On Postgraduate Courses and Thesis Defence in Nigerian Universities – A thread:
“We had to pay hotel bills for the members of the panel. You could also offer sex, if your supervisor is the devil’s apprentice. Transport money inclusive.”
– Erdoo N.
“I decided I’d never have anything else to do with Nigerian universities, the day I saw people defending their masters dissertation presenting coolers of rice, garden eggs and crates of drinks to their supervisors. I thought someone was getting married.”
– Bibian U.
“We were told we’d pay 60k each, for both entertainment and logistics of external supervisor.”
-Chiamaka O.
“We spent the night prior to my mother’s defense at the University of Ilorin, cooking coolers of rice with assorted meat for the lecturers.”
– Omekagu.
We fed the whole department.
Paid a prior fee of 2k.
Still gave supervisor gift. This same supervisor then came on one of my Facebook posts to say how I’m too opinionated to get married. I blocked him for my peace of mind. I don’t have strength.”
– Sylvia E.
“My husband was so frustrated by his Uniuyo supervisor for this, that he abandoned his MBA and finally got it from a UK university without any sort of bribery.”
– Uche N.
“In ESUT, students have to buy brand new suits for their supervisors.”
– Udeh O.
“Envelopes filled with money. Hotel bills. Payment to the school. External supervisor’s fee. The mental stress.
Ah! The only reason I’m still doing it is because I’ve come too far to stop. After Master’s, I’ll never do anything school in this country again. Never!”
– Bello A.
“Some departments will even provide you with a menu and list of people you’ll feed on the day of your thesis defense.
I nearly wept for my friend, when one non-teaching staff started dragging her because meat had finished.”
– Esther A.
“Ordinary B.Sc project I defended, my supervisor collected a bag of rice. On the defense day, we went to an eatery and bought food and drinks for all the supervisors in the hall.”
– Harrison P.
“The money I spent on my supervisor was enough to buy a piece of land in GRA.
-A bottle of special nonalcoholic wine and MTN airtime worth 1.5k for “consultation” before he approved my topic.
-Two months DSTV premium subscription…
-N5000 for every chapter I took to him for vetting. Except Chapter 4 – he made me pay 20k for it because, “all my project students know I do it better.”
-The day of defence, we(a group of about 15 students) paid 2k each for food and transport fare.”
-Odichi R.
“We paid 40k each for ‘refreshment’ and ‘honorarium’ during internal defence. We are also going to replicate that amount, if not more, during external defence.”
– Ịhụnanya A.
“For BSc project defense we contributed money to feed the supervisors.”
-Oreva E.
“My project topic was originally on aquatic snails.
My supervisor said I should bring some snails to his house, not even the aquatic snails that I was supposed to be working on. I bought half a bag of land snails for him.
A week later, he changed my topic to Catfish and demanded that I buy some catfish and bring them to his house for inspection. I had to do it. I wish he’d asked for rice and drinks, like my colleagues were asked. I would have spent less money.”
– Ruth D.
“The best thing I ever did for my life and mental health was to abandon my Masters program halfway. My blood pressure was always high. They killed my zeal to study and do research. Nigerian universities? God forbid!”
– Ene P.
“I abandoned my Masters program because my supervisor wanted to have sex with me. I told him I’m a married woman. He said and I quote, “That’s even better! I like them married. If anything happens, we’ll both keep our mouths shut.” No one listened to my report.
– Annie U.
“And Postgraduate students do multiple defenses – proposal, internal and faculty defense, then the very almighty external defense. Multiple seminars too
