President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, has criticized governors for establishing state universities they cannot properly fund. He alleged that many governors created these universities to access funds from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund).
In an interview on Channels Television’s “The Morning Brief,” Osodeke stated, “Any governor today establishing a university is eyeing TETFund as a source of funding.
Osodeke emphasized that TETFund was meant to be an intervention fund for public universities, but politicians and civil servants now view it as a cash cow, exploiting it through dubious procurement processes and contract fraud. “TETFund was created as an intervention fund, not the major funding. The universities belong to the federal government, and the government is supposed to fund them, while states are supposed to fund their own,” he said.
The ASUU president called for a transparent structure to involve stakeholders in the allocation and spending of TETFund money. He stressed that stakeholders, including the university community, lecturers, and student groups, should be involved to prevent corruption. “There should be stakeholders’ meetings to assess what you want to do with the funds,” Osodeke said.
He also criticized the Federal Government for underfunding public universities to make education unaffordable for the poor and lamented the poor remuneration of lecturers.
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