Case A: You sleep in your house, someone pumps oil in your backyard, sells it, and credits you $10 million at the end of the month. The economic activity for the production of the “finished goods”, in this case, crude oil at this phase, is $1 million. That $1m is the GDP – value added, created through the production of goods and services.

Case B: Another person cultivates palm trees, employs many people to weed, trim, harvest, process to palm oil, soaps, sells, ships, etc. The person deposits $2 million at the end of the month. But the economic activity for that translation is worth $5 million because many things are done within the area, generating massive economic activities. Here, there are jobs.

Have that in mind as you look at the GDP map of countries. Africa could be making money on natural resources but we are missing a lot on the economic activities. That explains why our GDP remains very small. We belong to Case A and account for a small component of the global economy.

I write to support ASUU as it continues to battle for the future of Nigerian youth. Yet, I want to also tell ASUU that Nigeria is not financially capable to accept some of its demands because Nigeria does not have the funds. We all want our professors, teachers, etc to earn decent wages. We also want the funding of our universities. But the fact is this: Nigeria does not have the funds. And even strikes will not change that state in the short-term.

University strikes decimate local economies. My local government has two universities; we know the contributions those schools provide to the local economy. When students are in town, okada boys have jobs, mama put has buyers, etc. In short, every student could be contributing at least N1,000 to the local economy (food – N800, transport – N200, etc). Multiply this conservative N1,000 by tens of thousands of students, workers and associates, you will see why every community wants a university. With strikes, those opportunities dry up.

ASUU will likely return in weeks since the government understands the political risk as national election arrives. Also, the labour union is planning to join in solidarity. Yet, that return is nothing but a pause of a deep problem which must be fixed.

The current structure we have in the Nigerian university system is not viable. A major tax reform can help so that the private sector and individuals can help support the schools. And besides any tax reform to boost funding, the organization of our school system must evolve. The Ivy League club could soon hit $1 trillion; Nigerian schools can at least hit $50 billion.

The Ivies added $48.6 billion to their endowments this year, and new estimates show their collective endowment could exceed $1 trillion by 2048. Organized as charitable non-profits, the Ivy League is a cash generation machine. Their collective endowment now stands at approximately $192.6 billion, which is up from $144 billion in 2020.

I do believe and continue to posit that Nigeria should thrive to consolidate many federal universities. In Southeast, we can have UNN with many federal universities in Southeast as campuses. For example, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umuahia can be the agriculture school of this new UNN. You do the same across the nation.

Sure, I know that it would not happen because no one would like his or her alma mater to disappear. But one day, whether we like it or not, poor funding will force most schools to collapse and they will now beg some bigger ones to absorb them!

The Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) has thrown its weight behind a planned protest by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) over the ongoing strike by university lecturers under the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, had, on July 1, said that the NLC would embark on a nationwide protest if the strike persists.

The strike by ASUU has been on for almost five months since it began on February 14.

Other workers’ unions across the nation’s universities hav also embarked on similar industrial actions, grounding completely both academic and non-academic activities across public ivory towers nationwide.

Comment on Social Feeds

Comment : Cutting down on what the government spends on itself can fund ASUU many times over in my opinion. The problem seems to be how the government places education on the lower rungs of the ladder.

My Response: “Cutting down on what the government spends on itself can fund ASUU many times over in my opinion. ” – it can go both ways. Nigeria needs to trim dozens of our federal universities and cut the number of VCs, provosts, etc. The same problem you saw in government is also in schools. UNN can operate MOUA Umuahia as a campus for agriculture, etc. By the time you are done, Southeast will have only 2 federal universities under two VCs, etc. 

The cost you will save from official cars, duplication of registrars, etc can go into learning, research, etc. I worked on that for Rwanda and converted most of the universities into one leadership, saving $millions. Me with one of the ministers here . Today, most of their funds go into learning and research and not buying official cars for VCs, provosts, etc.

Comment 2: TETF was originally Nigeria University system idea ?. What’s happened to it?

My Response 2: The problem is not just having more money. It is having a reformed structure to make use of money. Nigeria has created more than 20 new federal universities since 2010 when it could have expanded the existing ones. Doing that would have saved more VCs, provosts, official cars, etc. That saved funds would go into learning, research, etc. That is the problem. Today, you have a federal university with 1,700 students with all the officers in a university. The ROC (return of capital) is poor for the Nigerian people.

Comment 3: Sorry sir but you are wrong….DEAD WRONG! Nigeria has the funds

My Response 3: life is at levels. South Africa’s budget is close to $152 billion for 59 million people; Nigeria’s budget is $42 billion for 210 million people. I know that Chinedu will not understand but when you look at things at bigger angle, even if Nigeria is super-prudent, it cannot support 210m with $42b at the same level SA can support 59m with $152B.

But I do not blame your comment “dead wrong” – you have been reading that as a kid and it is hard to think otherwise. But get this from me, your nation is one of the poorest per capita in the world.

Fixing Nigeria’s University Funding Paralysis