Femi LazarusCEO at Femi Lazarus Consulting

A sustainable education system is not accidental. It is built on structure, accountability...

11 Apr 2026 · 3 min

Watch on YouTube

2:50

In this podcast excerpt, the speaker—an experienced vice‑chancellor in Nigeria and Botswana—examines the crisis facing Nigerian higher education. He argues that many universities are massively over‑admitted, with campuses built for 10,000 students now housing 60,000, leading to unsustainable class sizes and inadequate per‑student funding compared with peers in South Africa, Egypt, Senegal, and Kenya. The speaker contends that without a sustainability mindset, universities cannot survive on government allocations alone. He proposes a three‑stream model for producing quality graduates: (1) a Deputy Vice‑Chancellor for Academic Affairs (Provost), (2) a Deputy Vice‑Chancellor for Administration, (3) a Deputy Vice‑Chancellor for Accounting, and crucially (4) a Deputy Vice‑Chancellor for Strategic Business Units to drive entrepreneurial revenue. He criticises the current practice of appointing vice‑chancellors based on state or political considerations, urging merit‑based selection. He also notes that government‑sponsored universities lack the resources to develop unless they engage in business ventures. Drawing on his own tenure as vice‑chancellor in Nigeria and Botswana, he illustrates how merit‑based leadership and entrepreneurial strategies can create sustainable, high‑quality institutions. The podcast is part of the Declassified series, available on YouTube and Spotify.

Chapters

Do you feel schools are over-admitting? Most universities in Nigeria now that have populations of 60,000 were actually designed for populations of 10,000. So how is that university going to sustain itself just by allocations? If you take allocation per head of student and compare that to allocation per head of student in South Africa or in Egypt or in Senegal or in Kenya for that matter, I would say. When they have a class in mathematics or a class in economics, how many students in that room will be sitting down and how many will be outside? Quite a number outside. Okay, you see. So even though they are doing that, there are many elements they need to clean up. If a university is not driven by sustainability principles, it will never work. Most Nigerian educational systems are tied to prospective service In the civil service, there is no entrepreneurship, you understand? How did I succeed as Vice Chancellor of this university and Vice Chancellor of that university in Botswana? I was Vice Chancellor in Southern Africa as well. A university in Nigeria that will produce good graduates must have 3 streams. One, you have a Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. In the US, we call them Provosts. We have a Deputy Vice Chancellor for Administration. A third, a the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Accounting. Okay, and then finally, the one that Nigeria refuses to have— Deputy Vice Chancellor for Strategic Business Units. So what I'm saying is that vice chancellorship in Nigeria has become something that you appoint somebody from that state, right? Sometimes rotational. If the people of Botswana thought this way, am I from Botswana to have been a vice chancellor there? I'm not from Botswana by any means, you understand? So you select the best vice chancellors and the best deputy vice chancellors not by their state or local government of origin. That's number one. Number two, those universities that are sponsored by government will never have the resources to develop into proper universities. So they must engage in entrepreneurship, own businesses. You can't compare class conditions there. You're correct. This is my country number 77. Oh, brethren, I lived in 11. And mostly tied to academe and all these things. Declassified Podcast is now streaming on YouTube and Spotify.