News Editor
From Dooshima Terkura, Makurdi
The Academic Staff Union of Universities Nsukka Zone (ASUU-NSUKKA Zone) has called on Nigerians to reject vehemently, the Nigeria Tax Bill, (NTB) 2024 saying such bill is aimed at killing the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), a life saver for tertiary institutions in the country.
ASUU-Nsukka Zone comprises of the Benue State University, Makurdi (ASUU-BSU), Enugu State University of Technology, Enugu (ASUU-ESUT), Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi (ASUU-FUAM), Federal University, Lokoja (ASUU-FULokoja), Federal University, Wukari (ASUU-FUWukari), Kogi State University, Anyigba (ASUU-KSU) and University of Nigeria, Nsukka (ASUU-UNN),
The Zonal Coordinator, ASUU-Nsukka Zone, Comrade Raphael Amokaha, who made the call at a press conference in Makurdi, the Benue state capital, said the NTB, as proposed by the government, would be catastrophic for Nigerian tertiary education as some of the universities will either not exist or at best will be glorified secondary schools without TETFUND.
Amokaha, who was flanked by union Leaders of universities from the zone, observed that the Nigeria Tax Bill, 2024 is nothing but “A bill to end the hope of Tertiary Education for children of the Nigerian working class.”
He said ASUU-Nsukka Zone and indeed ASUU National are horrified by the contents of the bill with regards to the Education tax, also called development levy and its implication for TETFUND.
“The bill proposes that education tax shall cease by 2030, five years from now. This education tax that government has proposed to end by 2030 is the source of funds for the tertiary education trust fund, TETFUND.
“Section 59(3) of the Nigeria Tax Bill (NTB) 2024, as proposed, specifically states that only 50% of the Development Levy would be made available to TETFund in 2025 and 2026 while NITDA, NASENI, and Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) would share the remaining percentages.
“TETFund will also receive “66.7% in 2027, 2028 and 2029 years of assessment” but “0% in 2030 year of assessment and thereafter”.
“This simply means that by 2030, all the proceeds from the Development Levy will be channelled into NELFUND, an agency that has not firmly taken root yet if it ever will, while TETFUND will be strangulated to death.
“It must be stated here very clearly that taking any percentage out of the Education Tax (Development Levy) to service another agency not known to the TETFund Act 2011 is illegal.”
He explained, that TETFUND was wholly a creation of ASUU when in 1992, under the leadership of Comrade Attahiru Jega, the union had a prolonged strike action during the government of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida.
To resolve the protracted struggle, according to him, the government asked the union for a solution on how to fund the demands of the union particularly with regards to infrastructural development and staff development to which the union suggested for an Education Tax Fund (ETF) which the government accepted. “So TETFUND as it is known today was birthed as the education tax fund (ETF).”
He noted that since creation, the accomplishments of TETFUND cannot be overemphasized as 80 to 95 percent of the developments observed in many new and old universities namely, FULafia, BSU, NSUK and UNN, UniJos have been substantially derived from TETFUND funding. He added that “without TETFUND, these universities will not exist or at best will be glorified secondary schools with carrying capacities of not more than a thousand students each.”
The zone insisted that with TETFUND currently providing intervention to 244 public tertiary institutions in Nigeria, it is however intriguing why anyone will want to kill it by channeling its statutory funds to NELFUND which has a very different mandate, student loans.
“NELFUND is charged with the responsibility of giving students’ loans while TETFUND has the mandate to develop infrastructure and build capacity. The student loan is clearly designed in such a manner that less than half of Nigerian students will benefit from the scheme and its sustainability has not been tested in anyway, whereas any lecture room, laboratory or clinic erected by TETFUND will serve all the students.”
They warned that “This plan to kill a development agency in preference to a poorly thought through, untested loan scheme is illogical, myopic, and anti-people, especially the middle class and the lower strata of society.
Amokaha therefore called on the Nigeria Government to rather be improving on the operations and sustainability of the agency and not planning to emasculate or abrogate it.
He said ASUU has resolved not to stand by and watch the denigration and obliteration of TETfund, an agency that has discharged its mandate decently in the last 30 years adding that abrogating the TETFund Act 2011, by design or default, will be a great disservice not just to education but to Nigeria as a nation.
The union urged the National Assembly, especially the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to do all within their capacity to protect TETFund from being abrogated under the Nigeria Tax Bill 2024 and also visitors to state universities, who also have polytechnics and colleges of Education to rise to the defence of their institutions against this new existential threat.
He said “Members of House of Reps and the Senate must remember that they owe their constituents this responsibility of ensuring that their youth can attend higher institutions without the threat of exorbitant, unaffordable fees in either the public or private institutions for that will be the cost of killing TETFUND.”
