Osun State University (UNIOSUN) has come under fire from historian, revolutionary and musician Dr. Temitope‑Maberu Fagunwa, who described the institution’s newly introduced paid “Summer Programme” as an unethical revenue‑generating scheme that monetises academic failure. In a statement provided to The Sun Nigeria over the weekend, Dr. Fagunwa said the programme turns students’ difficulties into a source of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) for the university.
“The programme commodifies students’ academic difficulties into a source of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), effectively making failure financially lucrative. While the administration presents it as a generous gesture to help students clear failed courses, the lack of any pedagogical foundation makes it akin to intellectual extortion,”
Dr. Fagunwa also took issue with the use of the term “Summer Programme,” arguing that it inappropriately borrows Western academic terminology without regard for Nigeria’s climatic and institutional realities. He noted that in the Global North, summer programmes typically provide specialised study or professional development, not “auction[ing] regular semester courses at N50,000 each, nor do they compress standard curriculum content into a rushed two‑week cycle.”
The criticism was directed at the administration led by Professor Odunayo Clement Adebooye, who serves as UNIOSUN’s Vice‑Chancellor. Dr. Fagunwa said the Vice‑Chancellor’s response to the critique was “anti‑intellectual” and reflected a broader crisis in university governance, where profit motives outweigh academic standards. He linked the practice to state governments’ underfunding of public universities while imposing aggressive IGR targets on university leaders.
He highlighted that on 31 August 2026, Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke extended Vice‑Chancellor Adebooye’s tenure by two years, moving the exit date from January 2027 to January 2029—a move Dr. Fagunwa said contravenes the 2006 Osun State University Establishment Law, which limits the term to a single, non‑renewable five‑year period.
According to the 2025 Osun State Approved Budget, the government projected N6.375 billion in IGR from UNIOSUN, more than five times the N1.183 billion directly appropriated to the university. Dr. Fagunwa warned that “UNIOSUN has been repositioned as a revenue‑generating tool rather than a publicly funded institution of higher learning” and called for resistance to what he described as illegal administrative extensions and the commercialization of academic culture.
<small>Source: The Sun Nigeria — read the original story there.</small>
