By now we are all used to ASUU strike. Hardly a year passes by without ASUU embarking on strike. Once in Jonathan’s tenure, ASUU went on a 6-month uninterrupted strike. I thought it was a record (in a democratic government) until it was shattered in Buhari’s tenure with a 9-month long strike in 2020. In fact, in the past 5 years, ASUU has been on strike one in every 4 days. That has to be a world record.
At the center of these strikes is tertiary education funding. It has always been about money. Currently ASUU wants 1.3 trillion Naira from the government. That’s a tenth of 2021’s national budget. And this is for ASUU alone, not the entire tertiary education, talk more of the whole education sector. Unfortunately, the government is tied down by agreements it cannot honor because some myopic people cut some shady deals in the past for political benefits.
However, are universities doing enough to self-fund themselves? I don’t think so. I think there is an over-dependence on the government (just like every other sector in Nigeria). If our vice chancellors are innovative enough, our universities will be well funded. There is no reason universities cannot run on a business model. Admittedly, there are a few attempts here and there but none goes deeper than the surface. For instance I know of Lion water and CEC guest house, but how much can these medium-scale businesses realistically fetch for an institution as big as University of Nigeria? Why don’t we have Lion oil and gas? How many universities in Nigeria have floated multi-billion naira businesses?
A video making the rounds recently drew my attention to an unexplored prospect for massive university self-funding. In the video, Mr Peter Obi who was addressing some University of Nigeria alumni explained how Oxford and Cambridge alumni (of which he is a member) pay between 500 to 1000 pounds each to the institution’s alumni endowment fund annually. He added that Oxford University now has about one billion pounds in this fund. Harvard has over 40 billion dollars in a similar fund. Each alumnus gets an alumni number on graduation and remains appended to the university in some way.
He compared this culture with UNN, his alma mater. UNN neither issues an alumni number (hence ‘loses contact’ with its graduates) nor does it own an alumni endowment fund. Logically, he explained, if 50 000 of UNN’s over 200 000 graduates pay 100 000 Naira per person annually to an alumni fund, the university will raise 5 billion Naira per year! That’s a lot of money.
In the 2019 national budget, 17 billion Naira was allocated to UNN by the FG. This means almost a third of this amount can effortlessly be raised from an alumni endowment fund. Out of this 17 billion, 371 million Naira was budgeted for capital expenditures (that is construction and renovation of infrastructure). That means UNN can raise 13 times this amount through its alumni if it chooses to. And believe me, UNN needs an infrastructural overhaul. Only a visit to students’ hostels will confirm this.
Peter Obi’s suggestion is very pragmatic and practicable. With the quality of UNN’s graduates, 100 000 naira per annum is infinitesimal. UNN is a pioneer university hence most south-eastern elites (politicians, businessmen, academicians etc) today probably passed through it. Mr Obi himself pledged to pay 20 million Naira per annum if such a fund is established (after all, he argued, why would he pay to foreign universities and not to his country). Imagine how much people like Obi Cubana (who probably isn’t UNN’s richest alumnus) will pay. The potential is there. UNN can raise 20 billion Naira per annum if it wants to.
The alumni body remains any institution’s greatest asset, but the least utilized. Developed countries believe in the power of community (‘igwe bu ike’, the strength is in the pack) and have since reaped its benefits. Many advancements in areas such as science and technology in these countries can be traced back to community. Nigerian universities can take a cue from them.