The Chairman of the Governing Board of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, has proposed a national framework to end the duplication of accreditation between the commission and Nigeria’s professional regulatory bodies, which he says is imposing avoidable costs on universities and students.
Ogundipe, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos, made the proposal while delivering the 16th convocation lecture of Osun State University (UNIOSUN) last month, titled “Coping with Double Oversight: Harmonising the NUC and Professional Bodies for a Sustainable University System.” He argued that Nigeria does not need less regulation of its universities but better regulation. “Quality assurance must remain non-negotiable,” he said, but it becomes counterproductive when regulators duplicate processes and leave institutions and students to bear the cost.
He identified the main areas of conflict between the NUC and the professional bodies as curriculum ownership and content, accreditation timelines and costs, the gap between minimum and professional standards, and the difficulty graduates face registering with professional bodies after the National Youth Service.
To resolve this, the NUC board chairman proposed legal clarification of the boundaries between regulators and a permanent national consultative framework. He also called for harmonised accreditation protocols and a shared national information platform on the regulatory status of programmes.
A significant part of the lecture focused on protecting students. Ogundipe said no student should discover at graduation that a programme has a regulatory problem that the institution or regulator knew about, or should have known about, years earlier. He said accreditation status should be made clear at admission and kept up to date, and that where a programme operates under an interim arrangement, students should be told what it means for their professional registration.
He also urged that professional accreditation be developmental rather than merely punitive, particularly for young universities and programmes serving regions where access to professional education remains limited.
The professor did not exempt universities from responsibility. He said harmonisation cannot become an argument for lowering standards, and he advised vice-chancellors that “a culture of quality begins within the institution.” He urged universities to treat accreditation as part of their yearly planning and risk management rather than a periodic event.
Ogundipe also disclosed that the NUC would require universities to update their institutional data every year, as part of efforts to stop academic staff from working in several institutions at the same time. He commended the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, for setting up a ministerial committee on strengthening accreditation and quality assurance for tertiary institutions.
The lecture reflects the priorities he set out when he was inaugurated as board chairman in Abuja, where he said he would work to strengthen Nigeria’s university system and ensure that degrees from Nigerian universities are globally competitive. President Bola Tinubu appointed him in June, after Emeritus Professor Olufemi Aina resigned, and asked him to focus on funding, academic stability and global competitiveness.
He brings a long record in university administration. As the 12th Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos from 2017 to 2022, Ogundipe led a drive on research, entrepreneurship and infrastructure. According to the university, UNILAG did not appear in the global rankings when he took office, entered the Times Higher Education World University Rankings in 2019 and had climbed to the 401–500 band by the 2023 edition. Staff also attracted research grants of about N19 billion over the period.
His administration introduced the “Pick a Person, Pick a Project, Pick a Programme” (P3P) initiative, which drew alumni and other stakeholders into funding infrastructure across the campus, and the university developed a portable, easily deployable ventilator during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Before that, he served as Dean of the School of Postgraduate Studies from 2007 to 2011 and as Director of the Academic Planning Unit from 2012 to 2016.
A professor of botany with expertise in molecular plant taxonomy, he is a fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Science, the Linnaean Society of London and the Royal Society of Biology, and a former president of the Botanical Society of Nigeria. He also chaired the Lagos State Science, Research and Innovation Council (LASRIC) and was Pro-Chancellor of Redeemer’s University, Ede, before his appointment to the NUC.
Samuel Agboola is a member of the editorial team of TheScript Newspapers
