President of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU,) Prof. Emmanuel Osodoke, has called on the country’s budgeting agencies to separate the budget of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) from Nigeria’s annual budget to enable effective implementation.
Osodoke who stated this on Thursday at the TETFund Alliance for Innovative Research (TETFAIR) Showcase and Closing Event, held in Abuja, said: “Once TETFund’s budget is included in the national budget, it is finished.”
The ASUU president, who was speaking against the backdrop of suspicion that the national budget may not enjoy 100 per cent implementation, observed that strangely, for the first time, the government decided to add TETFund’s budget to the national budget.
He also called on Nigerians to deal with the inferiority complex, which allows them to depend on services abroad, stating that every country in the world that wants to develop must use its ideas and use its people and those ideas are in the universities.
The Minister of Labour, Hon. Simon Lalong, who described the occasion as a celebration of the remarkable innovative achievements over the years, said the scheme serves as a platform for researchers and innovators to showcase their ground-breaking ideas to transform them into tangible solutions.
Earlier, the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Arc Sonny Echono, said the fair was organised to support researchers in universities to bring their innovative ideas to fruition.
