TheCable

Tope Fasua, a former presidential candidate, says total ownership of tertiary education institutions by the federal government is a colonial idea. 

At the federal executive meeting (FEC) on Wednesday, Clem Agba, minister of state for budget and national planning, accused state governors of giving more thought to flyovers and airports than to improving conditions in rural areas.

The minister blamed the governors for the high rate of poverty in the country.

Reacting to the development on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme, on Thursday, Fasua said the government should devolve more power to the states in order to tackle poverty at the sub-national level.

He cited total ownership of some universities by the federal government as a situation that has mitigated the growth of intellectual capacity in youths, leading to poverty.

“The federal government has to take their hands off a few things. Total ownership of a university by the federal government is a colonial idea,” he said.

“It’s a colonial and military hangover. When the colonial powers were going to leave, they felt they should leave the universities for us, so they set up the University College Ibadan, affiliated to the University of London. 

“They felt we needed another one and gave us the University of Ife and so on. The idea that a federal government should be running universities directly and creating more of them in fact subsumes the intellectual capacity that those universities should have.

“In federalism, especially the one we copy which is that of the United States, there is no federally run university in the US.

“However, that doesn’t mean the federal government cannot give grants to universities. We don’t need more than TETFUND to take care of universities.

“We don’t need budgeting for universities direct. If I had my way, professors should be thinking of how to buy over those universities.”