Tunji Wusu –
According to Professor Abubakar Adamu Rasheed, the former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, Nigeria needs to establish around 500 universities is required to accommodate the country’s population of over 220 million.
Rasheed dismissed the criticism leveled at the Federal Government for sanctioning the establishment of more institutions as ignorance or malfeasance. Given the amount of applicants who take the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) each year, he claimed that the 261 universities that are now in the nation are insufficient.
Speaking during a brief ceremony in Abuja when he turned over the Commission’s leadership to Mr. Chris Maiyaki, the Deputy Executive Secretary for Administration, Rasheed said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had given his resignation the proper approval. In the interim, until a permanent leader is named, the Permanent Secretary, Mr. Andrew David Adejo, instructed him to turn over to the Deputy Executive Secretary, Administration.
Rasheed made it clear that the reason for his resignation, which came two years into his second tenure, was personal and that he wanted to go back to Bayero University Kano so that he could continue his teaching career there. He added that he had always wanted to be a professor emeritus and that this was the reason he wanted to finish his career at the institution because you cannot be considered a professor emeritus unless you have attained it.
The Academic Staff Union of institutions’ (ASUU) top brass has continuously resisted what they refer to as Nigeria’s “proliferation of universities,” especially those founded by state governments throughout the nation.
But the former NUC executive secretary highlighted that everyone has the right to education, not only the wealthy few. Given that barely 1% of the country’s population is now enrolled in Nigerian universities, he thought that new institutions needed to be established in order to close the wide gap in admittance for applicants.
Rasheed thanked Muhammadu Buhari, the previous president, for nominating him in 2016 and again for a second term. In order to continue enhancing the standard of teaching and learning in the Nigerian university system, he pleaded with the staff of the Commission to provide his successor with the same assistance.
Mr. Chris Maiyaki, the interim executive secretary, promised to collaborate with the administration of the Commission to make sure that graduates of the university system can compete well with their counterparts throughout the world.
