CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES IN HOST COMMUNITIES BY TERTIARY EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS IN SOUTH -SOUTH NIGERIA

Nations all over the world are concerned about and interested in education, both at national and international levels, as a way of fostering human and national development. The philosophy of Nigerian education also recognized education as vehicle for effective human and national development. In the same vein, Ward in Igbinedion and Ovbiagele (2012) described education as essential force for the progress of any society and emphasized that educational institutions are centres for human betterment for the progress of society. A gathering of some 189 nations in the early 2000 at the world education forum in Dakar affirmed the indispensable roles education and educational institutions play in the socio-economic development of a nation and described it as a social function (UNESCO, 2015).

Tertiary educational institutions in Nigeria are those institutions that are classified as post-secondary educational institutions and form the Nigeria higher education sector. They provide formal type of education with organized learning activities in universities, polytechnics and colleges of education settings. Tertiary educational institutions are creations of various enabling laws and are subject to rules and regulations formulated and administered by the ministries of education through statutory agencies. Upon this fulcrum, the National Universities Commission as a statutory agency has the power to dictate and regulate the activities of the Nigerian Universities while the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) and National

 

Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) are for Polytechnics and Colleges of Education respectively. The regulatory agencies formulate policies, guidelines and supervise the various tertiary educational institutions within their purview. Such policies guidelines include rules and regulations on the type of buildings, facilities and equipment required in institutions, entry requirements of students, minimum age limit for students, curricula, rules guiding students’ movement, qualifications of teachers, academic workloads, conditions of service, students graduation and certification.

The day to day management of tertiary educational institutions are left with the Vice-chancellors, Deputy Vice-chancellors, Registrars, Bursars and Librarians for the universities; Rectors, Deputy Rectors, Registrars, Bursars and Librarians for the polytechnics and Provosts, Deputy Provosts, Registrars, Bursars and Librarian for colleges of education. These categories of officers are referred to as principal officers of the respective institutions. Closely associated with the principal officers are other very senior management personnel who are not below the ranks of Senior, Principal or Deputy Registrars who handle in detail the engagements of the principal officers.

There is no gain saying the fact that host communities have very high CSR expectations from tertiary educational institutions in Nigeria. This explains the clamour to host tertiary educational institutions by communities across the country, South-South Nigeria inclusive. Host communities are those communities in whose domain tertiary educational institutions are located.   They are major stakeholders in the affairs of tertiary educational institutions located within their localities. Host communities are made of indigenes and residence of the immediate communities to

 

tertiary educational institutions in South-South Nigeria. Leadership of host communities comprise of traditional rulers, first-class chiefs, chiefs, community heads, president-generals of communities, secretaries to traditional councils and other prominent community members.

South-South Nigeria is one of the six geo-political zones in Nigeria. It is also popularly referred to as Niger Delta region of Nigeria. It is made up of six states namely; Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross Rivers, Delta, Edo and Rivers. It hosts a number of oil and gas companies and other corporate bodies including tertiary educational institutions. The occupation of the people of South-South Nigeria is predominantly farming and fishing owing to its vast arable land and water ways. Over the years, South-South Nigeria have suffered so much deprivation, neglect, poverty and environmental degradation from oil and gas exploitation and other associated activities of actors in the region which demands social responsibilities from them.

Tertiary educational institutions in Nigeria as creation of enabling laws have both their primary and secondary (subsidiary) objectives clearly spelt out in the legal instruments that created them. Besides their primary objectives, their secondary (subsidiary) objectives are expected to have some positive social impacts on their immediate host communities.

Tertiary educational institutions in South-South Nigeria ordinarily should provide some social responsibilities in host communities for sustaining their operations and in mitigation of their negative operational impacts. Nejati, Shafaei, Salamzadeh and Daraei (2011) collaborated this position when they submitted that

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

universities as centres of knowledge generation and sharing, plays very important roles in solving world’s problems by ensuring sustainable tomorrow. What Nejati et al could not really ascertain is the extent to which the world leading universities/colleges were involved in the provision of corporate social responsibilities in the society.

Corporate social responsibility in the opinions of Nichels, McHugh and McHugh in Aguinis and Glava (2012) is the concern corporate institutions have for the welfare of the society which sustains their operations. It is a widely known concept on how organizations should contribute back to society voluntarily (Gotschalk, 2011; Nor &Asutay, 2011). Khatun and Alautiya (2012) aptly captured it, when the duo asserted that corporate social responsibilities conceptually means the ability and preparedness of management to relate its plans and policies to social environment in mutually beneficial ways to the organization and the society.

No doubts tertiary educational institutions in South-South Nigeria must have had some operational impacts on their host communities which demands provision of social responsibilities as a way of ameliorating their negative operational impacts. Though most host communities appear to be comfortable with the positive operational impacts of tertiary educational institutions in South-South Nigeria, they are however very uncomfortable with their negative impacts with respect to; compulsory acquisition of their ancestral lands without adequate compensation; increase in crime rates and cultism; high cost of living due to higher demand pull, gradual, but sustained erosion of community values and culture and continuous threat to community security amongst others. The ability of most tertiary educational institutions to deliver on their

subsidiary objectives in some of these identifiable areas in part, to a very high extent defines their social responsibility.

The trend however, is that host community members are increasingly getting aware of their rights and demands that tertiary educational institutions meet their expectations in terms of social responsibilities to them. They feel that tertiary educational institutions are not doing enough to mitigate their negative operational impacts. Host community members are getting agitated over what they called poor CSR by tertiary educational institutions.

Agitations in host communities has become so strong to the extent that it has led to high level of restiveness and hostility towards management, staff and students of tertiary educational institutions in South-South Nigeria. Between 2013 and 2015 it was reported in the media that the binis in the University of Benin, Benin City, Edo State, insisted that they will not accept any Vice Chancellor that was not of bini extraction. This agitation created succession problems in the headship appointment in that university at that time. The scars are still there as at the time of this study. Within the same period, some indigenes of Ozoro community dragged the Delta State Polytechnic, Ozoro to court for compensation for the land where the institution is currently sited. In 2005, the indigenes of Abraka community openly protested over the contracting out of the security services of Delta State University, Abraka, insisting that security personnel ought to be sourced directly from Abraka, being the host community. The problem of hostility, protestation, agitation and restiveness is replicated across South-South Nigeria and affects the cordial relationship and

goodwill that ought to exist between tertiary educational institutions and host communities.

This picture was lucidly painted by Igbinedion and Ovbiagele, (2012); Wopara, (2015) when they noted that there are gales of agitation by communities for corporate social responsibilities in South-South Nigeria which are not limited to oil and gas companies with their negative operational ecological impact on the environment. Agitations in the region have been extended to other corporate entities which includes tertiary educational institutions. Host communities are demanding CSR from tertiary educational institutions in their domain in form of provision of concessionary employment, admission of students, infrastructural development and adequate mobilization of community contractors (Justin & Wadike, 2013). They are also expecting tertiary educational institutions to contribute directly to the development of host communities either financially or through donations of manpower and technical know-how. They are demanding contributions to the management of communities’ security, provision of vocational and extra-mural education, health extension services and contribution to the development of community infrastructures. According toOlohi (2008), to be socially responsible is more than just an economic role in society, stressing that the society expects corporate bodies to be directly involved in meeting community needs in education, social welfare, job creation schemes and contribution to overseas aids amongst others.

South-South Nigeria is blessed with a number of tertiary educational institutions which include federal, state and privately owned universities, polytechnics

and colleges of education. With the number of tertiary educational institutions located in the zone, it is expected that they would naturally have some operational impacts on their host communities which demands the provision of corporate social responsibilities. What is yet to be determined is the extent to which tertiary educational institutions in South-South Nigeria have been providing CSR in host communities.