In this episode, we are introduced to Dr. Angela Adeoye, a senior lecturer at the University of Jos whose work sits at the intersection of gender, conflict management, and development. Drawing on her research in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in Northern Nigeria, she reflects on how gender-based violence is shaped by conflict and displacement. Dr Adeoye also speaks candidly about the realities of Nigerian academia, including mystification, chronic underfunding and its impact on research quality.

David Ehrhardt

Welcome to Africa knows we're taking you back to Nigeria where Henry interviews Dr. Angela Adeye. Dr. Adeye is a senior lecturer at the University of Jos with the center for Conflict Management and Peace Studies.

She also lectures in the gender studies department, having worked on gender based violence in Northern Nigeria's IDP camps.

And in this episode she discusses that experience and her experience also of the intersection between gender and conflict studies more generally, the role of Christianity in her own research and her assessment of the state of Nigerian academia. Here is Dr. Adeoye.

Angela Adeoye

My main area of interest, or would you say specialization, is to interrogate gender and conflict management and development and try to see how these three intertwine and how they affect humanity and how they affect gender, basically, because we all know that gender as a tool of analysis has been relegated in practically all spheres of life and even academic exercise.

Henry Mang

Okay.

Angela Adeoye

And so conflicts and peace building is not an exemption, you know.

So as a scholar in conflict management, it became of interest to me to interrogate gender as a tool of analysis within this field of, of scholarly engagement.

Henry Mang

So now interestingly, it means that you do research, but your research would be more or less, it will be more complicated, for instance, I would say, because as you said, gender has been relegated today to the back mainly in Africa. Is it mainly in Africa or is it a global issue of gender always being backward, being relegated to the back?

Angela Adeoye

I think, I think it's a global issue. But what I try to do, I always try to run away from generalization. Okay. I always like to put things in perspective.

So what, what is a gender issue in Nigeria is, could not necessarily be gender issue in the west, for example. So they may have their own kind of gender issues that is definitely different from what we experience in Africa.

So I always like to put things in context and then treat the case with its own peculiarity that it comes with.

So yes, you can say it is a general thing, but each, each clime is expected to look at its own peculiarities and then bring out problems that can best solve their own peculiarities.

Henry Mang

Now, in researching gender, what has been your biggest challenge? In researching gender in Nigeria? What has been your biggest challenge?

Angela Adeoye

The biggest challenge I would say is still the misconception.

Henry Mang

Okay.

Angela Adeoye

Of what gender is in Africa. The more generalized narrative when you talk about gender is oh, a women issue. Oh, they've come again.

People that want women, women emancipation, women liberation. Feminism, feminism, you know, so.

And then when, so if you're undergoing a research that has to do with gender, your first point of duty is to disabuse the mind of people that hey, you're not doing women. Oh, gender is not feminism. You know, so that you, you bring them on page as you and then you can go from there.

They see it as, oh, they, oh, these women people, empowerment people. They've come again. So that is the major.

And you, you might be surprised that even among the educated elites they, there is this understanding or this is a disperception.

They both equally share this perception that oh, gender is all about women, it's all about battle of the sexes or women want to emasculate men and take over their affairs and all that. So the first responsibility as a, as a researcher in gender is to first disabuse minds, sensitize people.

Great massive orientation to bring them to understand where you are and what you want to achieve.

Henry Mang

And so your PhD was on the issues of gender, most especially with displaced people.

Angela Adeoye

Yes.

Henry Mang

Now what was your biggest challenge? What broke you down most especially in the field when you realized the problem of gender?

Angela Adeoye

Okay, actually I, my PhD was on social and gender based violence. The occurrence in idp… among IDP camps. Yes. the population. And I remember what, one of the things that really broke me down was… got to a point where it became difficult to separate myself as a researcher. From the phenomena I was interrogating.

Henry Mang

Yes.

Angela Adeoye

Which was sexual and gender based violence. Maybe.

Because I now came face to face with the reality on ground initially when the research commenced, you know, of course it was just like proposal stage. You're talking about it, you know, and still imagining things.

But when I went to the field and I had to now interrogate with the survivors, with those, I don't want to call them victims of social and gender based violence in camp, the first shock was that, oh, it's a reality. It's not just something that we talk about or it's just in the news. It's a reality.

The people are real, the victims or survivors are real.

And when I had to interrogate, interview, you know, some of the, particularly the survivors and some of them share their experiences, even abuses that no human being should imagine, you know, can happen to a fellow human being. These people had to go through it because not, not for no fault of theirs.

They're just, because they were just, they happen to have been displaced by conflicts, you know. And so I, at that point while writing and interviewing, it was difficult. I became so emotional and very, very subjective.

I was becoming very subjective. And I remember my supervisor, I discussed with my supervisor and he said, hey, Angela, you have to separate.

Because I guess in my writing, I shared my writing with one of my senior colleagues, not even my supervisor.

Because what I did while doing my PhD was to always share with a senior colleague who was very vast, you know, to help me straighten my thoughts and all that before I give it to my supervisor and then final presentation. So I shared this with my senior colleague and he called me to his house that day and gave me… He was an economist, definitely. He's late now.

He said, Angela, I understand. one, you are a woman. You're beginning to write like you're the victim. This thing happened to you. Yeah, but this thing did not happen to you. It happened to people.

So you need to change your language. This is an academic. This is not a journalistic report. It's an academic exercise. You have to show that you are not partial.

You have to show that you are objective. I said Sir, there's no way I can be objective in this. That was how much affected I was by hearing the experiences of these survivors on camp.

Henry Mang

But then how did you overcome that? The subjectivity?

Angela Adeoye

Well, I had to listen to… because one, I knew that yes, if I needed to cross this bridge and put this in my kit, and I don't want to be bashed at my defense for not being objective, I needed to work on myself. So it got to a point. I was, at some point I was traumatized by the experiences of these people because I had to go spend some days with them on camp.

I didn't witness the physical assault or sexual assaults one on one with them, but the women sharing the experience… And across camp, not just one camp, across camp, you find that a single thread runs through the social and gender based violence.

So I was, I think I was sort of traumatized. So somebody advised I go and I speak to a psychologist or so to desensitize me and all that. So I spoke with a friend who said, no, you just.

So I went through that therapy to overcome that. But at the same time, well, I'm a Christian and I like to apply biblical principles to my life.

So I, I drew motivation from the King David's experience and the Bible that talked about him encouraging himself and the Lord when he was passing through some challenges. And I had to, you know, use that to, hey, you, do you want to get this PhD behind you or you want to continue to be traumatized by these experiences?

And you are not going to be a good doctor. If every medical doctor is so much affected by the patient you see, then they won't be able to treat the next patient.

Henry Mang

Talking about desensitization and doctors, you reach a point most especially here in Africa, we talk about doctors being very callous. Does that make you eventually callous to.

Angela Adeoye

The plight of the people,...

Henry Mang

Plight of people affected by sgbv?

Angela Adeoye

No, I can never be.It can't get to that point, okay, Because.

But the moment it gets to that point, then you disconnect yourself from humanity and then you just treat them as one of the patients that goes to see a medical doctor. And I wouldn't want to get there because if you're not able to empathize with this situation, then you won’t be able to provide solutions.

But as long as we keep having… Well, let me rephrase that. As long as we keep having humanitarian emergencies, they are bound to be such displaced populations all over the world.

And these.

Henry Mang

Your human face should…

Angela Adeoye

Yes, you should. You should apply a human face to it so that you can even provide solutions to their problems. Yes, because they are fellow human beings like us.

Henry Mang

So that's interesting. But let's discuss methodologies now. How did you approach your methodology?

Was it that while you were doing your proposal, the methodology was definite, but when you went into the field you had to change methodologies or was it that you had a good run with your methodologies?

Angela Adeoye

I didn't have a good run with my methodology. You know what, I've been always been a bad student methodology. I've always run away from it.

But the reality, I had to face reality when it came to my doing my PhD. So by the time I did the proposal for my methodology, I didn't really…

I had a very, would I say, vague understanding of what I was going to achieve on the field. I knew that it was a sensitive area. I didn't know how I was going to approach it to best, you know, get data for the work. So I had...

By the time I penciled down the methodology, it was very, very watery.

And then by the time it went through the back and forth supervisor and all the panel beating, I had something not too concrete on ground, but something that i could work with.

Henry Mang

Or was it on qualitative or quantitative?

Angela Adeoye

Initially I wanted to do a qualitative research. That was what I set out to do, do a qualitative research.

But while going through the back and forth with my supervisor and then people around me, people that done it before, I had a discussion with one doctor who had just done his own, finished his own PhD and he works in NIPS. So he now said, Angela let me advise you with the nature of your work, you can't achieve a quality work just doing qualitative. So I said why?

He said, because talking about social and gender based violence, you don't want people to just think you figured it's in your head, you will want to add numbers. And by the time you add numbers, you are physically showing us that there is an existence, these people exist.

If you just do qualitative, anybody can imagine you went to one corner, just got these people and then just come and write down the experiences. But by the time… So that sort of, you know, jiggled me. Yeah. Jolted me and I said, oh, that's true.

So I went back, included quantitative approach into the study and then I, and I'm glad I did, because by the time I went to the field, I actually met one on one with the victims.

Because when I was doing the proposal initially I was like, if I'm able to just talk with relatives of the victim, I don't need to meet the victims in case they are not forthcoming. And then in my behind my mind I was thinking, am I, you know, like, like second guessing yourself? Are you even sure these people exist and all that?

But by the time I went to the field and I, I was introduced to the victims by people that know that by their relatives or friends or whatever on camp that oh, so and so woman there was sexually abused on this camp. There's a young boy in that corner who was abused.

Henry Mang

Okay, you know, you now met them. So, so I met them mixed methods because you, you now got the qualitative more visual picture of the more visual presence of the people that were affected.

Henry Mang

And at the same time you eventually had access to their relatives and people around that you could actually get your numbers.

Angela Adeoye

Yes. So I could put numbers to whatever narrative I was getting, you know, so I could say okay in so, so camp so-so number of people were.

And they were not just we're not stories that were put up.

Henry Mang

Yes.

Angela Adeoye

You could actually see some of them still being traumatized by that experience. You know, so it's the, so that was how the methodology was now finalized on the aspect of getting mixed methodology.

And then you know, it opened me up to actually meeting these people. It opened me up.

So when, when we set out on, when I set out on the research, I didn't even plan my mind was okay, just if you can get the people, fine, if you cannot get the people fine. I just wanted to measure how it affects them and what response mechanisms they were getting. If the … response mechanism.

I didn't prepare for the broad experience and knowledge I got, yes, as I acquired while being, while on the field. Because by talking to them, I got the experiences.

I got the experiences of those not directly affected, but those maybe their caregivers, the people close to them, their families, their own experiences and perspectives were gotten.

And I tell you Henry, it really enriched my analysis because when I was not doing my analysis, you know, what I set out to achieve, I achieved much more than that just, just by that encounter, you know, because it now broadened the perspective and we're able to.

Henry Mang

To actually curate.

Angela Adeoye

To curate that into the work and it's really, really enriched the work.

Henry Mang

Interesting.

Now this is the thing, I had interviewed quite a number of people over time and anytime you ask some, there are some that have brought very interesting perspectives.

I had interviewed a professor earlier on and he, being a psychologist, he's a psychologist and he was arguing on the fact that being a psychologist and being a social scientist, one of the biggest challenges he has, most especially within most of the African system, is that everything seems to be in quantities now, just as you're the person that advised you, you need to give numbers.

And he discovered that when you're dealing with trauma, when you're dealing with conflict, although numbers are very important, there is also the importance of the quality,… of the people themselves. And he noted something and I think maybe you might even identify with that.

The idea that unlike maybe the west, Africans are communal, you suggested that in most cases when you went to meet somebody, he could identify a relative who. He or she could identify a relative who was a survivor of sexually, social and gender based violence.

And so in that, this particular professor was not really so keen about using numbers. He would rather have it that you interrogate this. I'm not saying that you're wrong.

In fact, what you have introduced now because is more interesting, the mixed methodologies, I don't know. But in your view on a comparative basis, which is better? Using the qualitative alone, quantitative alone or the mixed methods? You use mixed methods.

Angela Adeoye

I use mixed methods. Even though I remember one of my, one of the panelists at one of my seminars was saying he was bent on me using…

I think that was the panel panel at which I discussed the methodology.

He was, he was more tilted towards the qualitative and his argument was, oh, you know, the nature of the victims come out and actually was with him on that table.

I was but we had another colleague who said no just use both. But I'm glad I did and why I'm glad I did was because I,... my fear of running away from the quantitative before was I may not get the people their victims to really come out. Yes… they wouldn't want to identify themselves as being victims of that. That was my major fear of running away from quantitative. Yes.

From quantitative. Okay. From quantitative yes. That was my major major fear. But at the end I'm glad I did. Yes.

Now to answer your question, which is better? I wouldn't say this is better than that or that is better than this and why, I always like to put things in context. There are, there are some depending on the studies on the study you're carrying out.

I think the methodology adopted should be influenced by the nature of the study you're carrying out and then maybe what that studies wants to achieve at the end of the day. All of them are good. All of them are good. It just depends on the nature of the study.

Like I like earlier said. For example, if you're doing a study on malaria, maybe a medical for a medical doctor. A medical doctor would want to know the number of children that have been affected by malaria in a particular community. Right. And how then and the frequency and how many people have been treated how many people got healed from that treatment. Right?

But for a sociologist for example understanding the same malaria may not necessarily want to know how many number of children were treated or how many were not treated, may not necessarily be interested in the number, but maybe want to know why do you have high prevalence of malaria in this area? Could it be something that the community or society is doing or not doing?

That is so you see the perspective for each field it differs on the context so and so the approach may differ. For the medical doctor for example may just be interested in the numbers, okay, in Yaba community for example 5 children, 100 children had malaria. These were numbers that were treated.

This was medication that was given, this was the medication that worked and all that. But for sociologists or a social scientist may want to look at the sociological factors that (...) malaria and so may not really be keen on doing numbers. Uhhuh.

So that was why I said it depends environmental, social, social factors, you know family and all that you so that I say it depends on the nature. .

Henry Mang

So do you think that one of the problems one of the biggest challenges with development now since you're a development person in Africa and in Nigeria in particular, is the fact that, ok, with these different perspectives towards methodology, the doctor wants numbers. He gets numbers.

And the numbers he gets are for maybe the success of a particular drug or a particular medicament and let's say the prevalence or the types of malaria that will be there. While the sociologist now says, okay, this aspect of the environment is affecting this, this practice is affecting this.

And there seems to be no convergence between this social scientist and this medical doctor. And so is that a development problem or is it just the problem of academic dominance or academic apathy with each other?

Because maybe if there was a situation where the sociologists or where there was a convergence of both the work of the, of the, of the sociologist and the work of the medical doctor, for instance, available and maybe even the work of the geographer or work of the botanist or the zoologist, things would work differently.

Angela Adeoye

You know, I, I like what is happening now.

Because I think in the past we had academic apathy where everybody just wants to sit in his corner and do their stuff without, you know, consulting with people, other people, other professionals to add inputs. But I think that is fast changing.

It's fast changing in the sense that now we have, in the academics, we have an encouragement for multi, multi disciplinary, you know, articles, approaches to issues. Take like conflict, for example, that we are, that I teach or we teach.

We find in so much existing life that you have people coming in from different field and bring, bringing in their inputs.

Recently I got called by a colleague who is a professor in the sciences and they were putting out a proposal and he said they required a gender specialist. Okay, they needed my imput, in the sciences, you know, and they shared it with me and we did that collaboration, right?

So, so I think we are beginning to break down that wall. But it's always been something that has marred our research in the past where everybody sits in this corner and feel oh, you don't need…

So you don't need this other person, you know, like I remember when I was doing my PhD, we had this discussion with some, with some colleagues and coursemates, where we, I think we should get to a point in, in Africa or in Nigeria, where we begin to have specialists. Like when I was trying to develop my instruments, you know, someone said oh, if… like she came, had schooled abroad.

So she said oh, that abroad we have specialists in this area.

Specific area. You want to carry out a research in social sciences, for example, you just go tell these people, the specialists, they will develop your instruments for you. The one that best suits the study you want to carry out within the context of what you want to do.

And they give you the input and then you run with it and you succeed. But like here in Africa, we have to do everything. The student has to do everything from scratch to.

You have to develop your instrument for data collection. You have to develop how best to administer it or how best to analyze it yourself.

We don't have those specialists, you know, all around that you can run to or even… They may not even be specialists, but colleagues in the field that you're trying to…

Of colleagues or people in an area that you're not too familiar with. I remember when I was doing my literature review, I needed talk about the law that guides displacements.

I have to go and talk to a lawyer. Yes. Because I'm not a lawyer.

I had to go and talk to a lawyer to guide, and probably even refer me to the materials I should go and look out for and read, you know, so I just, I just didn't sit in my room to assume these laws and then just… I had to even ask for them to interpret what some of these laws meant so that you're not just talking tautology, you know, what you're talking about.

So I think in the. We are gradually moving academic apathy. Well, has been there is still there, but I think we are gradually moving away from, particularly with the introduction of disciplinary approaches, you know, and encouragement to even do articles, you know, draw other people outside your, your field and bring their inputs into your work. So I think we're moving.

Henry Mang

Okay, let's go into the. Maybe a discussion on issues on around African academia. The African academia and let's bring it back home to even Nigeria.

Well, we will start with the academic system itself first and then secondly academics themselves. What is the problem of the academia in Nigeria? It's a general, I think give us generally. But what do you think poses a problem?

Not a challenge, but a problem as in what do we inflict on ourselves as Nigerians and as a Nigerian academy, on our academics?

Angela Adeoye

I think first of all, the Nigerian academic lacks funding. I want to talk about funding. It's all encompassing. We know that money answers at all things.

The Nigerian academic is poorly funded, poorly remunerated. There is no, there are no. There's.

That's huge paucity of funds within academic institutions and they cannot access the wherewithal that they need to be able to function completely as an academic. And because there's poor funding, you find academics not fully concentrated on doing academics.

Henry Mang

Okay, okay.

Angela Adeoye

You find them cross cutting, trying to. What we call. Want to call side hustles in local parlance. So trying to get other, other sources of income. Yes. To be able to remain afloat.

In my office now, for example, this is the university. We've not had lights for. We don't. We've not had electricity for... I think it's the second month running.

Sometime earlier this year or last year, we didn't have electricity for like four months, five months. Yes, because the electricity bill is becoming outrageous and the schools are complaining.

They can't, they can't meet up the demands of paying and you have to run. So for example, there's no light, there's no electricity. I need to use the laboratory. The laboratories should be run constantly by lights.

You cannot carry out your research in the lab. I can't. I can't remember the last time I came to work in my office. I just come give my lectures and go. And I cannot even give online…

I cannot even give electronic lecture, you know, using electronic stuff like a projector and all that. So I have pictures to show my students. I have videos to share with them in class. I can't do that because there's no power. So that is one.

So you find that academics are stretched trying to… If I don't have electricity in my house. And that means I have to run a generator.

Henry Mang

That is on you.

Angela Adeoye

That is, that is on me. That is on me. Right. I have to get… The other day my. My computer broke down and I was on... I was away and at.

My plan was I wanted to meet with my students online, but because my computer broke down while on transit, I couldn't...

Henry Mang

And your computer, you bought your computer?

Angela Adeoye

I bought it myself.

Henry Mang

The university has never provided you…

Angela Adeoye

Not one.

Henry Mang

It has never provided you with accessories.

Angela Adeoye

You understand? So it broke down while I was in transit. And what means we had to fulfill the lectures because I couldn't get access to another computer.

So funding, if we had funding, I wanted to say. I don't say adequate funding. I know that all over the world institutions suffer the issue of funding.

Just that in gradation, but in our own climate is very, very bad. Very, very bad that even things to the like the basic electricity is not luxury, you know, you can't access.

So you run, you have to run your own electricity yourself, power it yourself, fund it yourself and all that.

And you know, so that now has a rippling effect on the output of academics in Nigeria because what it means is that you must have, you will have to bend a hundred times backwards more than your, your counterparts all around the world to be able to deliver, you know, the same services. And it puts strains on your finances, your, your very, very meager finances.

It puts strain on your or on your health, on your well being, you know, whether it is psychological or mental or what is your health, it puts a strain. So I think one of the, one of the issues that academics face in Nigeria, which for me is major, is poor or lack of funding.

I, I believe that if there is adequate funding for institutions, we'll be able to surmount this, this basic needs.

And by surmounting they will be doing a great hell of a great lot of good service to ourselves, our mental health, our well being and then the output, the quality of the services we give to, to our society and humanity. So that is, for me, that is the basic. I think they are all connected because you are stifled with phones.

So you have to go look for funds yourself to do practically everything that you have to do. So even your own productivity as a scholar is affected.

Henry Mang

What about interrelations between academics? For instance, now, during your PhD, did you have issues that were outside the outside academic thinking?

Maybe challenges by colleagues, challenges by senior colleagues and all of that. Do we have those problems?

Angela Adeoye

When you say it again with the thing... I understand now... Let me say this example.

Henry Mang

Yes.

Angela Adeoye

After my defense. Yes. I have Ph.D…colleagues are doing Ph.D. and the work has not been able to move.

Henry Mang

Why?

Angela Adeoye

So I called them to a meeting in this office.And I wanted to know what the issues were. And they all spoke and spoke.

Some of them went as far as telling me how senior colleagues have so mystified research.

Henry Mang

Okay.

Angela Adeoye

That even the candidates are afraid to venture.

Henry Mang

Okay. So basically they create a kind of mystic impossibility around it.

Angela Adeoye

Yes. Do you understand?

David Ehrhardt

Yes.

Angela Adeoye

After, after I defended my PhD, I was telling my children. I said, I don't know, this thing is this easy?!

Henry Mang

WHEN, was it that easy?

Angela Adeoye

No, it wasn't. I'm talking about, you know, when you hear about defense, when you hear about, you know, you defending. They've so mystified it.

You think it's one is… It's something is insurmountable. Right. So maybe I got lucky by the quality of academics, that I worked with. Maybe I might be lucky.

I might must have been lucky rather, you know, because even national examiner, I Don't know what I'm here to say, but she was not the. The typical. Yeah. You know, that we always hear about. You know, she was. As a matter of fact, when she told me, in conclusion, I looked around i said ah? Is that all?

Because I was expecting, you know, I was. I thought she was just giving me the preambles and we're going to get to the heated session.

And I was that all, you know, so I got lucky that I worked with people that.

Henry Mang

So you feel that in many cases there's an installation… they Instill fear in most of the candidates.

Angela Adeoye

Yes.

Henry Mang

And that's why there is no movement or.

Angela Adeoye

No.

Henry Mang

No motivation towards work.

Angela Adeoye

No movement, no movement, no more. Even though I don't want to make excuses for slothfulness and laziness on the part of the students.

Because if you do not write and do your research, you're not going to move. But that one is not… It’s an aspect.

Because like when I spoke with those younger colleagues I told you about, we spoke for more than two, two hours to three. And they said, oh, thank you so very much. And I'm going to use their word only, Ma, you have just demystified this for us.

And they said, oh, that they had been told. One senior colleague told them, you think you can just waltz in here and get a PhD in three years?

That he spent seven years, eight years to get his PhD.

Henry Mang

So they should spend also?

Angela Adeoye

So they should spend that same. Yes, so they'll tell you. They will tell you. And I remember when I started my own PhD too, I had senior colleagues. Thankfully I'm not close to.

To such group of senior colleagues who said, ah, what was the rush with you people? What was the rush? Why are you people rushing? You think you can just walk in is you can get PhD in three years.

Henry Mang

So you mean there is also a generational problem to this academic,... problems of academic.

Angela Adeoye

Yes, there is. Because there's a particular generation. I don't want to generalize because even within those.

Even with that, within those generations, there are few exceptions who say, no, you just can't just keep the students here. We help to motivate students. Come on, you can have colleagues told. Spoke to me. You know what is a problem? This is. It's not hard.

Just do this thing, bring it. We will look. That's why you have panels, because you have panelists, rather because nobody has a monopoly. Nobody knows it all.

We are all here to work together. Whatever you have done. Because the fear, you know, I came with that fear from the fear before that we've had the, ah, PhD. Ah, no, you can't.

Oh, it's difficult. Oh, it's hard. Oh, it's this. Oh, it's that. And the fear to even go and present and be criticized.

Henry I have been at panels where they will critique a PhD proposal or research and you find the candidates nearly crying. And I said, me, I will never do this. You understand me?

Here I was so I came with all that baggage, you know, but I equally had people within that generation that motivated me.

I said, it's not hard, just bring, you know, but for most of them, the generational problem, because some people feel, oh, so you mean you want to come and achieve this now? Do you know how many years it took us… Forgetting that time has evolved, technology has evolved.

Henry Mang

There's more access to data, and to information.

Angela Adeoye

I'm telling you, than we used before. We had to go and kill ourselves in the library. Sit down in the library. Books that are so old you may not even get books in the area.

You have to speak to your, to your subjects librarian and all that. Well, these things don't happen anymore. These young chaps will just put the thing in AI what do. And they will get all the information. They may not.

They make that, that you think or you know that that exists in that subject area. And a student is sharp and knows what he or she is doing.

She can sit down, sort out this literature and get this thing turned in even within two years. So we shouldn't expect that, oh, because you spent 10 years, the students should spend those number of years.

Henry Mang

But that is the mentality.

Angela Adeoye

It is the mentality. So we put in. There are so many bottlenecks working against academics in, in Africa… in Nigeria that is mitigating against their growth.

Henry Mang

Then some, some say that there's also the issue of quality, that in most cases, maybe the reason why some are very strict and the PhD is difficult to attain is because in most cases there's poor quality. And so the students are turned back to go and do more work because of the lack of quality in their work. What do you have to say about that?

Is it that we have compromised certain standards in the PhD?

Angela Adeoye

I agree, I agree with that. I agree with that narrative. In terms of quality.

Henry Mang

Yes.

Angela Adeoye

You know, when I was in my PhD, maybe one, because I'm an academic, I, my course mates always felt I spent too much time doing my work.

Henry Mang

Okay, okay, all right.

Angela Adeoye

Yes. They, they are not from the academics, so they felt. So we set a target. Okay. In one or Two months time we. We should have been done with a particular stage and I would take longer time because I wanted everything to be… not perfect, but at least near perfect. Because I said, see, I'm an academic. I wouldn't want to go and present something and get myself messed up.

Yes, that you should know this thing. Why you behave, why are you doing this? So I was much more influenced by. By quality of my work. But I've equally been opportune to read work of certain people and… And I'm appalled at the quality of these, some being approved, some in the process of being approved. And I’m like

You mean this person did not see this? How could you have missed such a very fundamental component of this work? You know, I don't want to make excuses for colleagues or academics.

I know that because of the various challenges like enumerated earlier that we are all going through, we are so stressed to the points that we're becoming unbothered about the work, about the quality of the work. Just pass it. After all, I'm not even well taken care of. I'm bending my head, I'm killing myself and I'm not getting… I'm not the what, the input.

Henry Mang

Yes.

Angela Adeoye

And what I'm getting is not commissary today what I'm putting. So why kill myself? So bring any wish wash, then I will just. We just pass it.

But there's a danger to it because these same people we are allowing to fly with very poor quality work are the ones that are going to come and be our junior colleagues tomorrow. Are the ones that are going to teach our children tomorrow. And so what we are in, what we are indirectly promotingis incompetence.

Incompetence, you know, that would come and then keep growing and we affect my generation and your generation, whether we like it or not. So if we do not stick to the right thing, we cannot, we cannot promote poor quality job on the basis of the fact that, oh, we don't have the time.

Time we don't have. I know, I know it's cumbersome, you know, but yes, quality, the quality…

David Ehrhardt

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