By Prof. B. Chima Onuoha
The nation’s first-generation universities, namely: University of Ibadan (1948); University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) – 1960; Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (ABU) – 1962; Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife (OAU) – 1962; and University of Benin (UNIBEN) – 1970; were highly rated continentally and globally from their inception to late 1970s. When the 7 second generation universities joined them in 1975, located at Calabar, Ilorin, Jos, Kano, Maiduguri, Sokoto and Port Harcourt, the standards because of good funding were also comparable to any university anywhere in the world. They drew students and staff everywhere – home and abroad. Their teaching hospitals were world class. Patients came from far and near. These institutions’ golden periods continued till 1995, when things started falling apart. Today, they are more or less “neighbourhood universities” and “catchment area Institutions” instead of “cities in the universe”. Their continental and international rankings keep going down.
At this point, let me identify the three key factors responsible for the misfortune of the university system in Nigeria, and hence, their poor outings in global rankings.
1. Existence of “Sambo Personality”
The concept of “Sambo Personality” has been accused of being responsible for the underdeveloped and culpable state of all developing nations. The attitudes of the elites of these societies have gone a long way to re-enforce this concept from which black people and their leaders are viewed by the white race all over the world. In a nutshell, “Sambo Personality” suggests the lack of mental capacity or reasoning particularly in terms of foresightedness. It describes individual’s leadership without the faculty or ability to plan, and plan strategically. It also suggests reactionary tendencies and proneness to corruption. It has all the attributes of self-centredness, nepotism, parochialism, tribalism, statism, laziness, treasury looting, godfatherism, double standards, pathological greed, pathetic fallacy, inordinate quest for power and money, kleptomania, mediocrity, warped value system, wasteful organizational practices, injustice, lack of patriotism, and so many unwholesome and dysfunctional practices. (Onuoha, 1995 and 2009).
‘Sambo personality’ permeates all spheres of human endeavour in Nigeria: politics, commerce, education, religion, judiciary, the traditional setting, the military, etc. It has to be observed that both the leaders and citizens of Nigeria are afflicted by this disease. They have all exhibited the symptoms of this problem in various forms, with the cumulative effect of inexcusable backwardness and poverty.
2. Political Meddlesomeness in the System
There is constant political meddlesomeness in the university system. This has adversely affected appointment of council members, principal officers; employment of other key officers, lecturers and other staff and admissions. Some Vice Chancellors with powerful political godfathers simply keyed in and became high handed and brazen in their activities, thereby eroding academic culture. Some Deans, Directors and Heads of Departments naturally joined in the empire building and engage in bureau-pathology and other forms of wasteful organisational practices. Some lecturers have no business being in the ivory tower. All these have adversely affected academic standards and ranking.
3. *Underfunding of Education*
This all-important agent of development sector has been bedevilled by perennial under-funding the political class – those that have little or no regard for education. The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recommends between 15-20% of annual budget (of all tiers of government) or 4-6% of GDP to education. Successive governments/administrations in Nigeria have been paying lip service to education. They have been budgeting less than 10%, year in, year out to education. The highest this country has attained since 1979 was 11 percent during the short-lived regime of General Abdulsalami Abubakar. Six years recent examples will suffice using federal government’s allocation to education. In the year 2021, it was N742.5 billion (5.46%); in 2022, it was N923.79 billion (5.39%); in 2023, it was N1.79 trillion (8.20%); in 2024, it was N2.18 trillion (7.60%); in 2025, it was N3.52 trillion (6.4%); and in 2026. It was N3.52 trillion (7%). Sources: from various sources like The Budget Office of the Federation, CBN, Nairametrics, The Cable, etc. A major factor why the political class in Nigeria is underfunding education or not serious with education is because their children are schooling in expensive private schools in Nigeria and abroad.
The consequences of underfunding include:
i. University libraries are overcrowded and without relevant and up-to-date texts and journals.
ii. Hostels, classrooms and lecture theatres are overcrowded and hence unhealthy to live or learn in.
iii. Laboratories still lack the required equipment, chemicals and reagents.
iv. Teaching hospitals are mere consulting institutions, without the necessary equipment, drugs and other materials. They now graduate poor quality and half-baked doctors.
v. Lecturers work without offices, accommodation and other facilities like research grants, laptops, publications/conference allowances and cars. It also means that the problem of brain drain will remain with us.
vi. School administrators are unable to acquire needed materials for the effective and efficient running of the system. This means that there will continue to be shortage of water and electricity supply and poor sanitation.
vii. In some state universities: lecturers are asked to pay for their promotion for external assessment. Ridiculously, some are required to pay for the plagiarism test of each paper say between N3000 and N5000, imagine how much a lecturer will pay assuming he/she has 75 publications.
viii. Explosion and proliferation of private educational institutions – primary, secondary and tertiary institutions.
ix. Lecturers sponsoring their conferences and publications. This is because universities don’t have money to encourage them in this direction. Again, TETFUND’s allocation for these are used for favouritism by university administrators.
x. Increasingly, Nigerian universities are beginning to have a reasonable number of “Add my name Professors”. In other words, neighbourhood and non-visible Professors in many disciplines. (Onuoha, 2009 and 2021).
*Global Rankings of Universities*
Universities are supposed to be globally visible and impactful, hence, they are called “cities in the universe”. There are a good number of global university ranking agencies-organizations that evaluate and compare higher education institutions worldwide using various data points like research, teaching and employability. Some of these agencies include: Time Higher Education (THE), US News and World Report, QS. Quacquarelli Symonds, Shanghai Ranking Consultancy, Centre for World University Ranking (CWUR), Webometrics, etc. For our purpose, I shall be using Time Higher Education and Webometrics.
Times Higher Education is the data provider underpinning university excellence in every continent across the world. As the company behind the world’s most influential university ranking, and with over five decades of experience as a source of analysis and insight on higher education, we have unparalleled expertise on the trends underpinning university performance globally. Our data and benchmarking tools are used by many of the world’s most prestigious universities to help them achieve their strategic goals.
The annual _Times Higher Education (THE)_ World University Rankings (WUR), started in 2004, aims to provide the definitive list of the best universities. The new reiterated methodology, developed in 2023, evaluates this across five key areas of Teaching, Research Environment, Research Quality, International Outlook and Industry. _Times Higher Education’s_ data is trusted by governments and universities and is a vital resource for students, helping them choose where to study. The above pieces of information are according to a document with the title “Methodology for Overall and Subject Rankings for The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2026”.
Taking the five key areas specifically:
A. Teaching – Teaching reputation, Student-Staff ratio, Doctorate-Bachelor ratio, Doctorate-Staff ratio and institutional income.
B. Research Environment – Research reputation, research income and research productivity.
C. Research Quality – citation impact, research strength, research excellence and research influence.
D. International Outlook – international students, international staff and international co-authorship.
E. Industry – industry income and patents.
The Webometric Ranking of World University is a reputable publication of the Cybernetics Lab, a research group, an affiliate of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), located in Madrid, Spain. Webometrics was first launched in 2004. The Webometrics ranking is published twice in a year, usually in January and July.
It evaluates universities using three broad indicators: visibility, openness and excellence, which obviously reflect the institutions’ digital presence, accessibility of scholarly content and research visibility (Bada Yusuf, August 18, 2026).
It is unfortunate and regrettable to observe that persistently, year in, year out, no Nigerian university has made the first 1000 list of either The Times Higher Education or the Webometrics rankings. Using the latest Webometrics ranking (August 2026), I will list only ten best globally and ten Nigerian universities and their positions. The global top 10 are:
1. Harvard University.
2. Stanford University.
3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
4. University of Oxford.
5. Cornell University.
6. University of Washington.
7. University of Michigan.
8. University of California, Berkeley.
9. Johns Hopkins University.
10. Columbia University.
American universities occupied seven of the global top 10 positions, while the United Kingdom got two – Oxford and Cambridge universities. The University of Toronto was the highest-ranked Canadian university, placing 12th globally.
The Ten Nigerian Universities and their positions, led by the University of Ibadan are:
Global Rank of Some Nigerians Universities
1. University of Ibadan (UI) – 1,291
2. University of Lagos (UNILAG) – 1,355
3. University of Nigeria (UNN) – 1,397
4. Covenant University – 1,522
5. Landmark University – 1,659
6. University of Ilorin – 1,883
7. Obafemi Awolowo University – 1,986
8. Ahmadu Bello University – 2,068
9. University of Port Harcourt – 2,077
10. Federal University of Technology, Akure – 2,203
Steps Needed to Improve Global Ranking of Nigerian Universities
There are urgent steps needed to improve the global rankings of Nigerian universities. These include:
i. Better Funding – During the regional administration in Nigeria, the Eastern Region under Dr Michael Okpara was allocating between 40-45% of her annual budget to education, with remarkable and enviable outcomes. The core areas of concentration of the Eastern Region’s administration were education, agriculture and industrialisation. By early 1960s, the Eastern Region became the fastest growing and industrialising economy in the entire world, far ahead of the Asian Tigers. While, it may not be possible to allocate such huge percentage (40-45%) to education currently due to other equally demanding areas, such as security/insecurity, health, defense, etc, at least the federal and other tiers of government should strive to meet the UNESCO’s recommendation of 15-20 percent. This will go a long way to address the decay in the system.
ii. Universities in Nigeria like their Ivy League and other reputable counterparts should strive to continuously improve their academic and professional programmes to meet global standards. They should admit students with high intelligence quotient (IQ); have diversified studentship and employment (reducing their catchment area toga); employ erudite, high quality and entrepreneurial minded scholars, researchers and administrators; stop waiving courses and granting academic amnesty; provide conducive learning and research environment; improve on their lecturer-student ratio; and encourage their lecturers, researchers and post graduate students to publish in high-impact journals.
I just read a recent circular (date, 25th August) from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, incentivising publications in high-impact journals – SCOPUS-indexed journals. They include: direct cash awards, special recognition, and also cash award for patented works; the effective date being 2026. There is no doubt that ABU’s effort is a direct response to its ranking by Webometrics’ recent publication. ABU’s position is 2068 globally and number 8 in Nigeria. I hope that other universities will follow the footsteps of ABU in this direction.
iii. Other major areas of ranking are relationship/cooperation with the industry and patents – akin to the “gown going to town” concept. This is the ability of universities in helping the corporate world and society with innovations and inventions. And the businesses are willing to pay for these services and the institutions and researchers making good money. This will include that the industry is happy and willing to fund further research efforts/activities.
iv. A lot of points have been made to show governments have neglected the education sector for over three decades. All levels of education – primary, secondary and tertiary, need urgent attention and adequate funding, Quality of learning has reduced drastically and our graduates are seen and regarded as ‘educated illiterates’ or ‘handout graduates’. And educational workers are in the state of melancholy. They are also leaving the system in droves. Their conditions of service must be improved to retain the services of the few remaining. The government should avoid interfering in the internal matters of schools and respect university autonomy and academic freedom. It should honour all agreements with unions and other interest groups. Governments all over the globe are known to have honour and credibility. But it seems not so in developing countries like Nigeria.
A major factor contributing to why education is not receiving proper and adequate attention and funding in Nigeria is because the children of the political class are schooling in expensive private schools here and abroad.
The National Assembly should be caused to pass a law, or via a Presidential directive, making it compulsory for children of politicians and top government officials to attend public schools – nursery, primary, secondary and university.
Those to be covered by this law or directive include:
1. Councillors, local government chairmen, state and federal commissioners, special Advisers/Assistants, Chairmen of boards, MDs/CEOs of parastatals, ministers, governors, registrars; Vice Chancellors, Provosts, Rectors, members of state and national assemblies, secretaries to state and federal governments, Vice president, the president himself, etc.
2. Assistant directors, directors, Deputy registrars, permanent secretaries and their equivalents in all government establishments (MDAs), Colonels and equivalents in Police, Immigration, Custom Service, Prisons, Navy, Air Force, etc.
3. Other categories of politicians or public servants that the law or directive deems necessary to be included.
Public officials that don’t want to comply with the proposed law or Presidential directive should resign from the offices they are holding. A close monitoring system should be put in place to fish out defaulters. I would like to head such monitoring committee or agency.
In conclusion, immediately the nation’s political class and leadership are compelled to send their children to schools in Nigeria, the sector will automatically start getting the much-needed attention and adequate funding. Priority on education will also reduce medical tourism because our teaching hospitals will be upgraded to international standards. And correspondingly, our universities will start getting more favourable global rankings. This is my message.
*Onuoha, Professor of Management and development activist, wrote from University of Port Harcourt, Monday, August 31, 2026.
*Notes
Onuoha, B. C. (1995, April 20–22). It’s frustrating to write books in Nigeria. National Ambassador.
Onuoha, B. C. (1995, June 1–3). Why the university system is in shambles. National Ambassador.
Onuoha, B. C. (1995, July 23). Varsity system in shambles._ Sunday Times.
Onuoha, B. C. (2009). The evils of campus life: Problems of education in Nigeria (2nd ed.). Educational Books and Investment Ltd.
Onuoha, B. C. (2021). Public sector management: A comparative & development perspective. African Entrepreneurship and Leadership Initiative (AELI).
Yusuf, B. (2026, August 18). Full list: UI, UNILAG top Nigerian universities in global ranking. Legit NG. https://www.legit.ng/education/1725935-full-list-latest-university-world-released/
