The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), oversees the scholarly and infrastructural needs of the nation’s public higher institutions of learning. Within a short period that the Executive Secretary of the Fund, Professor Elias Suleiman Bogoro was reinstated to his duty post after the sack of Dr Abdullahi Bichi Baffa, he inaugurated three very important committees which many have lauded but many months on, not much has been heard about the committee, UJI ABDULLAHI ILIYASU reports.
Background
Early in the year 2019, the current executive secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Professor Elias Suleiman Bogoro, was reinstated to the fund. To the admiration of Nigerians, Bogoro hit the ground running. He quickly inaugurated three ad hoc committees namely, Research and Development, Book Publishing, and Technical Action Committee on Impact Assessment of Tetfund interventions from 1999 to 2019.
Many stakeholders in the education had welcomed the move as the right step in the right direction, more so that Bogoro was not a man on the job training and his appointment was based purely on merit.
But later, Nigerians seemed disappointed because the committees’ progress reports were shrouded in secrecy. Many of the officials of the committees are academics drawn from universities outside the shores of Nigeria. Although some critical stakeholders faulted the committees’ membership, especially leadership positions as they claimed their chairmen are close friends of the TETfund boss and the minister of education. Though some of the committee members are actually men who are making waves in their chosen fields in foreign universities, they are far removed from Nigerian system, so they claimed.
The termination of Professor Bogoro barely a year into the Buhari administration and his reinstatement all within a period less than three years is an evidence of a competing interests, most of which are hardly ever devoid of politics and likely loyalty in a servant-master relationship.
The drama of Bogoro’s reinstatement and Dr Baffa’s sack negatively impact on the very critical role which the agency was set up to play as its activities are threatened by compromise and interference even now that our tertiary institutions are groaning under dire scholarly challenges.
Judging from the frenzy that greeted his reinstatement, it is obvious that Bogoro was the man for the job. But it seems the Nigerian factor has killed the man’s zeal to instil sanity in the way higher education sector appropriate their project funds. But higher schools get their requests satisfied based on loyalty to higher authority.
NEITI report right?
Last year NEITI gave a damning report on TETFund that between 2012 and 2016, TETfund had spent N963.3bn naira without guidelines and accountability? The allegation Bogoro dismissed as mere distraction in an exclusive interview with Blueprint.
“I will tell you one thing. I am too focused to be distracted by speculators… I tell you outrightly that they were wrong. They should do their homework thoroughly next time. They should not just talk because they want to malign somebody. TETFund fund is not from the federation account. Go and check our law.”
He further stated that “It has been so far so good. My reinstatement miraculously by Mr President is unprecedented in public service. For a government who disengaged you from your position to reinstate you not just in the service but in the same position is a miracle. Since then I appreciate God and Mr President.
“You can imagine how many people out there who did not know the fact. I thank Mr President for giving me the reprieve. As far as I was concerned, I was condemned and the government decided to probe me because I requested for it. The probe panel established that the basis for my disengagement was wrong. So graciously I was reinstated. I came back with renewed vigour to do even more than what I did during my first tenure, that was one year 10 months.”
But the more he came back to do are yet to manifest, more so that NEITI report in August indicted TETfund of spending billions from the federation account without proper accounts.
Why Dr Baffa was sacked
The minister of education recommended Dr Abdullahi Bichi Baffa’s sack following what many perceived to be irreconcilable differences between him and the minister. Baffa later made damning allegation against the minister which included his refusal to do the minister’s bidding in “diverting 10 per cent of TETfund money,” but in a swift response, the minister alleged that Baffa was inaccessible and rude, and disloyal. The allegation he (Baffa) disputed. Instead he alleged that the minister of education, Malam Adamu Adamu always demanded a share in the huge financial allocations TETfund gets from the annual national budget. To clear himself, Baffa called for investigation of the allegations regarding the education minister’s misdemeanour and had even said he would accept death sentence if he ever was found guilty of any wrongdoing at the Fund.
Curiously the minister of education gave no reason when he announced the sacking of Dr Baffa. But Baffa’s damning utterances after his sack were all pushed under the carpet without the eagle-eyed EFCC and other anti-graft agencies raising an eye brow.
With huge funds to throw around, the TETFund executive secretary is truly the boss in education sector whose position is more sought after than that of even the minister of education.
In July 2019, TETFund disbursed N208bn for 2019 tertiary intervention fund. Professor Bogoro made this known at the annual meeting of TETFund beneficiary institutions in Abuja last year.
He said that universities got N826, 684, 392.00; polytechnics got the sum of N566, 701, 842. 00 and colleges of education received N542, 226, 346.00 each.
He further said that 18 institutions drawn from six geopolitical zones in the country were to receive special high impact interventions.
Bogoro also explained that the 18 institutions that were critically selected in line with guidelines received N5bn for the intervention.
That huge money is surely a temptation to TETFund and politicians are careful in appointing to it only those academics who will do their bidding.
The ad hoc committees
The TETfund boss had said that the agency was going to deemphasize the building of physical structures in tertiary institutions and encourage research, but today TETFund’s approval of physical structures are even expanding at the expense of research and development in public universities, polytechnics and colleges of education nationwide. Stakeholders say state executives who are close to TETFund boss get approval for higher schools, acquire structures and collect funds for physical structures most of which are diverted for private use.
When the inauguration of ad hoc committees were ongoing, stakeholders were clapping hands for the Bogoro return but months later, with politics infused into the system, the scholarly efforts of Bogoro seem to be all motion without movement as little has been heard of the committees after their inaugurations, even when members enjoy huge sitting allowances.
Bogoro says innovative research and its consequent commercialisation is the driver that moves and nurtures the engine of modern economic growth, thus it is an important driver of poverty alleviation, so he must live up to his words.
“Innovative research and its consequent commercialisation is the driver that moves and nurtures the engine of modern economic growth, thus it is an important driver of poverty alleviation.
“There is ample evidence to show that R&D propelled by higher education, more than anything else, has contributed to the rise and expansion of the world knowledge economy.
“In spite of the fact that the role of R&D in national development, including leveraging the quality of research and academic programmes is well known, the level of research and development infrastructure and productivity in Nigeria remains unacceptably low (0.02%).
“Such a foundation, when established, shall promote an effective interface between universities, government and private sector, especially the industrial subsector of the economy.”
He therefore, said for long, TETFund had been paying attention to physical infrastructure but now it is time for innovative researches to make the physical structures meaningful.
The committee has Professor Placid Njoku, an erudite scholar and one of Africa’s most prominent intellectual and academics and current president of Nigerian Institute of Animal Science as chairman; Professor Ibrahim Katampe, a professor of Chemistry and director for Innovative and Technology Incubation in the Center for Excellence in Emerging Technologies (CEET) , Central State University, USA, as vice chairman, and Mr Temitope Toogun, head of human capital commission of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) as member.
Responding to the developments in the committees so far inaugurated, Bogoro spoke of their importance without telling how far their objectives were being realised.
“I will start with National Research Fund, which is the highest research granting platform in Nigeria. If you go to America there is a foundation.
“In South Africa, there is a national research foundation. Their own is just for training of higher degrees. But ours is to fund research for lecturers. We have another department that supports training for academics so we are doing even better in all honesty,” Bogoro said but did not disclose how better.
“The second committee is the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) whose job is to preside over three sub areas. One is the manuscript development. There are lecturers who show us their manuscripts and once they are assessed by our assessors who are members of the committee, they will give them some money. There are PhD theses that are considered very good. If they are assessed and they are picked out, they will be transformed into textbooks. People don’t seem to know all this.
“Then we have professional journals being supported by TETFund. If you are a professional in any field you know it. And the third is the Technical Advisory Committee on Impact Assessment (TACIA). The committee is to assess the impact made by TETFund intervention on the beneficiary institutions from 1999 to 2019.”
TACIA was mandated to determine the level of implementation, mandates and effectiveness of the Fund; to determine challenges, achievements and weaknesses recorded and observed in the course of the implementation of the existing projects, programmes and intervention lines of the Fund; to improve future direction of the Fund within the TETFund statutory mandate as encapsulated in its establishment Act.
Nigerians are still waiting. Going by the huge TETFund enjoys. The Fund will be more accountable if there is a legislation that will make its activities subject to approval by the special committee on TETFund in the National Assembly or make it independent of the ministry of education.
