The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has further lent credence to the moral deficiency of Nigerian academics after a denigrating accusation of how those who are expected to be the paragon of virtue are found to be characters with palpable lack of scruple.
TETfund on Monday alleged that lecturers across the country’s public tertiary institutions are fond of diverting research grants to build homes, purchase cars, and indulge in other mundane activities..
TETFund’s director of research and development, Salihu Bakari, who disclosed the appaling situation in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Monday, averred huge sums of money made available to the individual lecturers, and sometimes their teams for research exercises, conference attendance, among others, are usually usually siphoned.
Bakari was spoke at a capacity building workshop organised by the agency for select staffers of research and development units from some of the public tertiary institutions, as parts of plans aimed at rejuvenating and re-positioning research activities in Nigerian tertiary institutions.
Bakari, while fielding questions from the participants on the introduction of ‘stringent’ conditions by the agency, especially in the allocation of grants, noted that the culture of impunity, breach of trust, and violations of funding agreements and rules of engagement by the lecturers is unimaginable.
He said: “It is sad to note that public funds made available to lecturers to conduct groundbreaking and demand-driven researches towards solving Nigeria’s socio-economic, and even political challenges, are misappropriated by those who are expected to be above board. I mean the beneficiaries of our grants.
“Through our recovery efforts, we had traced monies to houses built by lecturers with the public fund; there are cases of cars purchased with the money, without any research work done. And these are the people who would be accusing politicians of being corrupt.”
He also accused many of the institutions of committing worse crimes.
He noted TETFund’s new policy, introduction of strict conditions, and the process towards recovering public funds misappropriated by both the individual lecturers and institutions, will help to reduce malfeasance across various campuses.
Meanwhile, the agency also said the institutions and their lecturers of not capitalising on the huge funds available at the organisation for research activities and development of innovative programmes.
According to Bakari, the agency is shifting its focus from infrastructural development of the higher institutions to content development.
He said globally, high-flying academic institutions are no longer known to occupy large space but are recognised with their innovative ideas, rich content and advancements in technology.
However, he lamented that as much as the agency is trying to democratise access to its large pool of resources, “lecturers and their institutions are not coming forward to access the funds.”
“Today, we have decided to shift our focus and we have opened more doors of opportunities for both the lecturers and their institutions to attract funds to showcase their expertise. But what do we see? No one is coming for the funds.
“For instance, as at 2019, out of 220 public tertiary institutions that are eligible to access our funds for journal publications, only 26 applied. We now also have financial interventions in the areas of manuscript development, ICT development, basic research fund, national research fund, advocacy, among others.”