Rep. Farouk Lawan, Chairman, House Committee on Education, says the nine new universities recently established by the Federal Government are illegal.Addressing newsmen in Abuja, Lawan said that while the Federal Government needed to establish more universities to cater for students' access to tertiary institutions, it did not follow due process.
"The Federal Government established nine new universities. We had issues with it because we believed that given the neglect of the existing universities by the government, that perhaps more resources should be committed to them rather than embarking on the construction of new ones.
"This is an issue I want the National Universities Commission to handle. You talked about the issue of illegal degree awarding institutions but unfortunately, you did not act indifferently, because you went ahead and created nine universities illegally.
"I would have thought that the law backing them up should have preceded their establishment, rather than their establishment coming before the legal instrument.''
Lawan said that the 27 federal universities that existed before the new ones, had a budget allocation of N11 billion, which meant that each university got N250 million yearly.
He said that the amount was low, adding: "where the government is providing only N250 million in a year to an institution like ABU Zaria or university of Ibadan, then I do not see the priority of going to establish another university.
"Given the level of personnel cost and the level of overhead that would go into these universities, one would have thought that a better approach would be to commit more resources to the existing universities so that they can expand in the capacity for admitting more students.''
"The Federal Government established nine new universities. We had issues with it because we believed that given the neglect of the existing universities by the government, that perhaps more resources should be committed to them rather than embarking on the construction of new ones.
"This is an issue I want the National Universities Commission to handle. You talked about the issue of illegal degree awarding institutions but unfortunately, you did not act indifferently, because you went ahead and created nine universities illegally.
"I would have thought that the law backing them up should have preceded their establishment, rather than their establishment coming before the legal instrument.''
Lawan said that the 27 federal universities that existed before the new ones, had a budget allocation of N11 billion, which meant that each university got N250 million yearly.
He said that the amount was low, adding: "where the government is providing only N250 million in a year to an institution like ABU Zaria or university of Ibadan, then I do not see the priority of going to establish another university.
"Given the level of personnel cost and the level of overhead that would go into these universities, one would have thought that a better approach would be to commit more resources to the existing universities so that they can expand in the capacity for admitting more students.''
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