Victor Ezeja
Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Mr Peter Obi, has commended the Nigerian government for reversing its earlier decision to deduct 40 percent from the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of Federal Universities.
Obi said it was inconceivable that the universities that are “grossly underfunded” were expected to remit 40 per cent of their IGR to the Federal Government.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelMinister of Education, Tahir Mamman, on Friday said the President Bola Tinubu government has cancelled the policy, adding that now is not the best time for implementing the policy.
“The 40 per cent IGR automatic deduction policy stands cancelled. This is not the best time for such policy since our universities are struggling,” the Minister said during his speech at the ongoing 75th Founder’s Day ceremony of the University of Ibadan (UI) on Friday.
The policy which was announced on 17 October was to take effect from November.
The government had said the decision which affects all partially funded government agencies and parastatals including universities is in line with the provisions of Section 62 of Finance Act 2020.
The policy, aimed at boosting revenue drive of the Federal Government, generated reactions from stakeholders in the education sector including the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) which said it would impoverish the universities as they were not revenue generating agencies.
The Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities also kicked against it.
In a statement posted on his X page, formerly Twitter, Obi called for a review of the Tertiary Institutions Trust Funds (TetFund) which he said were not being properly utilised by the Nigerian tertiary institutions.
The former Anambra State governor further stressed that time has come for the government to consider financial autonomy of public tertiary institutions while maintaining its statutory obligations to them.
The statement reads: “It is gratifying that the FGN has reversed its demand on the 40% IGR from universities. It is ab initio totally inconceivable that grossly underfunded universities would be expected to dole out 40% of their IGR to the FGN,” Obi wrote on his X page on Friday.
“Moreover, that demand underlines a lack of attention to the persistent abuse of the TetFund, which is presently not being properly utilised to fund tertiary education as initially envisaged.
“In fact, FGN should promptly reorganise and revamp TetFund, to fulfil its statutory role of funding Nigerian public universities both Federal and State owned, and also in assisting those owned by voluntary agencies.
“The time has come for the government to pay more attention to the financial autonomy of our public universities while fulfilling its statutory financial responsibility to our public tertiary education.”
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with seven years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Master's degree in Mass Communication.
