Politics of Process and Social Crises in Nigerian Universities : Challenges and Solutions

Experience and observation from bodies of existing literature have shown that the menace of social crises has eaten deep into the core of the university system in Nigeria. This borders closely on the persistence of social unrest and problems between university authorities and the student populace. This study seeks to deconstruct the mirage of politics of process allegedly responsible for the social crises in Nigerian universities through decolonial propositions. Decoloniality, as a transformative theory, was used as a theoretical lens, while Participatory Action Research design was adopted to enable the researchers to get into the research collaboratively. For the purpose of change. Focus Group Discussion (FGD) was used to collect data in response to objectives 1 and 2. Also, ten participants were evenly selected using Convenient Sampling Technique at the same time; Socio-thematic Analysis (StA) was used to interpret the data. The findings revealed that cultism and external and political interferences were significant challenges and causes of social unrest in universities. In contrast, the implementation of Threat Assessment Plan, university autonomy and adequate funding have been discovered to be possible solutions to these challenges. This study, therefore, recommends the performance of the proposed solutions as tools for managing social crises in the university system.