Activist lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN) and Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), have alleged a grand cover up of high level corruption and other impunity in federal universities.
They made the claims in Lagos at the presentation of a new report by SERAP titled: Stealing the future: How federal universities in Nigeria have been stripped apart by corruption. The study was done with the support of MacArthur Foundation.
The report was presented to the media by Associate Professor of Business Administration and Marketing, Faculty of Business Administration, University of Lagos (UNILAG) Dr. Bolajoko Dixon-Ogbechi Nkemdinim.
Falana alleged that the bulk of the funds meant to improve the universities end up in the pocket of the contractors. He said the leakages occur because projects that should have been implemented by university communities were being awarded to external contractors.
He lamented that despite the pendency of an agreement with the Federal Government signed in 1992, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), students unions and others that should have been monitoring disbursement and expenditure of funds in tertiary institutions failed to carry out their responsibilities, thereby making it easy for corruption to be perpetuated.
Falana said based on the 1992 agreement, the Federal Government was compelled to enact the Tertiary Education Trust Fund Act, which established TETFUND as an intervention agency charged with managing, disbursing and monitoring the education tax to public tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
He said TETFUND announced the commencement of activities to kick-start the 2017 disbursement of N213 billion to the tertiary institutions.
“Neither ASUU nor any of the campus unions monitored the disbursement of the funds. Also, how many companies are paying two per cent of their annual profit to support our university system?
“If TETFUND can disburse N213 billion in one year, it is my view that if the education tax is well managed, it will go a long way in addressing the crisis of underfunding of our tertiary institutions,” he said.
Falana suggested that incessant industrial action by the unions would not be necessary if the unions had enforced the agreement, particularly the monitoring of the use of the funds.
He also noted that following the change in the management of the Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB), its Registrar, Prof Ish’haq Oloyede recently paid N5billion to the (Treasury Single Account (TSA), being money realised from the sale of admission forms to applicants last year.
“While on the other hand, university administrators have not accounted for the money realised from the sale of post-jamb examination forms,” Falana noted.
He added: “It is high time ASUU established a committee for the purpose of monitoring the management of public funds in the universities, the collection of the two per cent education tax by all registered companies in the country and the disbursement of fund to universities by TETFUND.
“Unless the public funds allocated to the universities are judiciously spent by the management , it is morally indefensible on the part of ASUU to continue to embark on industrial action to press for adequate funding of tertiary institutions and improved working conditions of the staff.”
Nkemdinim, in the 58-page report, said grand corruption in federal universities included “unfair allocation of grades; contract inflation, truncation of staff salaries on the pay roll; employment of unqualified staff; Senator Dino Melaye’s certificate scandal saga; examination malpractices; sexual harassment; issuance of results for expelled student to graduate; while sales of university certificates for undeserving persons have neither been thoroughly investigated nor punished.”
According to the report, “Other cases of corruption being covered up are: falsification of results; extortion of students; late payment of money due to staff for examination invigilation, excess workload and other allowances; and collection of bribes before signing official documents; intimidation and victimisation by superior officials; promoting preferred staff ahead of others who are equally or more qualified; and deliberately delaying the progress of Ph.D candidates because of departmental politics.
”We also found cases of lecturers writing students’ research projects and extorting fees from them; students fronting for lecturers to extort from other students; stealing and misappropriation of university funds; falsification of age; diversion of funds; and ghost workers syndrome; impersonation during examinations; forgery; and diverting internally-generated revenues into personal account.
“We also found several unresolved cases of diversion of university funds for personal use; embezzlement, mismanagement, unmerited allocation of hostel accommodation, discrimination in the allocation of staff quarters; certificate/transcript racketeering; improper use of university assets; inflation of cost of contracts, award of contracts to friends or relatives; and admission racketeering by non-staff”, Nkemdinim said.
She lamented that impunity for corruption in the university system has negatively affected the governance of federal universities and the quality of education received by the students.
“Most of the time lecturers miss classes and they never get punished. Getting a job in the universities is not the question of merit but of connections. Ghost workers syndrome is a problem in the universities”, she noted.
According to the report, “there have been cases where staff have used their official status to prevent the administration of justice in their units/departments; universities sometimes recruit mediocre or totally unsuitable candidates in preference to candidates of high merit. Most of the time when non-academic staff are not at their duty posts they never get punished. People with questionable degrees/qualifications paid bribes to get into the university system. In several cases, people are employed by federal universities through connection with political authorities.”
The report, used UNILAG and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria as case studies, listed other corrupt acts as: “Bribery to get a position; NYSC mobilisation before graduation; facilitating fake transcripts; short-circuiting employment procedures; auctioning university assets without authorisation; politicised disciplinary action; inflated contracts, admission irregularities and racketeering, result falsification; nepotism; sexual harassment; examination question leakages, abetting examination malpractices; and deliberate poor invigilation of examinations.”
The report read in part: “The focus on federal universities is important because the Federal Government of Nigeria is the custodian of tertiary education at the national level …”
The report advised university authorities to publish and blacklist individuals guilty of corrupt practices. It suggested total adherence to provisions designed to ensure the proper conservation and use of resources entrusted to staff in the performance of their jobs in the university’s condition of service.
It further recommended that unions and other stakeholders should be involved in deciding how funds are to be used for projects in the universities, as well as in developing sanctions for staff who do not report corrupt practices.
