Nigerian govt approves staggered takeoff of six new universities

President Bola Tinubu, on Wednesday, gave his approval for the gradual opening of six of the 14 public institutions built during the final months of the Muhammadu Buhari administration.

The choice of the universities—two colleges of agriculture, education, and medicine each—was important to the Tinubu-led administration’s goals of skill empowerment, according to Minister of Education Prof. Tahir Mamman, who made this information public to State House Correspondents.

In just seven years, the Buhari administration sanctioned the creation of no fewer than 75 universities, including federal, state, and private institutions.

Mamman, however, asserted that due to their capital-intensive nature, the Federal Government lacked the resources and skilled personnel to launch all schools simultaneously.

He added that the Tinubu administration will be “conservative” in doling out approvals for the establishment of new universities.

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“And then there are quite a number of universities and institutions which were approved in the last days of the last administration, which because of issues of funding, and even staff it may not be prudent to get these institutions to take off altogether at once.

“So Mr. President has directed we stagger their commencement, their takeoff so that the government can properly support them,” the Minister added.

Dr Mamman added: “Ordinarily, we would have said we’ll review whether we should go ahead with that, but most of them are specialised institutions; colleges of education, agriculture and medicine; they are institutions that will support some of the mandates, the priority areas of this government.

“We will need trained teachers, which colleges of education will provide; the same thing with agriculture. That’s why the government has not stepped down that approval; instead, the President, in his wisdom, said we should stagger their implementation on the ground of funds. We’re starting with about six, two each of agriculture, colleges of education and medicine.”

The six universities that have been approved to take off in the first phase are:

Federal University of Education, Agbor, Delta State
Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Ogun State
Federal College of Medicine, Onitsha, Anambra State
Federal College of Agriculture, Zuru, Kebbi State
Federal College of Education, Jama’are, Bauchi State
Federal College of Medicine, Ijero-Ekiti, Ekiti State

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