Budget defence: Senate urges universities to think outside the box

By Haruna Salami

The Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFund has urged Nigerian to be innovative and think outside the box to provide solution to their myriads of problems.

This admonition came after the Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions listened to the speech of the Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC) and that of the Chairman, Committee of Vice Chancellors (CVC) and VC of Bayero University, Kano which were Lamentations on the deplorable situation in our universities.

Senate Minority Leader, Abba Moro, (Benue South) said the Nigerian situation is an oppressive system.
Therefore, he urged them tobe proactive, think outside the box, have a coordinating body among you to liaise with the National Assembly committee and the executive arm.

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He said although the universities were not established to generate funds, they should be innovative enough to be able to generate funds to be self sustaining, “otherwise you will die”, but quickly added “we don’t want you to die”.

The Executive Secretary National Universities Commission NUC), Prof. Abdullahi Ribadu who lead the Vice Chancellors to the budget defence said some of the challenges facing Nigerian universities include poor funding, without research fund, lack of electricity, insecurity due to banditry.

Others are poor capital budget implementation in the universities due to poor releases and the fact that teaching and research fund are not captured in the national budget.

On maintenance, the CVC chairman said “nobody gives us to do this, which involves a lot of money”, adding that “the situation we are in is not encouraging”.

Other headaches for the universities security and cleaning, which also “consume money”, adding “we are left on our own to run the universities”.

After listening to the numerous challenges facing Nigerian universities, Senators Adamu Aliero, Tony Nwoye, Ned Nwoko, Jimoh Ibrahim were unanimous in urging CVC to be proactive, innovative and think outside the box.

Earlier the Chairman Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFund Senator Muntari Dandutse (Katsina South) in his opening remarks said the focus in the budget scrutiny will include: “revenue generation outcomes; the volume of IGR realized by the NUC and affiliated universities in 2024 relative to projections.

“This exercise is essential to understanding how the NUC is addressing funding gaps and strengthening the financial independence of Nigerian universities”.