There’s a quiet cruelty that festers behind the ivy-covered walls of Nigeria’s public universities. A plague that rarely makes it into senate meetings or faculty memos. Unlike the crises of underfunding,strikes, and brain drain familiar refrains in any conversation about Nigerian academia this one is more insidious. It’s workplace bullying and harassment. And it is as pervasive as it is ignored.
Across many countries, workplace harassment is increasingly met with institutional reckoning, comprehensive policies, whistleblower protections, disciplinary procedures. Even corporations in Nigeria have begun to implement clear anti-harassment codes. But in Nigeria’s public universities, it’s as if the memo never arrived. Harassment is not just common it is expected, normalized, woven into the very culture of university life. And more often than not, men are the perpetrators.
Not all men. But enough men. Senior academics. Heads of department. Deans. Professors who tout decades of experience and doctorates from Europe but wield their authority like blunt instruments against their juniors and Students. These are not just isolated incidents they are sustained campaigns of intimidation, gaslighting, career sabotage, and, often, sexual predation.
The targets? Women, overwhelmingly. Young lecturers. Administrative staff. Graduate students trying to navigate careers in institutions where rejecting an inappropriate advance can mean academic death. Promotions are withheld. Research proposals mysteriously disappear. Opportunities are quietly reassigned. Victims are told to be mature, be diplomatic, or just ignore him. The rest of us? We look the other way.
Take Doosuur (not her real name), a 32-year-old lecturer at a federal university. After turning down the persistent advances of a senior professor in her department, she found herself mysteriously left off departmental projects. Her promotion file “got lost” twice. She was removed from a committee she’d chaired the year before. Eventually, she stopped applying altogether not because she lacked the qualifications, but because the gatekeepers had made it clear. Progress had a price. Her story is not unique. It is the quiet, suffocating reality of too many Nigerian women in academia.
Yesterday social media in Benue State was abuzz with reactions to the nomination of an Associate Professor of Law, as a commissioner in Governor Hyacinth Alia’s cabinet. What would typically be a routine announcement has instead sparked intense public debate, especially among former students of the Benue State University (BSU) Law Faculty, where the Dr taught for years. Many of these alumni, recalling their difficult experiences under his tutelage, have begun signing and circulating petitions urging the government to reconsider his appointment. Their concerns are not about academic qualifications those are undeniable,but about his temperament, teaching methods, and attitude toward students.
But perhaps this is where we must pause and reflect,is being likeable, or even kind, a prerequisite for public office? Should the threshold for leadership in governance be personality or performance?
Being a good person is not a qualification for public office. Results are.Governance isn’t about sainthood it’s about competence, timing, and the ability to separate politics from policy. Unless you’re a criminal, your character isn’t the issue, your capacity, qualifications, and track record are.
We may not have fond memories of the Dr’s.classroom, but public service is not a lecture hall. Good intentions don’t deliver public services. Capacity does. Even those with abrasive temperaments have, in some cases, delivered remarkable results when given the right platforms. The reverse is also true. Well-loved, charming leaders have overseen catastrophic failures.
But let’s not pretend that if one lecturer acted unjustly, he acted alone. The way our university system functions, no single lecturer has unilateral power over student outcomes not without the silent consent of colleagues. If the Dr. truly failed students unjustly, including brilliant ones who simply didn’t meet his personal preferences, then the complicity runs deeper than one man. It reflects a faculty culture that looked away.It takes more than a tyrant to oppress, it takes a crowd that chooses silence.
Because someone vetted those results. Someone co-signed. Someone chaired the meetings and saw the numbers. Someone heard the stories whispered in hallways and shrugged. The truth is.The silence of good people is the engine that drives bad people. Inaction is not neutrality, it’s participation.
A system that allows one man to wield fear like a tool is broken not just because of him, but because of those who stood by and did nothing.
So as petitions fly and former students share stories some valid, some exaggerated it’s important to remember that governance is a serious business. Emotional trauma from the past should not cloud our judgment of present-day potential. What matters now is whether the Dr. can bring discipline, vision, and effectiveness into public service without carrying forward the damaging attitudes many experienced in his class.
The universe may indeed have a sense of humour, but we owe it to ourselves and to the people of Benue to ask better questions,not just Do we like him? But Can he deliver? Not just Was he harsh?but Has he grown?
Leadership must be judged not in anecdotes but in impact.
It is not only women who suffer, though. There are also countless men especially younger male staff who are bullied, silenced, and psychologically battered by power-drunk superiors. The system rewards sycophancy and punishes dissent. The result? Toxicity at scale. Talented minds are silenced, broken, or forced to leave.
In private, colleagues talk. Whispered confessions in empty corridors. Screenshots of humiliating messages. Long, teary calls about emotional breakdowns. But when it’s time to speak publicly, to file a report, to confront the system there’s nothing. Why? Because there is no system. No clear policies. No HR safeguards. No independent panels. No whistleblower protections. Just silence.
The irony is gutting. These are academic institutions places meant to model enlightenment, inquiry, and progressive thought. Instead, they operate like feudal estates where hierarchy is sacred and the powerful go unchallenged.
How can institutions that train future leaders continue to ignore the ethical rot within their own walls?
We don’t need more high-level committees or vague press statements. We need legislation mandating harassment and bullying policies for all public universities. We need independent ombuds offices staffed by professionals,not cronies. We need funding tied to compliance. We need a national registry for misconduct. We need to make abuse an institutional liability, not a whispered inconvenience.
This is not about vengeance. It is about justice. It is about healing. It is about stopping the next woman from being cornered in an office and told she must cooperate if she wants to move forward.It is about stopping the next brilliant academic from quitting after years of emotional torture. It is about reclaiming Nigerian academia from the hands of the bullies.
There are men and women doing good, ethical work within these institutions. But they are outnumbered and often outranked by those who see the absence of accountability as a license to harm. That cannot continue. Not if we hope to build an academic culture that fosters intellect instead of fear.
The world should know this. The world must know this. The silence in Nigeria’s public universities is not just deafening. It is dangerous. And it is time we break it.
This brings me to that profound moment in Scripture where even Jesus asked his disciples,Who do men say that I am? (Matthew 16:13). The Son of God, all-knowing and all-powerful, still paused to ask how He was perceived. It wasn’t because He didn’t know the answer it was because perception matters. Leadership demands reflection not just of actions, but of how those actions land in the hearts of people.
So while we debate the Dr’s appointment, the question isn’t only whether he is qualified or competent, but whether he understands the weight of public perception, especially when shaped by years of human interaction. In the end, leadership is not just about delivering results,it’s about doing so in a way that leaves people better, not bruised.
We all evolve. Perhaps the Dr has too. But as the petitions circulate and memories resurface, one truth remains.Those who seek public trust must also reckon with public memory. And in a time when governance is desperate for both capacity and character, perception right or wrong has become a silent but powerful credential.
Stephanie Shaakaa
shaakaastephanie@yahoo.com
08034861434
