Public universities would either be destroyed or reduced to glorified secondary schools, according to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), which is appalled by the provisions of the Nigeria Tax Bill 2024, which is currently before the National Assembly and aims to eliminate the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund).
The union encouraged National Assembly members and well-meaning Nigerians to oppose the bill, claiming it will only help a small number of students by replacing the TETFund with the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, or NELFUND.
ASUU-Nsukka Zone Zonal Coordinator Raphael Amokaha issued a warning Thursday in Makurdi during a media briefing with members of the Zonal leadership.
He pointed out flaws in the new Tax Bill that aims to review the Nigerian tax system, saying that “without prejudice to other sections of this bill, ASUU-Nsukka Zone and indeed ASUU National are horrified by the contents of this bill with regards to the Education tax (also called development levy) and its implication for TETFUND.”
“The bill proposes that education tax shall cease by 2030, five years from now. This education tax that government has proposed to end by 2030 is the source of funds for TETFUND. Section 59(3) of the Nigeria Tax Bill (NTB) 2024, as proposed, specifically states that only 50% of the Development Levy would be made available to TETFund in 2025 and 2026 while the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure, NASENI, and NELFUND would share the remaining percentages. TETFund will also receive ‘66.7% in 2027, 2028 and 2029 years of assessment’ but ‘0% in 2030 year of assessment and thereafter.”
“This simply means that by 2030, all the proceeds from the Development Levy will be channelled into NELFUND, an agency that has not firmly taken root yet if it ever will, while TETFUND will be strangulated to death. It must be stated here very clearly that taking any percentage out of the Education Tax (Development Levy) to service another agency not known to the TETFund Act 2011 is illegal.”
“We can understand from history why ASUU is so passionate and protective of TETFUND,” Amokaha said, recalling how the TETFund was created following a determined effort by previous union leaders. Beyond having a union baby, however, we are more worried about TETFUND’s accomplishments, particularly as we think the organisation hasn’t even reached its full potential yet.
“A simple, verifiable illustration of the accomplishments of this agency even without recourse to figures is the fact that more than half of undergraduate students in our public universities today will be out of school because they will not have been able to get placement in a university. This was a home grown solution to address issues of funding to rehabilitate decaying infrastructure, restore the lost glory of education and confidence in the system as well as consolidate the gains thereto; and to build the capacity of teachers and lecturers.”
Amokaha recalled how TETfund had stepped in to help universities in the Zone and the nation grow and develop, saying: “In other words, these universities will not exist without TETFUND or at best will be glorified secondary schools with carrying capacities of not more than a thousand students each.”
“If you take a stroll round these campuses and take inventory of the buildings. At least 80% percent of the buildings carry the TETFUND logo which shows they were either constructed by TETFUND or renovated by TETFUND including street lighting and school clinics not to talk of equipment in the laboratories. We have, also, not mentioned staff development, capacity building and research funding.
“The strategic and integral involvement and accomplishments of TETFUND to tertiary education development are by no means exhaustive. It is fundamental to remind us at this point of the mandate of TETFUND.”
According to him, “TETFund currently provides intervention to 244 public tertiary institutions in Nigeria of which 96 Universities, 72 Polytechnics and 76 Colleges of Education. A further break-down of these institutions shows 49 Federal Universities, 47 State Universities, 34 Federal Polytechnics, 38 State polytechnics, 28 federal Colleges of Education and 48 State Colleges of Education.
“Federal and state-owned tertiary institutions are currently referred to as ‘TETFund Institutions’ because most projects are funded from this interventionist agency on which a death sentence has been passed through the Nigeria Tax Bill 2024.
“In view of the foregoing, it becomes intriguing why anyone will want to kill TETFUND by channeling its statutory funds to NELFUND which has a very different mandate, student loans. NELFUND is charged with the responsibility of given students’ loans while TETFUND has the mandate to develop infrastructure and build capacity.
“The student loan is clearly designed in such a manner that less than half of Nigerian students will benefit from the scheme and its sustainability has not been tested in anyway, whereas any lecture room, laboratory or clinic erected by TETFUND will serve all the students.
“This plan to kill a development agency in preference to a poorly thought through, untested loan scheme is illogical, myopic, and anti-people, especially the middle class and the lower strata of society. We would like to use this opportunity to remind the federal and state governments that TETFUND is an interventionist agency, therefore, governments must remember that as proprietors they have a duty to fund tertiary institutions not merely through interventions but through budgetary allocations.
“ASUU has resolved not to stand by and watch the denigration and obliteration of TETfund, an agency that has discharged its mandate decently in the last thirty years, which represents a positive testament to our Union’s constructive engagements with Nigerian governments since 1992. It is our considered view that abrogating the TETFund Act 2011, by design or default, will be a great disservice not just to education but to Nigeria as a nation.
“As a result, ASUU is urging the National Assembly, especially the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to do all within their capacity to protect TETFund from being abrogated under the Nigeria Tax Bill 2024.
“In the same vein, we urge visitors to state universities, who also have polytechnics and colleges of Education to rise to the defence of their institutions against this new existential threat. Members of House of Representatives and the Senate must remember that they owe their constituents this responsibility of ensuring that their youth can attend higher institutions without the threat of exorbitant, unaffordable fees in either the public or private institutions for that will be the cost of killing TETFUND.”