TETFund, An Exclusive Preserve Of The North

Nigerians are daily being inundated with allegations (imaginary and real) of marginalisation and/or lopsidedness in appointments into major federal public institutions, including the military, ministries, agencies, departments, boards and parastatals.

While successive administrations have been denying the allegation, indices are pointing to the fact that a particular part of the country has over the years been having it so good in terms of getting what has come to be regarded as juicy appointments.

Among others, a case study is the fact that no single southerner has ever been appointed Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (except the pioneer minister, Mobolaji Ajose-Adeogun, 1976-1979).

This is also as the chairmanship of the anti-graft body, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), appears to be an exclusive birthright of the North, since its inception.

Also belonging to the league of the exclusive preserves of and for the North is the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), an interventionist agency set up in 1993 to provide supplementary support to all levels of public tertiary institutions across the country, with the main objective of using public funding, alongside project management, for the rehabilitation, restoration and consolidation of tertiary education across the country.

TETFund was originally established as Education Trust Fund (ETF) by the Act No 7 of 1993, as amended by Act No 40 of 1998 (now repealed and replaced with Tertiary Education Trust Fund Act 2011). It has several organs and bodies, but the major ones are the Board of Trustees (BoT) and the Secretariat, the latter being the main body charged with the day-to-day running of the Fund and its finances.

Its Executive Secretaries In History

Just like the FCT and the EFCC, the head of the Secretariat of TETfund has always been rotating among persons of northern origin, with the late Malam Tijani Ahmed Abdulkadir being the first person to occupy the post from January 1994 to September, 1999.

Abdulkadir was succeeded by Malam Mustapha Abba Jaji, mni (September 1999- August, 2007) who handed over the baton to a fellow northerner and current chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmoud Yakubu (August 2007- August, 2012).

Professor Yakubu was succeeded by yet another northerner, Malam Aliyu Na’Iya, who was in the saddle from September, 2012 to April, 2014 before handing over to his brother northerner, Professor Suleiman Elias Bogoro, who had his first stint between April 2014 and February 2016.

Between February and July, 2016, Malam Na’Iya returned to the TETFund to oversee its Secretariat and its finances before he handed over the baton to Dr Abdullahi B. Baffa who was at the helm of affairs from August, 2016 to January, 2019.

Completing the circle of the apparently northern dominance of the money-spinning agency, its current secretary, Professor Suleiman Elias Bogoro, who was there from 2014 to 2016, made a return to the saddle in January, 2019.

The Fund is managed by an 11-member Board of Trustees (BoT), with members drawn from the six geo-political zones of the country as well as representatives of the Federal Ministry of Education, Federal Ministry of Finance and the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS).

The Secretariat is headed by an Executive Secretary who, by the provisions of Act 2011, is the most powerful official of the Fund, being its chief executive/accounting officer, with the directors and heads of departments and units only assisting him in the day-to-day running of the offices of the Fund.

The main source of income available to the Fund is the two per cent education tax paid from the assessible profit of companies registered in Nigeria, while the FIRS is saddled with the task of collecting the tax on behalf of the Fund.

The funds are disbursed for the general improvement of education in federal and state tertiary institutions, to ensure the provision or maintenance of essential physical infrastructure for teaching and learning; institutional material, equipment research and publications.

The taxes are also meant for academic staff training and development and “any other need which, in the opinion of the Board of Trustees, is critical and essential for the improvement and maintenance of standards in the higher educational institutions.”

As stated in the Act 2011, the TETFund BoT is saddled with the following responsibilities: Monitoring and ensure collection of Tax by the FIRS and ensure transfer to the Fund; managing and disbursing the tax;

Liaising with appropriate ministries and bodies responsible for collection or safe keeping of the tax; receiving request and approve admittable projects after due consideration; ensuring disbursement to various public tertiary education institutions in the country and monitoring and evaluating execution of projects.

Its other responsibilities included investing funds in appropriate and safe securities; updating the Federal Government on its activities and progress through annual audited reports among the states of the Federation in case of regular intervention;

Reviewing progress and suggest improvement within the provisions of the Act; “do such other things that are necessary or incidental to the objective of the Fund under these Acts or as may be assigned by the Federal Government;

“Make and issue guidelines, from time to time, to all beneficiaries on disbursement of monies from the Fund on the use of monies received from the Fund and generally regulate the administration, application and disbursement of monies from the Fund.”

Tongues are wagging as regards why the position of the secretary of such an important federal agency has been made to be the exclusive preserve of a particular section of the country, in disregards for the spirit of equity and fairness and a total negation of the vaunted principle of federal character.

The suspicion was apparently in view of the enormous power vested in the TETFund Executive Secretary, as the Head of the Secretariat, to be solely in charge of the administrative and financial affairs of the Fund, as stated in the provisions of the Act 2011.

TETFund, A Money-Spinner As Buhari Approves N7.5Bn Research Grants

Just recently, President Muhammadu Buhari approved the sum of N7.5 billion for the National Research Fund (NRF) grant managed by TETFund for the Year 2020, a monumental increase from an initial amount of N3 billion.

The TETFund executive, Professor Suleiman Elias Bogoro, made the disclosure at the TETFund BoT Retreat, held recently in Abuja, announcing that the latest approval by the president made the Fund the largest holder of research grants in the country.

He further said the president also approved the establishment of six medical simulation, research and training facilities in six Colleges of Medicine, to be sited in each of the six geopolitical zones in the country.

The approval, he said, provided an opportunity for TETFund to provide 12 COVID-19 and related infectious disease molecular laboratories, two in each geo-political zones, thus making TETFund the highest single provider of COVID-19 test centres in Nigeria.

Professor Bogoro added that the TETFund BoT also gave approval for the sponsorship of some COVID-19 research proposals to the tune of over N200 million, mainly from universities and NAFDAC, adding that this accounted for why TETFund was recently made the Secretariat for the Nigeria COVID-19 Research Consortium (NCRC).

The questions on the lips of many are: Why is it that people of the northern extraction are the only ones that have been appointed, so far, as the Head, TETFund Secretariat? Is there no single person from the entire South who is competent enough to be the Executive Secretary of the Fund? In spite of the humongous money accruable to the Fund, has any of the public tertiary institutions across the country fair better in terms of researches that could be of benefit to the people? In spite of the N7.5 billion released to TETFund, part of which Professor Bogoro said would be used to provide COVID-19 and related infectious disease molecular laboratories, how far have we gone in finding  solution to a virus that has distorted our ways of life, some seven months after COVID-19 found its way into the country?