REVITALIZING THE TOWN-GOWN ALLIANCES IN NIGERIA: CHALLENGES, SOLUTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Publication Details

Publication Date

10/09/2026

Volume / Issue

Vol 1, Issue 4 (2026)

Article No.

017

Journal

British Journal of Contemporary Research

DOI

https://doi.org/10.67693/BJCR-EDE9MLRY

Received

14 Aug 2026

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5

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0

Abstract

The town-gown alliance in Nigeria’s academic space is mostly dysfunctional. The relationship between the academia and local communities can best be described as sandcastle in a tsunami. The Education Ordinance designed for Lagos and Accra in 1882, which ignored the colonized people's aspirations to develop their local languages, failed to de-territorialize education. As a result, western education appears too foreign and insular to the raw-based local communities. This imposition of Eurocentric education engenders a dysfunctional ecosystem and promotes apathy, resulting in increased animosities between the town and the gown. This study aims to identify the factors responsible for such failures and provides solutions to address the town-gown incongruous biosystems. The approach used in this research involved observations, record-keeping, and focus group analyses to understand the challenges of a fractious relationship between the town and the gown. The study used both primary and secondary means from print materials and online publications to interrogate the crises of tertiary education in Nigeria. The research methodology used was mixed-methods qualitative research, which drew from observation, grounded theory, descriptive, narrative, interpretivism, and constructivism. The study aimed to understand the assumptions of the 'university idea' in Nigeria using the theoretical underpinnings of functionalism, new power, and the Fanonesque views on Eurocentric education. The research seeks to advance the transversal effect of education as part of a social system, both in its manifest and latent forms, and to also highlight its failures. The study identified the causes of the sector's reversal of fortune and came up with new recommendations that validate the importance of a symbiotic alliance between the town and the gown. Overall, this study offers a critical analysis of the dysfunctional and problematic nature of town-gown alliances in Nigeria and provides a solution-based approach to address the town-gown incongruous challenge. The research draws from a corpus of literature on the subject, making it a valuable addition to the town-gown scholarship in Nigeria.

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This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License . Free to read, share, and adapt with attribution.