A source, who spoke with our correspondent on an anonymous condition revealed that the OAGF is frustrating all attempts geared towards releasing the fund.
According to the source, officials of the Accountant General’s office insist on fresh presidential approval to release funds to the universities across the country.
The highly dependable source revealed that at a recent meeting between the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa the AG, and the President of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, as well as other officials of the government it was agreed that the N 300 Billion captured in the 2023 appropriation Act but was not released be rolled – over to this year.
It was gathered that a letter signed by the Minister of Education and addressed to the Accountant General requesting that the money be rolled over to 2025 has already been dispatched.
According to the source, the letter is meant to placate ASUU in believing that the government is serious about the release of the revitalization fund.
The content of the letter indicated that the Minister of Education expressed concern over the issue and the need to avert industrial action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities.
Our sources explained that ASUU had during the meeting with the Accountant General and the Minister of Education, expressed strong reservations over the government’s sincerity in tackling several challenges faced by public universities in Nigeria.
The Union was said to be represented at the meeting by its President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, who complained bitterly over the lack of political will by successive governments on the problem of the death of infrastructure and the welfare of members of the University community, including the knotty challenge of Earn allowance for members.
The source further informed our Correspondent that ASUU pointedly told the officials that they have to resolve the matter by ensuring that fund for University revitalisation is released or face industrial action by the Union.
ASUU, it was further gathered, also threatened to boycott the subsequent meetings if previous agreements were not honoured .
Meanwhile, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO),
Education Advancement Initiative (EAI), has called for the immediate release of 600 Billion Naira this year as a revitalisation fund for public universities across Nigeria.
The group said the timely release of the funds would ensure that deteriorating infrastructure at the university campuses is rehabilitated, as well as pay the outstanding liabilities to members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), None Academic Staff Union of Universities among others to forestall disruption of the academic calendar by the unions.
Director, Programme, Education Advancement Imitative, Dr. Abimbola Tobi, who spoke to newsmen recently in Abuja, blamed government functionaries, particularly officials of the Accountant General’s Office, of a deliberate plot to sabotage public university education and promote private ones, which they owed or have vested interest in.
Tobi said the lack of funding for public universities by successive governments portends grave danger to nation development.
He said that if the same government failed to release the 2023 funds in 2024, it would only be proper that both 300 billion for 2023 be rolled over, and another N300 Billion for 2025 be released simultaneously.
Dr. Tobi advised the federal government to provide a special emergency fund to tackle this problem instead of waiting for an envelop budgetary system.
He stated that the refusal of the government to release the university revitalization fund is gradually killing public universities, adding that infrastructure that could aid teaching and learning has become an eyesore in almost all the universities in Nigeria.
He said that if public university education is allowed to collapse by way of the government’s lukewarm attitude to funding, the country will suffer dire consequences as there would be an increased crime rate precipitated by joblessness and lack of skill to engage in productive ventures by the young population.
Tobi, a trained educational program specialist, insisted on the release of the revitalization fund and called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to quickly save the university system by directing the AG’s office to release the N600 billion captured in the 2023 and 2025 budget to universities.
According to him, the Tinubu-led Administration’s lofty idea of a Student Loan Scheme will amount to nothing should the infrastructure decay in the nation’s citadel of learning remain unattended.
Another source told our Correspondent that ASUU is deeply angered by the failure of the Federal Government to honour the 2009 Needs Assessment agreement aimed at providing N220 billion annually as an intervention fund for the revitalization of public universities in Nigeria.
The source, closely connected to the Headquarters of the Academic Staff Union of the University located at the University of Anuja permanent site, Giri, Gwagwalda, advised the president against abandoning the needs assessment scheme designed to provide funds for the reinvigoration of public universities, particularly rehabilitation of decaying infrastructure as well as the provision of state-of-the-art teaching and learning equipment to the schools.
He appealed to the president to cause the immediate release of funds for the continuation of critical projects in the institutions being executed under the nerds assessment project.
It would be recalled that the Federal Government in 2009 reached an agreement with ASUU for the provision of 1.3 trillion on annual tranches of N220 billion over a period of 5 years as intervention funds for the revitalization of universities.
A review of the agreement was done in 2014. However, it is yet to be implemented, resulting in several industrial actions by ASUU, which distorts the academic calendar in the ivory tower.
Our investigation revealed that officials of the Federal Ministry of Education are making frantic efforts to prevent any form of strike action under the Tinubu-led government but the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation keeps creating conditions that make the implementation of the agreements difficult, thereby, hampering the release of the University revitalisation fund.
