyalty is to scholarship rather than self-enrichment. But this conversation extends beyond Nsukka.
As Igbos, we rightly protest the many injustices inflicted upon us by the Nigerian state. But we must occasionally ask ourselves an uncomfortable question: how well have we managed the institutions that are already within our control? Self-reflection is not self-hatred.
Several years ago, my brother-in-law, who had locally advanced prostate cancer, required radiotherapy. Although he lived in Enugu and had access to the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), he eventually underwent treatment at Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) where such expertise exist. The issue was never that UNTH lacked the logistics needed for radiation treatment. It was the difference in institutional culture.
Having experienced care at both hospitals for different reasons, he repeatedly remarked on the professionalism, organization, and quality of care he received at LUTH compared with his experience in Enugu. Same country. Same federal university hospital system. Entirely different patient experience.
I was reminded of another story told to me by a colleague at UNTH. Funding had reportedly been approved for the purchase of an apheresis machine—equipment capable of saving countless lives. But the procurement allegedly collapsed because a prominent South-East politician who claimed credit for securing the approval demanded a substantial percentage of the allocation before the equipment could even be purchased. Faced with the choice of paying the kickback or losing the project altogether, the hospital lost the machine and the region lost a vital medical resource.
Whether viewed individually or collectively, these stories reveal a deeper malaise. We are often exceptional as individuals yet surprisingly ineffective as custodians of shared institutions. We build magnificent private mansions while our public institutions decay. We celebrate individual success while neglecting our collective inheritance. That contradiction deserves serious introspection and I have often asked, where are the elders in the room?
Fortunately, there are reasons for cautious optimism. The current Vice-Chancellor, Professor Simon Ortuanya, appears to recognize both the scale of the challenge and the urgency of reform. His administration has begun rehabilitating internal roads, reopening abandoned facilities, planning major hostel renovations, and expanding student accommodation. More significantly, the university recently handed over the construction site for a TETFund-sponsored Research Laboratory and Demonstration Farm to Afri-Fruits Limited.
Unlike the politically motivated white-elephant projects that litter our landscape, this initiative has the potential to transform agricultural research, innovation, and food security across the South-East and beyond. Given Nsukka’s fertile land and long agricultural tradition, the university could once again become a national centre of excellence in agricultural science. We need more of those.
The University of Nigeria remains one of Africa’s great institutions. Its decline was neither inevitable nor irreversible.
But restoring its physical infrastructure, revitalising its academic culture, strengthening governance, and reclaiming its reputation will require far more than government allocations. It will demand honesty, sacrifice, accountability, and collective ownership.
Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe founded UNN to restore the dignity of man. Perhaps the challenge before our generation is to restore the dignity of the institution itself.
Osmund Agbo is a medical doctor and author. His works include Black Grit, White Knuckles: The Philosophy of Black Renaissance and the novel The Velvet Court: Courtesan Chronicles. His most recent publications, Pray, Let the Shaman Die and Ma’am, I Do Not Come to You for Love, have just been released.
