The federal government has approved the release of N2 billion through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) for Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (UNAAB), for its agricultural projects. Executive Secretary of TETFund, Dr. Abdullahi Bichi Baffa, disclosed this at the weekend when he commissioned multiple projects sponsored by the Fund in the university in its quest to become a world-class agricultural training institution. Commissioning the projects as part of the 30th anniversary of the university, the Baffa said unlike other institutions, FUNAAB had been lagging behind “because of their inability to access the N2 billion already allotted to them since 2013.”
A statement by the Fund’s Director, Corporate Affairs and Public Relations, Mr. Ebikwo Benn, listed the commissioned projects to include 1,000-seater capacity lecture theatre and furniture fittings with other equipment, science laboratories and furniture fittings for: 250-seater biology laboratory; 250-seater chemistry laboratory; 250-seater physics laboratory; and office complex for the laboratories, and entrepreneurship building and furniture fittings.
Baffa traced the inability to come forward and draw the money long years of bickering and internal crisis, which he said, the current management was doing everything possible to avoid a repeat. “I have been to this campus several times in the past to hold meetings or solve one problem or the other. I must say the university is doing well, but one hitch that has been hindering the springing up of more TETFund projects on this campus, perhaps, is the crisis that engulfed the university for so many years.
“At the moment, over N2 billion worth of allocation to the university is lying there at the Fund, waiting for the university to come and access,” he said. Also speaking, the Chancellor of the university, Obong of Calabar, His Royal Majesty, Edidem Ekpo Okon Abasi, promised TETFund that with the calibre of persons that “make up the Governing Council of the university, peace would reign in the institution and nothing will impede projects and accessing of allocations from TETFund.”
