How Echono-led TETFund stopped Babariga from headquarters, by ASUU

• As academic unions laud agency

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is definitely not known for praise singing, flattering or adulation. It calls a spade a spade no matter whose ox is gored.

It therefore goes without saying that when this revered union showers encomium or passes vote of confidence on an individual or head of agency, such may have performed exceptionally well.

At a workshop for beneficiary institutions organized recently by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), the President, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, was full of eulogies for the Executive Secretary of the Fund, Sonny Echono. He applauded him for making the headquarters of the Fund uncomfortable for individuals with Babariga – Also known as Agbada, a regal attire characterized by its flowing robes and intricate embroidery, mostly won by Nigerian men of means, symbolizing opulence.

According to ASUU President, the headquarters of the Fund was no longer an abode for such personalities, who besiege the agency to solicit contracts and seek undue advantage. He therefore commended the TETFund boss for confining this practice to history.

“I want to commend the Executive Secretary of TETFund because if it were in those days, we would have been seeing a lot of Babariga around here. I want to say that the TETFund inviting us as stakeholders is an example of how it should be”, the union leader stated.

Prof. Osodeke expressed need for an upward review of the education tax being managed by TETFund from three per cent to 10 per cent, even as he lamented that Nigeria ranks lowest in education budgets across the West African Sub-region.

According to the ASUU chairperson, an upward review would increase TETFund disbursements to universities from N600 billion yearly to N3 trillion.

Osodeke singled out Enugu, Abia and Oyo States for earmarking more than 20 per cent of their budgets to the education sector.

He also accused most Vice Chancellors of unilaterally executing interventions without calling for stakeholders’ engagements as advised by the interventionist agency.

His words: “Before the immediate past President Buhari increased Education Tax from 2.0 percent to 3 per cent. The maximum amount that TETFund was allocating (as annual intervention) was between N200billion and N300billion per annum. But a single action last year has increased it to N600billion per annum. Just agree, if you have a government that has the heart and increase it to 10 per cent, it will go to no less than N3trillion. And that would have solved all the problems.

“If you go and check the history – and we are doing that already, there are some universities that have not utilized 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 allocations. What you would have used your fund to do in 2016, you cannot do one-quarter of it today. So, we need to put a disciplinary process in motion that will ensure that no university misuses that money that people sweated for. There is need to take a holistic view like we did with Needs Assessment. Let us do Needs Assessment on TETFund projects and see those who are misusing it.”

On its part, the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), also commended TETfund under Echono’s leadership for its role in the provision of infrastructure in polytechnics and other tertiary institutions across the country.

ASUP President, Shammah Kpanja, said the Fund has been phenomenal in terms of the provision of state-of-the-art infrastructure, facilities and equipment in higher institutions.

Professor Kpanja made a case for the deployment of right monitoring platform in beneficiary institutions.

He said: “It is not about establishing intervention lines. It is about the impact of these intervention lines.

We could have achieved much more if we have the right monitoring platform operating in beneficiary institutions. These are very laudable intervention lines but like I said earlier, we need to activate a monitoring mechanism that will ensure value for money, and ensure that these funds are not just dissipated or the cartons of laboratory equipment that we see in different tertiary institutions uninstalled. We believe that these resources are scarce and we think that TETFund should also develop interest in making sure that appropriate value for money is extracted from every penny sent to any beneficiary institution.”