Last week, the Federal Ministry of Education announced that it is working on a partnership with Coventry University, UK. The plan is to build a Nigerian campus that will offer what the government calls “globally recognized degrees” at an “affordable” cost. Many people cheered. I think we should ask questions first. Keep in mind that I am not writing this to say the partnership is bad. I am writing it because Nigeria has a habit of celebrating announcements while ignoring the fine print. I am therefore convinced that Nigerian students deserve better than that, hence this piece.

Coventry University is a real British university. But let us be honest about what kind. It is what the British call a post-1992 university, which means it was originally a polytechnic that was upgraded. Today, it ranks somewhere between 601- 800 according to the Times Higher Education Ranking. It is not Oxford. It is not Cambridge. It is not even in the Russell Group, which is the league of top UK research universities.So, when the Nigerian government says, “globally recognized degrees,” Nigerians should ask questions about the recognition, the metrics for it, and where it is recognized. A Coventry degree and a University of Edinburgh degree do not open the same doors. Our government owes us that honesty.

This brings me to a question that has received little or no attention since the Minister made the announcement, because there are more than 100 universities in the United Kingdom, why Coventry University? Was there a competitive process where Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Education evaluated multiple institutions and selected the best fit? Or did Coventry University approach the government with an offer? The answer matters enormously because it tells us whether Nigeria is leading this conversation or simply responding to it.

More importantly, is this partnership part of a deliberate national policy on international education collaboration, or is it a one-off engagement with no broader plan behind it? If Nigeria is serious about building partnerships with foreign universities, that ambition must be tied to our national education goals and written into policy. It must answer clear questions like, how many transnational education partnerships does Nigeria intend to pursue? In which subject areas will the partnerships match our development priorities? What does Nigeria specifically expect to gain from each one, whether in research output, technology transfer, or graduate employability?

Without a policy framework, every MoU signed becomes a standalone event disconnected from anything larger. We celebrate it for one week and move on. Countries that have used international partnerships effectively, such as Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, and South Korea, did so because they had deliberate internationalization strategies that told foreign universities exactly what they could and could not do on their soil. Nigeria deserves that same level of strategic clarity.

A signature without a strategy is just paperwork

As of today, no one has told Nigerians what the fees will be. If the cost is priced in pounds or dollars, even a so-called discounted rate will be out of reach for most families. Remember, more than 1.8 million young Nigerians took the Joint Admission Matriculation Board Exam last year in an attempt to get a place in our universities. The majority of those young people are not looking for a premium product with a British name. They need education they can pay for. Until the government publishes actual figures, “affordable global education” is just a campaign phrase.

As a researcher who studies Comparative International Education, I am convinced that these kinds of partnerships are primarily business arrangements. The foreign university comes in to grow its brand and its income. The host country, which is Nigeria in this instance, sometimes benefits, and sometimes does not (Bamberger and Paul Morris, 2024). The difference between this type of agreement or partnership as it were between the Nigerian and British Government two almost always comes down to what is written in the agreement.

So, we need to ask the Nigerian Government and the Minister of Education, Will Nigerian lecturers lead these programmes, or will they just assist foreign staff? Will the courses cover things that matter to the Nigerian economy? Will the research that comes out of this campus belong to Nigeria? If none of these things are written into the MoU, then what we are building is not a university. It is a franchise.

According to the Times Higher Education Rankings, Covenant University in Ota, Ogun State, ranked 401-500 globally in 2019 and 2020, and 562 in 2023. In all three years, it ranked higher than Coventry University UK (Times Higher Education, 2025). A Nigerian private university, built with Nigerian resources, outranked the British institution that the Federal Government is now celebrating as our education solution.

Although Covenant has since dropped to 801-1000, squeezed by global competition and limited research funding. But the point is clear that Nigeria’s potential was always here. Our universities have not fallen behind because Nigerians are not excellent. They have fallen behind because they have not been given what they need. If Covenant could reach the global top 500 as a private institution, what would other public universities in Nigeria look like today with the same focused investment?

Here is what troubles me most. Nigeria already has several universities that remain largely underfunded. These institutions have brilliant academics, long histories, and loyal graduates across the world. The reason we keep looking abroad is not that we lack the brains, but because our own universities have been left without enough funding, enough staff, and enough support for too long. Every press release celebrating Coventry’s arrival in Nigeria is time we are not spending asking why our own universities are in the condition they are in. That is a conversation we cannot keep avoiding.

The National Universities Commission must publish clear rules for foreign universities operating in Nigeria before any student registers. The full MoU must be made public. Fees must reflect what Nigerian families can actually pay. At least 40% of academic staff must be Nigerian. And there must be a research fund tied to Nigerian priorities, written into the agreement, not promised verbally.

This partnership can work. But right now, it looks more like a business deal than a national education strategy. Nigeria is not a market to be entered. We are a country with talented people, real universities, and the capacity to define our own future in education.A signature is just the beginning. What happens next is what matters.

Jacob Sule is a lawyer and Comparative International Education Researcher and Scholar in the United States