Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Federal government said at the weekend, that it had made over N727 billion investments in public tertiary institutions in Nigeria in the last four years.
It said that the bulk of the investment was done through Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), NEEDS assessment, Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), and it covered critical areas of infrastructural development, project maintenance, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) support, entrepreneurship, library development and special high-impact projects, academic staff training and development, research and several others that fall within their mandate.
A breakdown of the spending indicated that iIn 2015, N24.9 billion was disbursed to 74 public universities in Nigeria (Federal and States), and each institution received N337 million.
In 2016, N74 billion was shared to same institutions and each got N1 billion. In 2017, N48 billion was made available for disbursement, and each university got N659 million. The sum of N58 billion was equally disbursed in 2018 and each university received N785 million. In total, N205 billion was allocated to public universities in the past four years (2015 to 2018).
To the polytechnics, government said that each of the 54 public polytechnics in Nigeria got N250 million in 2015, amounting to N12.5 billion. N691million was disbursed to same institutions in 2016, amounting to N37.3 billion.
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In 2017, they got N450.8 million each, totaling N24.3 billion and in 2018; they received N536 million each, amounting to N28.9 billion. Summarily, the 54 public polytechnics in Nigeria received N103 billion in the last four years.
It said the sum of N101.6 billion was disbursed in the last four years to Colleges of Education. The breakdown shows that government-owned colleges of education got N12 billion in 2015, N37 billion in 2016, N23 billion in 2017, and N28 billion in 2018.
Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, told journalists at a press conference in Abuja, that the Federal government was seriously concerned about lack of accountability in some of the tertiary institutions.
He warned that government would not fold its arms to watch public educational institutions funded from public purse to flout the laws of public accountability.
He also revealed that, in coming weeks, the Federal Ministry of Education would roll out a visitation panel to all the tertiary institutions to deal with the ugly phenomenon.