Nigeria: Decay dims Africa's once-proud universities

A visitor to Ibadan University in pre-independence Nigeria more than 50 years ago was impressed by its modern structure and 100 000-book library. "I might have forgotten that we were in tropical Africa," wrote globe-trotting journalist John Gunther in 1953. Since then, Nigeria's premier university, which started in 1948 as a University of London college, has come down in the world.