TheCable

Nasiru el-Rufai, governor of Kaduna state, has suspended plans of the immediate past administration of Mukhtar Yero to establish a new university in Kafachan.

He announced the suspension to officials of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) who paid him a courtesy visit on Tuesday.

El-Rufai said the project was suspended because of inadequate funds.

“The state government has no money to establish a new university; the previous administration which initiated the plan, did not make any provision for it in the 2015 budget,” he said.

The governor said he would rather deploy the lean resources available to his government into the upgrading of existing facilities at the Kaduna state university, in line with global standard.

He noted that infrastructure and learning facilities at the university were inadequate, forcing the institution to send some of its students elsewhere to complete their studies.

El-Rufa’i said the focus of his administration was to expand the institution’s academic programmes and make the university rate among the best in the country.

Earlier, Suleiman Bogoro, executive secretary of TETFUND, said the Fund had provided more than N6 billion to the state university in the last one year.

He, however, assured the governor that the agency would continue to fund the construction of infrastructure and provision of learning facilities in tertiary institutions in the state.