President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Emmanuel Osodeke, has criticised governors for founding state universities they cannot adequately fund.
Osodeke claims that many governors established these universities to exploit the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) for financial gain.
“Any governor today establishing a university is eyeing TETFund as a source of funding,” Osodeke said during an appearance on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief programme on Thursday.
Osodeke explained that TETFund is intended to serve as an intervention fund for public universities. However, politicians and civil servants have been misusing it as a lucrative source of money through corrupt procurement processes and contract fraud.
“TETFund was created as an intervention fund, not the major funding. The universities belong to the Federal Government and government is supposed to fund them and states are supposed to fund their own.
“It’s an intervention fund but there are people who want to have access to that money from the political circle, from the bureaucratic circle, at all cost. We are struggling with that,” he said.
He stressed the need for a structured process that includes all stakeholders to ensure transparent allocation and expenditure of funds.
“There should be stakeholders’ meeting to assess what you want to do with the funds,” he said, suggesting that the university community, including lecturers and student groups, should be involved to prevent situations where external entities dictate project terms and act as contractors.
‘I have a project for you and I am going to be the contractor. We want an open project.”
“Every university council should be allowed to run their projects with the stakeholders involved.”
The ASUU president asserted that the union is committed to fighting for the interests of the common people, whose children depend on public university education. He argued that without ASUU’s efforts, public universities in Nigeria might no longer exist.
“Any day we give up like others, our public universities will be gone,” he warned, accusing Federal Government officials of neglecting the deteriorating state of the tertiary education system and ignoring ASUU’s longstanding demands.
Regarding a recent meeting between ASUU members and Federal Government representatives, Osodeke noted it was the first official interaction with President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
He said that ASUU discussed several contentious issues from a 2009 agreement with the Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, and his team in Abuja. These issues include the negotiation of agreements, payment of withheld salaries, earned academic allowances, and consequential adjustments, among others.
Osodeke concluded by saying that ASUU would consult its members and make a decision within the next four weeks.
TETFund was established to provide supplementary support for public tertiary institutions, particularly for infrastructure rehabilitation.
The Fund, primarily financed by a 2% education tax on the assessable profit of registered companies in Nigeria, has been plagued by allegations of embezzlement and contract fraud, with many stakeholders are calling for greater transparency in the awarding of contracts.
