The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has called on Nigerian students and the general public to reject the federal government’s proposed plan to abolish the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund). The union expressed concern over what it described as a “dangerous and unpatriotic” tax policy embedded in the Nigeria Tax Bill 2024, which aims to redirect TETFund’s financial resources to the newly established Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND). According to ASUU, this move is designed to weaken public institutions in favor of private universities owned by influential political figures.

Speaking in an interview with journalists, the Owerri Zonal Coordinator of ASUU, Prof. Dennis Aribodor, emphasized TETFund’s critical role in Nigeria’s public tertiary education. He stated that for over a decade and a half, the agency has been the backbone of infrastructural development, postgraduate training, and research capacity building in public institutions. Aribodor highlighted a section of the proposed tax bill, which stipulates that TETFund would receive only 50% of the education levy in 2025 and 2026, further reducing its share in subsequent years until it is entirely defunded by 2030.

“This is alarming and should not be allowed,” Aribodor said, recalling the agency’s history and the efforts by ASUU to establish it in response to the economic hardships of the 1980s. He explained that the Education Tax Fund (ETF), which later evolved into TETFund, was conceived as a solution to the chronic underfunding of public education caused by structural adjustment policies of past governments. Aribodor noted that TETFund’s contributions have transformed public universities, funding critical projects and reducing industrial disputes, which previously paralyzed tertiary education in the country.

Aribodor described the proposed redirection of funds to NELFUND as “a technical way of killing public education.” He warned that abolishing TETFund would undermine decades of progress in the public tertiary education sector, setting it back by many years. “This is comparable to killing a parent to keep a newborn alive,” he argued, insisting that such a policy would destabilize public universities and worsen the already dire state of education in Nigeria. Aribodor urged the National Assembly to reconsider the proposal and called on stakeholders, especially students, to unite in defense of TETFund and the future of public education in the country.