REDRESSING CORRUPTION IN HIGHER INSTITUTIONS by Amaka Theresa Oriaku Emordi, Ph. D

REDRESSING CORRUPTION IN HIGHER INSTITUTIONS IN AFRICA THROUGH GENDER MAINSTREAMING

BY

Amaka Theresa Oriaku Emordi, Ph. D

Department of Political Science, Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria

amakaemordi@gmail.com

+234-08035737410

And

Enyelunekpo Rosemary Roberts, M. Sc.

Department of Psychology, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria

E-mail:adadec2002@yahoo.com

 + 234-08132425687

Abstract

Corruption and its multifaceted sharp practices flourish and blossom in Nigeria in particular and Africa in general for many reasons. Attention is often focused on lack of adequate anti-corruption strategies. However, this paper focuses, at the tactical level, on the need to bridge the gap of social inequalities of gender imbalance in recruitment and management of higher institutions in Africa. This is the area where stakeholders of war against corruption paradoxically are yet to lay much emphasis on. Aside from the general notion of public sector corruption in Africa, higher institutions of learning have been lampooned for high-level corruption and other sharp practices. These can be seen in the problems of knowledge production the continent is experiencing today, as manifest in allegations and counter-allegations of corruption and money laundering by some university vice-chancellors and their deputies, uneducated higher education graduates, poor infrastructure development and moribund institutional structures in the higher institutions today. Corruption in higher institutions of learning in Nigeria and Africa not only stifles research, it also hampers quality teaching and learning outcomes which also cumulate in poor leadership, bad governance and endangers the lives of the people through sluggish or lack of development, hunger malnutrition, poverty, insecurity, radicalization, and  terrorism. Corruption has permeated every facet of the educational institutions and has weakened output of learning and research. The United Nations and other international organizations have made efforts in the fight against corruption in African higher institutions without much success. Ironically they are yet to set their campaign searchlight in curbing and redressing corruption in higher institutions by strategically placing and mainstreaming gender in the universities and other higher institutions of learning. Using the theory of inclusion the paper gathered data from existing information and literature to interrogate the place and expediency of development of education and redressing corruption in Africa through gender mainstreaming in higher institutions in Africa.

Keywords: Redressing, Corruption, Gender- Mainstreaming, Higher-Institution

REDRESSING CORRUPTION IN HIGHER INSTITUTIONS IN AFRICA THROUGH GENDER MAINSTREAMING

Introduction

Corruption in Africa takes many forms and can be interpreted by many people in many ways. It is hard to enter any sector in Nigeria, for instance, without observing one corrupt practice or the other. Corruption does not only take place in the business sector in Africa but also in the citadel of learning, ‘the higher institutions’. Supporting this argument the United States Agency for International Development (2005) argued that corruption, though commonly attributed to the public sector, also exists in other sectors such as private business sector and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). This list includes the higher institutions of learning in Africa, Nigeria in particular.

Aside from the general notion of public sector corruption, the higher institutions of learning in Nigeria, it can be argued, are bedevilled with high-level corruption and other sharp practices. This explains the problems of knowledge production experienced today which is manifest in allegations and counter-allegations of corruption and money laundry by anti-corruption agencies, including Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)against some university vice-chancellors and their deputies, uneducated higher education graduates, poor infrastructure development and moribund institutional structures in the higher institutions today.

The effect of corruption hinders efficiency, valid and reliable research, impactful teaching, good management and development of higher institutions in Africa.  Corruption has permeated every facet of the educational sector and has weakened output of learning and research. Corruption in the high institutions of learning in Nigeria and Africa not only stifles research, it also hampers quality teaching and learning outcomes which also cumulate in poor leadership, bad governance and endangers the lives of the people through sluggish or lack of development, hunger malnutrition, poverty, insecurity, radicalization, and terrorism.

The United Nations and other international organizations have been making effort to fight social inequality especially in the area of gender inequality in the nations of the world in several dimensions. They have made quantum progress in areas such as equality of employment, the war against early marriage of the girl child, girl child genital mutilation, education, domestic violence, rape gender relations and equal pay, amongst others. Ironically they are yet to set their campaign searchlight in curbing and redressing corruption in the higher institutions by strategically placing and mainstreaming gender in Nigerian universities and other higher institutions of higher studies.  Corruption and its multifaceted sharp practices flourish and blossom, due to lack of proper anti-corruption strategies such as bridging the gap of social inequalities of gender imbalance in recruitment and management of higher institutions in Africa and Nigeria especially. Stakeholders of war against corruption crusade paradoxically have not placed much emphasis on placing the weight of research and investigation on the practice of corruption in higher institutions of learning. Nwajiuba, (2011) stressed that there seem to be a natural gender role distinction all over the world, which has created gap opportunities between men and women while Akanle and Olutayo, 2012, Akanle, 2011, argued that the proportion of female lecturers to male lecturers is abysmally low as the

female gender continues to occupy the back bench in the academia. Adebayo and Akanle, (2014) worked on the nexus between gender equality and sustainable development and decried to the gross imbalance in the number of women employed as academics compared to the men in the tertiary institutions in Nigeria. It is against the foregoing background that this paper sought to examine corruption in administration of higher education in Nigeria.Using the theory of inclusion the paper gathered data through existing information and literature to interrogate the place and expediency of development of education and redressing corruption in Africa through gender mainstreaming in higher institutions in Africa.

This paper is structured into seven sections. Following this introduction, the second section backgrounds the study with the trajectory of United Nations women empowerment and inclusion. This is followed by a conceptual treatment of corruption and discourse on corruption in Nigeria. In the fourth section of the paper, we present women marginalisation in higher educational institutions in Nigeria as a form of corruption. This theme is further pursued in the section that follows as we analyse gender discrimination in the academia in Nigeria. In the sixth section, we present the option of redressing corruption in higher institutions in Nigeria through gender mainstreaming. The seventh and final section concludes the paper.

The Trajectory of UN Women Empowerment and Inclusion

In 1979, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which is often described as an International Bill of Rights for Women.  With 30 articles, the Convention explicitly defines discrimination against women and sets up an agenda for national action to end such discrimination. The Convention targets culture and tradition as influential forces shaping gender roles and family relations, and it is the first human rights treaty to affirm the reproductive rights of women.  Five years later, the Mexico City conference was convened, and in 1980 second World Conference on Women was held in Copenhagen.  The resulting Programme of Action called for stronger national measures to ensure women’s ownership and control of the property, as well as improvements in women’s rights with respect to inheritance, child custody and loss of nationality.

Following that was the Beijing Conference on Women: The Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995. This conference stretched the empowerment of women a step further than the Nairobi Conference.  The conference emphasized Platform for Actions which asserted that women’s rights are also human rights and committed to specific actions to ensure respect for those rights. The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women. The CSW is instrumental in promoting women’s rights, documenting the reality of women’s lives throughout the world, and shaping global standards on gender equality and the empowerment of women.

On 2 July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously voted to create a single UN body tasked with accelerating progress in achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment. The new UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women – or UN Women, merged four of the world body’s agencies and offices: the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW), the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues, and the UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women.

Consequently, the impact of the UN effort spurred the birth of global feminism.  In 1985, the World Conference to Review and Appraise the Achievements of the United Nations Decade for Women: Equality, Development, and Peace, was held in Nairobi.  The event was described by many as “the birth of global feminism”. Realizing that the goals of the Mexico City Conference had not been adequately met, the 157 participating governments adopted the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies to the Year 2000. The document broke new ground by declaring all issues to be women’s issues. The efforts of the UN and other organizations led to the birth of global feminism.

The Concept of Corruption and Corruption in Nigeria

Corruption is seen as a universal phenomenon which has long been with every society and thus identified as the bane of most political, social and economic development as well as democratic stability in many countries of the world (Nkwede and Nwogbaga, 2017). However, various perspectives have been offered by scholars on the meaning, dimension/forms, causes/reasons for and effects of corruption which means that the term is one of the many non-universally acceptable defined concepts.   The widely cited definition of corruption is the one offered by the World Bank (1997: 2) which defined corruption as “the misuse or abuse of public office for private gains”. The modified aspect of this definition sees corruption as “the abuse of public office for private gains when an officer accepts, solicits or extorts a bribe” (Oviasuyi, et al, 2007, cited in Odo, 2015b: 180).

Section 2 of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) Act (2000) defines corruption to include vices like bribery, fraud and other offences that are related. In this definition, bribery is outstanding and refers to the giving or receiving of money or any kind of favour in return or exchange for undue advantage over other people. The Federal Republic of Nigeria’s Constitution in 1999 (with amendments 2011) prohibits bribery when it stated that “No person shall offer any officer serving the public money, gifts, property or profit of any sort in the cause of the public officer trying to discharge his official duties. Though the Nigerian Constitution puts the definition of corruption succinctly and forbids it, many public officers including those on the campuses and their community members still indulge in corruption. Corroborating this state of affairs, Olayinka Ayoola (rtd), former Chairman of ICPC opined that the commonest form of the menace in Nigeria used to be bribery, but in recent years it is the embezzlement of funds meant for the public, extortion, misuse of discretion, misuse of public power for selfish gains, conflicting interest, nepotism, favoritism and unapproved financing of political parties. It, therefore, means that any person, whether in private or public organizations who violates the laid down rules and regulation on how to deal with the customers and colleagues especially by taking unjust advantage of them, by asking for or demanding gratification in kind or cash, is corrupt.

Doris (2016:8) stressed that “corruption, globally, does not respect any political or economic system, it is found in democratic, military, capitalist, socialist, developed and developing societies; only the level or rate of corruption varies”. This shows that no society is free of corruption, which is the reason why its obliteration requires a combination of political, economic and socio-cultural measures.

Corruption in Nigeria takes many forms and can be interpreted by many people in many ways. It is hard to enter any sector in Nigeria without observing one corrupt practice or the other. In 2012, Transparency International deemed Nigeria one of the most corrupt nations in the world again (Uzochukwu 2013). In that year, the country ranked 139th out of the 176 surveyed countries, making Nigeria the 37th most corrupt nation.
In 2013, Nigeria ranked 144 out of 177 surveyed countries in terms of transparency. The score made Nigeria 33rd most corrupt country in the world that year. The result published by the organization also showed that Nigeria scored 25% out of 100 in terms of transparency.
In the 2014 ranking, Nigeria was ranked 136 out of 174 surveyed countries (Transparency International 2014). The result shows that there is an improvement, though things are still bad. Nigeria was the 38th most corrupt country in the world in 2014.
Irrespective of the campaign promises, Nigeria ranked low in transparency and high in corruption in that year. In the year 2015, out of the 168 countries surveyed, Nigeria was seen at the bottom of the table in the category of number 136.

This implies that Nigeria was the 32nd most corrupt country in the world in 2015.
Over two-thirds of the 176 countries and territories surveyed in the 2016 year index fall below the midpoint of Transparency International scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). In that year’s survey, Nigeria sat at number 136 on the table with Guatemala, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Myanmar, and Papua New Guinea. From calculation, it shows that Nigeria and the mentioned countries were ranked 40th most corrupt in 2016.
By contrast, in 2013, Denmark and New Zealand scored highest at 91% each, meaning the countries are clean and have higher Confidence Intervals than Nigeria

The stain of corruption did not spare anti-graft agencies as former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Lamorde, was accused of fraudulently diverting over N1tn proceeds from corruption recovered by the agency (Adeyemi 2016). This is incredible as those who were appointed to fight corruption in the country are also found as the victim of the same problem they fight.

Corruption is also experienced among the governance elite of the country because many governors have been found guilty of it. It is like a disease that spreads from mother to children. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Murtala Nyako, the former governor of Adamawa State and seven others, including companies, are standing trial before Justice Okon Abang on a 37-count charge bordering on money laundering. The news was published on December 1, 2016 (Pulse 2016). The governor opened 30 different accounts in Zenith bank of Nigeria using different names whose aim is to siphon funds. Among the offenses tendered against the ex-governor are a criminal conspiracy, abuse of office, an opening of multiple bank accounts and stealing to the tune of N29 billion (Twenty-Nine Billion Naira).

The former president of the country, Olusegun Obasanjo, on November 24, 2016, while speaking at the first Akintola Williams Annual Lecture in Lagos, reacted negatively on the level of corruption going on among the members of Nigeria’s national parliament, the National Assembly. Quoting from the writings of Jola Sotubo “Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo has described the National Assembly as a den of corruption (Jola 2016).
“Members of the National Assembly pay themselves allowances for staff and offices they do not have or maintain with a monthly take-home of not less than N15 million a month for a senator and N10 million a month for a member of the House of Representatives”.
According to Lewis Obi, the National Assembly is nothing but a business enterprise and the primary objective of the members is to make money for themselves. He went further as he explained that the National Assembly of the country is the highest paid legislature in the world. The Chamber earns more than that of United States of America and yet American economy is far better than that of Nigeria. According to the documentation, United States senators make an approximate annual income of $174,000.00 while that of Nigeria is $2,183, 685.00 (reported via Authoritative Economist Magazine).

Political corruption is persistent in the Nigerian state. Since the creation of modern public administration in the country, there have been cases of official misuse of resources for personal enrichment (Storey Report 2014). After the death of the former president, President Sani Abacha, an investigation was carried out to detect the amount of money he embezzled in gas plant construction in the country. The investigations led to the freezing of accounts containing about US $100 million (Hector 2004) that he stole. The Abacha administration in the 1990s notoriously looted upwards of $3 billion (Uzochukwu2013).

Corruption in Nigeria also involves unethical actions like nepotism, conflict of interest, divided loyalty, influence-peddling, misuse or stealing of government property, selling of favors, receiving kickbacks, embezzlement, misappropriation, and under-or over-invoicing, among others (AAPAM, 1991; Caiden, 1991. An analysis of the anti-graft/anti-corruption laws in Nigeria shows that corruption will continue in spite of the law because the perpetrators do not fear any consequences (Oyinola 2011).

Causes and Factors that Sustain Corruption

Corruption is caused generally by greed, lack of positive values, porous system, weak enforcement and oversight mechanisms, excessive materialism, societal pressure, lack of virile welfare structures or reward system, insecurity of employment tenure, indiscipline, inordinate desire for wealth accumulation(get-rich-quick-syndrome), poverty of the mind, nepotism(partiality, favouritism, preferential treatment, bias, discrimination, etc.),clumsy handling of corruption cases and lack of genuine fear of God, among others. The causes of public sector corruption include excessive government regulation of the market and authorizations, spending decisions such as the provision of goods below market price like the subsidies on petroleum products and extra-budgetary accounts like the excess crude account in Nigeria, political party financing, and level of public sector wages and penalty system.

It should be mentioned here that corruption thrives well where there is government monopoly, regulation of the economy, and where accountability is lacking. It again becomes attractive when the expected gains exceed the expected costs of undertaking the act.  Corruption does not only take place in the public sector but also in private realms.

Following the above argument, it becomes explicitly clear that that corruption is illegal, exploitative, immoral, and illegitimate which any person of decent nature should stay away from. Corruption comes in various forms as classified by scholars including bribery, favoritism, extortion, fraud, abuse of authority, patronage, theft, deceit, malfeasance, and illegality(Svensson,2005;Tanzi,1998; Nkwede and Abah,2016).

Women Marginalisation in Higher Institutions in Nigeria as Corruption

As indicated above, corruption in Africa takes many forms and can be interpreted by many people in many ways. It is contended in this paper that the dominant hegemonic and perverted conception of the academic profession as a single-sex profession is tantamount to corruption. Stakeholders in the fight against corruption, and sustainable development champions, as well as conference leaders, have for many years, held discussions on how to curb corruption and birth a new Nigeria that is void of corruption with developments that can favour the next generation but have somehow unexplainably overlooked the mainstreaming of gender in the war against corruption.  They have concerned themselves with hackings on the leaves of corruption by working on issues such as carbon emission, clean water, agricultural productivity, dilapidated and moribund infrastructure, poor educational standard and output, production of unemployable graduates amongst others than striking on the root of corruption by mainstreaming women in higher institutions in Africa and particularly Nigeria. Nwolise 2014 pointed out that since the inception of the Department of Political Science in the University of Ibadan, UI Nigerian Premier University that the first female lecturer was only recruited the year 2000 after 30 years of the establishment of the department. This trend has continued as women remained marginal in most federal and state-owned universities. Table 1 below buttresses this point.

Table 1: Academic Staff Profile in Selected Nigerian Universities ShowingDisparity in Gender(2007/2008)

Source: Nwajiuba, 2011; Adebayo & Akanle, 2014.

Again Adigun 2012 carried out research on the composition of a selected university in western Nigeria and found the following to be the composition of the male and female staff of the university (Table 2).

.

Table 2: Gender Composition of academic staff in Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria

Source: Statistics and Planning office EKSU Nov. 2011; Adegun, 2012.

From the analysis of the above, it was discovered that 82 (18.3%) out of the 444 staff strength of the university was female while 366 representing 81.7% to be male. Tables 1 and 2 above and Table 3 below explicitly showed without any iota of doubt that women are marginalized in the higher institutions and therefore require an urgency in the bridging the gender gap in our institutions of learning if corruption must be redressed in the educational sector.

Table 3 The frequency of employment in both Federal and State-owned Polytechnics in South East Zone of Nigeria

Source: Obiagwu, Clara O. (PhD) & Unachukwu, G. O. (PhD

  The Analysis of Gender Discrimination in the Academia in Nigeria

Emordi (2016) believes that the peripheral position of women in governance in Africa has been the missing link between building resilience and sustainable development in governance in every facet of life endeavors in Nigeria and stressed that this misnomer needs to be addressed by policymakers and sustainable development planners for there to be quantum progress in development and governance in Nigeria. Emordi (op.cit) further argued that excluding the majority of women in sustainable local government development agenda and programme by policymakers and sustainable development planners can be likened to labouring to build a tower of Babble, which will simply be a Babble of tongues with no cohesion. Therefore, working towards mainstreaming gender for the war against corruption is poised to a sure way towards redressing corruption in the higher institutions of learning.  According to Gberevbie, (2014) Organizations are established basically to achieve some set goals and also for profit maximization or provision of quality services to enhance the living standard of the people in any society. To achieve these goals and objectives multiple skill sets in form of competent employees are required. The availability of quality management in terms of skills, education, and experience that abhors gender discrimination of any kind determines organizational effectiveness (Gberevbie, 2014).

However, the academic profession, like any other professions at the beginning of time was a single-sex profession (Singh, 2002) cited by Egunjobi, (2009). But World War II had actually opened the gateway to women emancipation in Europe and the USA before any University was introduced to Africa. Under colonial imperialism, whatever operated in the UK became law in Nigeria. Today in the Commonwealth nations, the situation of women in academics can be argued to have been improving when compared to what was obtained before World Wars I and II. In contemporary times the percentage of women employed as full-time academic staff ranges from the highest of 50% in Jamaica to the least 9.5% in Ghana, with a Commonwealth average of 24%. The smallest percentages can be found in Ghana 9.5%, Nigeria 13.6%, Tanzania 11.0%, Zambia 10.9% and Zimbabwe 9.8% all in Africa. For example, research conducted by Egunjobi, (2009) found University of Ilorin, showing female/male ratio of 11.6% to 88.4% and argued that if the employment of women in the university is enhanced, better performance will be achieved (Olomola, 2008; NPC, 2009; Gberevbie, et al. 2014).

In a study carried out by Obiagwu, Clara and Unachukwu,  the population of women as discovered by the work on the employment status of Federal and State-owned Polytechnic in Southeast also revealed that employment and leadership positions were found skewed in favour of the male. Their findings as shown in Table 3 above revealed that there is 2552 staff strength out of which the academics staff was  1013, (656 male and 357 female) and non-academics 1539 (1188 male and 1354 female). The ratio here may be considered fair enough. This, however, broached the arguments of feminists that Nigeria is a highly patriarchal society where men dominate all spheres of women’s lives.

As in other male-dominated societies, the social relations and activities of Nigerian women and men are governed by patriarchal systems of socialization and cultural practices which favour the interests of men above those of women. Consequently, a high percentage of women’s employment is restricted to low income generating activities. These are concentrated within lower levels of the unregulated informal sector, which are not adequately represented in the National Accounting Systems (NSA). By comparison, men employed within the informal sector are located in the upper level and are predominantly engaged in high income-generating activities. The status of women and gender inequalities within the overall societies of the world and across all sectors reflect the wide disparities between women and men, which in turn contribute to the uneven development of the sexes and the feminization of poverty. It is believed that among the 70% of Nigerian population estimated to be living below the poverty line over 65% are projected to be women.  Men have greater access to high paying secured employment.

From the above findings, it becomes obvious that when it comes to important or key positions in higher educational institutions, women are marginal. These include positions such as directors of various programmes and positions of authority and leadership. From Table 3 above we can see that for the director of programmes which has a total number of 29 positions, men occupy 27positions and only 2 were occupied by females. There are 128 heads of departments out of which 106 are males and only 22 are females. For unit coordinators, you have the total of 15 out of which you have 4 as females and 11 are males. For the committee of deans, you have a total of 36 out of which only six of them are females while 30 are males.

Redressing Corruption in Higher Institutions in Nigeria through Gender Mainstreaming

Eagly et al  (1992) and Eagly and Carli, (2003) maintained that women leaders and more feminine styles of leadership may be an advantage in today’s contemporary workplace as the boundary conditions for these advantages remain unclear. Emordi (2014) argued that the world without women in all spheres of governance and leadership will be like the Hobbesian state of nature while the war against corruption without gender mainstreaming in the higher institutions in Africa could mean effort in futility. This is the reason why Albert (2014) submitted that every society is an aircraft with two wings (male and female). To him, any society that fails to mainstream women in leadership and administration can be said to be flying on one wing, and such a society can easily crash (Albert 2014). Candice (2009) stressed that Nordic countries that have more women in leadership positions experience more peace and security, and are lower in corruption index than countries that marginalize women in governance. The argument here is that veritably engaging women in governance and leadership of higher institutions in Africa as in the Nordic countries can help in the development of the higher institutions and also help in redressing corruption in the system.

Nwolise (2014) argued that due to their nature of caring and nurturing of lives women are more predisposed to the management of resources and are, therefore, more skilled in managing the economy and when it comes to   peace and conflict management, women are also more inclined to peaceful resolution than violent methods of men because men tend to be more violent (Nwolise 2014). Candice (op.cit) takes the argument further by stressing that firms that employ women in leadership positions have better performance and higher profits. And, contrary to what might be believed, supporting female employment actually has a positive impact on family life and encourages women to have more children. Candice (2009)^[1] stressed that Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway and Sweden) and France) have more working women and higher birth rates than those without enlightened gender policies like Japan and Korea. He maintained that companies and firms with more women in leadership positions tend to have better performance and higher profits. Women remain in the sidelines positions in peace and security development even when their risk-smart approaches, people skills, and leadership strengths are exclusively needed in this area (OECD 2010)^[2]. Stretching this argument it becomes clear that if corruption is to be redressed in Nigerian higher institutions then there is an urgent need to mainstream women in recruitment and management positions in Nigeria.

Conclusion

According to Ojulowo, (2012) it should be recognized that women have some constraints on their part. That is why it is important to concede affirmative actionto them.   Nwolise (2014) argues that countries like Norway and other Nordic countries where there is less of gender inequality issues makes it possible for them to have more women in the security sectors and top management levels of government and corporations (Nwolise (2014).  Lisa (2005) argued that opponents of women marginalization posit that women are excluded from where the power is and concentrated to the lowest cadre because women’s feminine predilection for domesticity and desire for motherhood makes their leadership clout weak (Lisa 2005). On the other hand, women fail because estrogens render them too compassionate, too timid, or too distracted to compete in a dog-eat-dog world. However, with the wonderful performance of women in leadership, women like late Dora Akunyili, Okonjo-Iwuala, Aisha Hassan and Afonja, amongst others, it can be adduced that most of the argument against women empowerment and inclusion where the power is has been debunked as they hold no water. To this end, to redress this imbalance and curb corruption in higher institutions is for stakeholders in the development of education and fight against corruption to mainstream women in leadership positions in Nigerian tertiary institutions to redress corruption in the sector.

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