A coalition of civil society groups on national interest led by Empowerment for Unemployed Youth Initiative (EUYI) has said the attention President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration is paying to the education sector could amount to not if the alleged rot in the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) is allowed to linger.
To this end, the CSO noted its readiness to compiling the contentious issues in the agency for the attention of President with a view for sanitary action to save tertiary education funding in Nigeria.
In a statement signed by the trio of Comrade Danesi Momoh, convener, Dr. Abdulquadir Lawal, Director, Research and Documentation and Amb. Olukolade Akindele, Director, Mobilization and Logistics paid tribute to President Tinubu for his commitment to educational development.
“Without doubt, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is paying far more than a passing attention on the education sector and educational matters. Though he inherited an education sector that is deficit in many aspects, his commitment to turning things around is visible. He has always maintained that without quality education, the vision of the Renewed Hope Agenda cannot be met. Consequently, he has been hammering on policies that will expand both access and facilities in the education sector.
“Unfortunately and very sadly however, the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) which acts as the highest bridge to infrastructural and human capacity development deficit in the tertiary Institutions is in an unending crisis, caused by an alleged massive, pervasive and endemic corruption as well as undue politicization of its activities and programmes”, the statement stated.
It however, expressed regret that instead of taking steps of righting the wrongs that have characterised the agency for many years, its leadership has been playing the ostrich in connivance with even lawmakers.
“While the Executive Secretary of the Fund, Arc. Sunny Echono, continues to run from pillar to post to cover his ever-leaking tracks, he still faces questions with the anti-graft agencies. Just 2 months ago, in April 2024, he was shamefully arguing back and forth as to whether he was detained by the ICPC. While the ICPC insisted he was detained, he preferred to save face rather than admitting his ordeals. However, he could not claim that he has a clean bill of health from either the EFCC or the ICPC.
“It is even strange that our righteous National Assembly members have failed in their oversight functions by not holding Arc. Echono accountable for many breaches to the Public Procurement Act 2007. He has sadly been vindicated even in the clear case of the opaque award of N7.6 billion contract to Fides Et Ratio Academy and Pole Global Marketing (PGM) which was awarded without recourse to the Bureau of Public Procurement or the Federal Executive Council.
“What is however inexplicable is how a whooping ₦7.6 billion can be awarded without transparent bidding (or in this case, no bidding at all), no recourse to the Bureau of Public Procurement and no approval sought or received from the Federal Executive Council with claims of exclusivity. Echono must tell Nigeria’s about his stakes in Fides Et Ratio Academy and Pole Global Marketing (PGM). He must explain what is exclusive about giving contracts to vendors.
“Again, what in the nature of these contracts exclude them from Section 15 (a) of the Public Procurement Act 2007? The whole truth is that this contract is a gross violation of the law and the intent therefrom suggests a massive underhand dealing as part of the alleged pervasive corruption in TETFund. If the National Assembly sees nothing wrong with this for obvious reasons then we must fight to expose the truth”, the release added.
The rights group revealed further that, aside the ₦7.6 billion contract under contention, there are a lot of lies, contradictions and institutional cover-ups in TETFund, insisting that the Fund is too important for the development of both infrastructure and research in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions to be left in the wrong hands.
“For instance, we are constrained to accept the Executive Secretary’s claims that the illegal deduction of 50% of 2023 direct disbursement budget to institutions was on agreement with those institutions since no institution had complained.
“However we cannot ignore the verified allegations that the Federal University of Health Sciences, Otukpo has been turned to Echono’s cash cow where he awards inflated contracts to his proxies. This is a slap on the anti-corruption fight of Mr. President and he must be stopped, the statement added.
The Coalition ended with a vow to chronicle all their findings together with evidence and dispatch a letter to the President as they urge him to waste no time in addressing the rot in TETFund, failure of which will lead to “massive protest across all tertiary institutions until something is done to address the endemic corruption affecting the funding of tertiary education in Nigeria and the ultimate sack and prosection of Arc Sunny Echono.
