In the first three months of this year, nine of these institutions have sprung up, including the repurposing of existing public tertiary and even moribund private universities. The penchant for unrestrained establishment of universities in the country, despite the decrepit state of existing ones, as a result of gross underfunding, is highly counterproductive. The past two administrations took this act to ridiculous levels. Still, it is incredible that the Tinubu government has equally embraced this, despite the fact that objective conditions suggest the contrary.
In the first three months of this year, nine of these institutions have sprung up, including the repurposing of existing public tertiary and even moribund private universities. Also, 11 privately owned universities were granted licences within this period. Though the latter belongs to individuals, they would likely impact the academic ecosystem negatively, as they will inexorably draw from the same human resource pool that a national needs assessment in 2012 reported as its sickening capacity deficit. This has not been remedied in any significant way since then.
Among the new universities are: Federal University of Sports in Afuze, Edo State; Federal University of Technology and Environmental Sciences, in Iyin, Ekiti State; Federal University of Agriculture in Obio-Akpa, Oruk Anam Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom; Federal University of Environment and Technology in Ogoni; and Federal University of Agriculture and Development Studies, Iragbiji, Osun State. All of them were birthed in February.
Earlier this month, Tai Solarin University of Education, owned by the Ogun State government, was taken over by the Federal Government, just as Yaba College of Technology in Lagos, was upgraded to a university. A moribund, privately-owned Nok University in southern Kaduna, was acquired too by the centre. Approval was also given for the establishment of Federal University, Umunna, Okigwe, Imo State. As a result, Nigeria has an aggregate of 278 universities, comprising 64, which are federal, 67 belonging to states, and 147 that are privately-owned. Last year, four colleges of education were upgraded to universities.
More of these “citadels of learning” are on the cusp of legislative approval, including, the Bola Ahmed Federal University of Nigerian Languages, to be located in Aba, Abia State. A bill to this effect is in the House of Representatives, championed by one of its principal officers from the state. It is sad that about 200 bills for the creation of more of these glorified secondary schools are before the National Assembly. The lawmakers who are their masterminds are unbothered by ASUU’s perennial strikes over the government’s failure to fund the education system adequately, by releasing N1.3 trillion to revitalise the system over five years, in line with the 2009 agreement between the Federal Government and ASUU.
Paradoxically, the Federal Government, which is the major catalyst of the proliferation of universities, has raised the alarm through the Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa. In his recent 2025 ministerial press briefing, he categorically said, “We need to stop this from happening. There is so much pressure on the President…We have enough opportunities out there for students to go to universities.” This is a fact that those in the education policy space have long emphasised.
In 2018, the Registrar of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Ishaq Oloyede, said so unequivocally that the country does not need more universities, as the existing ones are capable of absorbing qualified candidates. He was data-driven in his analysis. For instance, out of 1.6 million students who took the 2018/19 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), only 700,000 candidates had the minimum requirement of O’level credits in five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics, which are mandatory for admission.
From these statistics, it is evident that 800,000 candidates were not qualified for university admission at the time. Besides, not all the 700,000 who took the UTME passed to the level of securing the cut-off marks of their respective universities. The extrapolation from this, therefore, is that reason and logic do not support decisions to establish a rash of new universities. To cite Indonesia as having 2,000 universities, or the comparable proportions in Brazil, Russia and the US, as protagonists of these new universities are wont to do, is most unreflective or even unreasonable. Are they so unsophisticated as not to be aware that these countries have robust economies to support such considerations, as opposed to Nigeria, which is borrowing N13 trillion this year to fund its budget deficit?
Universities, by their very nature, as centres of teaching, learning, research and innovation, have basic standards they must meet, being in the global grid of knowledge production. They should not be decreed into existence by the whims and caprices of politicians.
Regrettably, the National Assembly lawmakers do not share this ideal. Setting up universities has become part of their constituency projects. It is in this context that we view the newly established federal university in Iyin-Ekiti, where the Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, hails from. Another is sited in Akwa Ibom, the home state of the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio. Perhaps it is in line with this sharing formula that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, enthusiastically told the people of Zaria, in Kaduna State, last month, that seven more federal tertiary institutions would be established there in 2025.
Under Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency, each state was entitled to have at least one federal university. This informed his administration’s decision to establish 12 new universities, even in states incapable of filling up their admission quotas in universities close to them, under the catchment principle. Some of these states didn’t even register up to 100 candidates in the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSCE).
That irrational policy streak was subsequently exploited by military service chiefs during Muhammadu Buhari’s administration. This led to the creation of the Army University in Biu, Borno State, despite the fact that the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), Kaduna, already has a university status. The Admiralty University of Nigeria, in Delta State, and Air Force University, in Bauchi State, completed that game of avarice. A ministerial eye service equally saw to the establishment of Transport University in Daura, Katsina State – the home town and state of Buhari.
Nigeria cannot continue to have universities that have no well-equipped laboratories, libraries, students’ hostels, lecture halls, water, electricity, sufficient academic manpower, or research capacities. None of them can attract world-class faculty or international students. As it has been observed, products from this kind of system are anything but fit for purpose or ready for the demands of the 21st century. This anomalous trend has provoked ASUU into endless strikes in demand for a better academic environment.
When the “Needs Assessment of Nigeria’s Universities” was carried out in 2012, which revealed a deficit of 32,000 PhD holders, the basic qualification for teaching at that level, the country had only 124 universities. The Federal Government had 37 universities; states also had the same number at 37; and 50 belonged to the private sector.
If Nigeria now has 278 universities, it logically follows that prevailing conditions in these institutions have deteriorated, as no significant changes in funding and infrastructural provision have taken place in decades. Consequently, we recommend to Tinubu, the minutes of the 2013 Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting of 1 November on the report of the needs assessment of universities. The council found out that “Students cannot get accommodation; where they get; they are packed like sardines in a tiny room,” and there is “No light and water in hostels, classrooms and laboratories.”
Our first-generation universities at Ibadan, Nsukka, Zaria, Lagos and Ife have become shadows of their former selves. For evidence, their present placements in the various global rankings of universities would suffice. For instance, Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile Ife, which was at a point, the country’s best in Law, once lost its National Universities Commission’s (NUC) accreditation. It regained it later. Others have suffered the same fate in other courses too, in a topsy-turvydom that explains the decadence more than words could.
Many states now have five universities, three of them owned by the Federal Government. Imo State is an example with Federal University of Technology, Owerri; Alvan Ikoku University of Education, Owerri; and the newly set up Federal University at Umunna, Okigwe.
Tinubu must overcome the pressure that his minister said he is overwhelmed with. Succumbing to these political manipulations is not the stuff leadership is made of. This drivel of establishing ivory towers that makes a mockery of their essence must stop! https://www.premiumtimesng.com/opinion/editorial/784815-editorial-tinubu-stop-this-gratuitous-proliferation-of-universities.html |
