ASUU: It is constitutional for Nigerian govt to fund university education

Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has claimed that the Federal Government cannot completely stop funding institutions.

Osodeke revealed on Thursday’s episode of Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily that the Federal Government is mandated by the Constitution to provide funding for public universities.

He was responding to a story in which Professor Tahir Mamman, the Minister of Education, was reported as saying that the Federal Government would launch new methods of funding tertiary education by giving universities the liberty to find new sources of revenue for their operations.

“There is no way the Federal Government of Nigeria would say they would not fund public universities because it is there in the law. It is there in the Constitution, look at section 18 of the Constitution, it says ‘university, primary and secondary are free,” Osodeke said.

Osodeke refrained from making assumptions about the government’s intentions, but he did observe that there wouldn’t be much of a financial concern if the law is upheld and university activities are conducted without interference from bureaucrats.

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“The only problem is that it is not judicable, that’s the only problem so I said I don’t think this government from what we have seen is going to say we are going to hands off from university. But the autonomy is here, ignited in year 2003 if we follow that law and allow it to run without interference from the bureaucrats, the university system would be fine.”

He added that if Nigeria commits greater allocation to education like countries in Europe are doing, the universities will have enough funds to run its activities.

An eight-man committee was inaugurated by the Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman, to set up a roadmap for the education sector in line with the ‘Renewed Hope’ agenda of President Bola Tinubu.

The committee, headed by Dr. Nuhu Yakubu, has as one of its members a former Deputy Director-General of the Nigerian Law School, Prof. Ernest Ojukwu, and Professor Sa’ad Umar.

While inaugurating the committee, the minister said, “I do expect that issues of financial autonomy in tertiary institutions, access and equity, research and innovation as well as the government-industry-academic nexus would occupy your thoughts. In the same vein, the global competitiveness of our educational system should not escape your scrutiny.”

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