By DAVID LAWANI, Abuja
The Executive Secretary of TETFUND, Sunny Echono, has lamented the enormous bills, especially electricity, incurred by universities nationwide.
However, he disclosed that efforts are underway to ensure that public universities become entrepreneurship centres for a productive sector for all.
Echono made this disclosure yesterday in Lagos during an interaction with senior journalists.
He said it is time to strengthen universities so that they can serve as hubs for entrepreneurs and, as such, graduates can contribute to the productive sector of society.
Recently, one of Nigeria’s first-generation universities, the University of Benin (UNIBEN), was engulfed in a serious crisis over monthly electricity bills totalling over N200m, which allegedly led to the shutdown of academic activities.
That was after students took to the streets in protest, demanding that the lack of power had deprived them of their focus on studies.
Also, the situation was similar at the nation’s premier ivory tower, the University of Ibadan.
Investigations showed that institutions, having been categorised into ‘Band A’, are struggling to cope with high electricity tariffs without receiving a commensurate provision of power.
According to findings, for instance, the University of Lagos (UNILAG) saw its monthly electricity bill surge from N180m to N300m. Reports showed that Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) faces a monthly bill of N300m.
Echono, who decried the vast bills, said, “Schools are dying because of electricity bills. Water, sewage, security, cleaning, and other things may be fuelling the costs.
“In UniLag, everything they get is about N600m for one year, and NEPA alone is something in one month. So, you can imagine, where do you start? They are even more privileged because there is a huge business community in Lagos.
”So, again, that is something we are trying to change our orientation about. We are trying to wean them from total dependence on the government.
“We should look within their resources, but unfortunately, UniLag doesn’t have land. Many of our universities do have prime lands. They can go into partnerships in agriculture and manufacturing. There are many companies, including world players.
“And that is what we have seen in Rwanda, where major companies build factories within campuses because they want conveyor belts for people who want to do well in life.
“They have people who improve their products as students. In the university, you can say, oh, this particular phone has some defects. Let us provide new solutions. This product will become what they will go and manufacture. So, they need to partner more with the graduates.
“Many of the universities in the UK attract funding. Harvard is still complaining about the $30bn endowment that they get. It is because of their partnership and collaboration. And the activities of their alumni.
“So, we even establish career centres for our institution now. They also begin to help the students know how to get jobs, become entrepreneurs, and leverage the activities of their formal alumni community. And also know where the opportunities are. And that is part of the innovation we are trying to do.
“So, we can also convert many of them to meaningful things. People don’t just go to universities and want to get certificates without jobs. When you finish school abroad, you will be thinking of a business. You are thinking of an enterprise that you want to do.
“And only those who are not successful will want to go into government as a last resort, not the other way round. And we need to change that.”
Echono explained what he thinks the government can do to address the huge gap of challenges faced by universities, and he wants the universities to be competitive.
He said, “First, we want our institutions to be competitive. So, we are modernising facilities. You will see a whole lot of them. Between now and December, we will be commissioning hundreds of projects.
”We will announce them to the papers very soon. TETFUND has already been known to do that. The thing is that I am an architect. You must be touring our campuses with something other than small buildings, which were guided by our internal process.
