Despite the neglect and gross underfunding of the existing government-owned universities, the federal government has continued to be curiously obsessed with the establishment of new ones, Davidson Iriekpen writes
On February 20, 2025, President Bola Tinubu assented to two bills establishing the Federal University of Agriculture and Development Studies, Iragbiji in Osun State, and the Federal University of Technology and Environmental Sciences, Iyin Ekiti, Ekiti State.
Prior to the signing of the bills, President Tinubu had on February 3 approved the establishment of the Federal University of Environment and Technology (FUET) in Ogoni town of Tai, Rivers State. He had also assented to the bill for the establishment of the Federal University of Sports in Afuze, Edo State.
Tinubu also consented to the federal government’s takeover of a forfeited private university in Southern Kaduna and its transformation into a federal university.
Lately, the federal government had commenced an initiative to upgrade some polytechnics and colleges of education into full-fledged universities. For instance, penultimate week, the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, announced President Tinubu’s approval to convert the Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH) to a university.
These new universities would no doubt add to the existing number of institutions at a time when key stakeholders in the education sector, including the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) have condemned the proliferation of tertiary institutions.
According to a list released last year by the National Universities Commission (NUC), Nigeria currently has a total of 262 universities with 52 federal universities (including defence and police academies), 63 state-run universities and 147 private universities. According to estimates, over 90 per cent of the country’s students are in public universities.
For the government, politics and the sense of entitlement by political office holders influence the choice of location of these universities and this explains the rush to establish them.
For the private investors, profit motive influences this business decision.
The most strange and curious proposal was the bill for the establishment of Bola Ahmed Tinubu Federal University of Nigerian Languages in Aba, Abia State.
Last year, the House of Representatives passed the first reading of the bill sponsored by the Deputy Speaker, Hon. Benjamin Kalu, and eight others, for the establishment of the university.
Residents of Aba and other cities in the South-east believe that if a university is to be established in the commercial city, it should be a university of technology, entrepreneurship or craft, in view of the reputation of the town as the “Taiwan of Nigeria.”
But the lawmakers, in their strange decisions, which are alien to the wishes and aspirations of the people, proposed a university of language, which according to them, will “promote the learning of Nigerian languages.”
In a new world where there is increasing focus on technology and ICT, Nigerian lawmakers are proposing the establishment of a specialised university to promote Nigerian languages, when almost all the existing government-owned universities also teach Nigerian languages.
Despite the huge shortfall in budgetary allocations and in actual funding for education at both state and federal levels in Nigeria, the proliferation of public universities has continued.
The results are the dilapidated infrastructure, poorly equipped laboratories, inadequate classrooms, seats and hostel accommodation for students, poor power and water supply, bad roads, understaffing, poor pay and poor emoluments of staff and faculty, as well as the government’s failure to honour its agreements with ASUU.
Between 1999 and June 2022, the universities were shut for 1,404 days owing to the strike following the union’s demand for improved funding.
Despite these challenges, the government has continued to build new universities to satisfy federal lawmakers and other senior government functionaries who want public universities in their constituencies.
One of the major arguments by the government to justify the proliferation is the need to give access to university education to young Nigerians as nearly over two million candidates write the University Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) annually. This argument, many feel, doesn’t hold water in view of the numbers released by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) in 2019 indicating that 612,557 candidates secured “admission and about 510,957 admission spaces were unused by tertiary institutions (polytechnics and monotechnics inclusive).”
This it is believed does not indicate space problems for admission seekers but suggests far more salient issues.
Instead of the federal and state governments and their parliaments to adopt a more rational, scientific, and development-oriented approach to higher education, it is mostly considering primordial motives.
According to those who spoke with THISDAY, pushing for the establishment of new institutions at a period when the existing ones are grossly underfunded shows a lack of seriousness and rigour in law-making.
While students in private institutions enjoy an unbroken academic calendar and quality teaching, the story in federal and state institutions is different as well as pathetic.
Between 2010 and 2014, the then President, Goodluck Jonathan, established over 12 new federal universities. His justification was that all states should have universities but that was ridiculous, given that the take-off grant for each institution was a paltry N2 billion.
Under the former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, more public universities sprang up, including those for the Nigerian Army and Nigerian Air Force.
Buhari’s administration introduced the tradition where universities are cited in all Nigerian communities that produce the heads of the organisations that own public universities.
In what many Nigerians regarded as their desperation to gain undue favour from Buhari, some agents of his administration had initiated the idea of establishing the Federal University of Transportation in his country home of Daura in Katsina State, which has no well-established water, land, air and rail transport infrastructures to cater for such university.
During the First Republic, the heads of the three regional governments prudently established universities far away from their communities in Ile-Ife, Zaria and Nsukka. They understood that universities operate on global ideals and standards. This is not the case today where corruption, politics and nepotism influence the location of universities and politicians regard these institutions as constituency projects.
Although the United Kingdom has a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $2.82 trillion (compared to Nigeria’s $466.88 billion), its universities increased by only one, from 141 in 2017 to 142 in 2018, according to government data. In the decade to 2018, the number increased by only 23.
Nigerian universities rank abysmally low internationally. as no Nigerian university makes the first 1,000 globally.
This is why ASUU President, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, recently condemned the mass establishment of universities in the country, describing the development as ‘reckless and excessive.’
Osodeke maintained that the country’s political leaders have no genuine interest in establishing universities other than to use such to score cheap political points among their constituents to re-elect them into office.
Rather than seeking to score cheap political points in their respective constituencies, funding existing institutions should be the top priority of the government, not establishing new ones. (Thisday)
