The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has claimed that despite allocations for intervention funds for tertiary institutions, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has stopped executing projects for public universities in Nigeria.
The union said the apex bank stopped carrying out any project in public universities in 2014 after the tenure of the now-Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. Sanusi was CBN governor between June 2009 and February 2014.
ASUU President, Emmanuel Osodeke, made this startling revelation on the Sunday edition of Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, a socio-political programme aired on Channels Television.
Osodeke said, “There are many companies today which they call cash cows; they have some reserve money for community development. CBN, NNPC and what have you.
“For a very long time that we have been having CBN governors, we never knew there was fund there that could be used in the university until the Emir of Kano, Sanusi, came in and decided to use the money the way it should be used.
“There’s no federal university today that you don’t have a project done by Sanusi regime when he was CBN governor because the fund was there. The biggest building in my university is CBN, go to the University of Abuja, CBN; go to Jos, everywhere, for the four years he was there before he was sacked but since another one came in, have you seen anything done in the university by CBN? Zero.”
Osodeke said if Godwin Emefiele and Olayemi Cardoso followed the footsteps of Sanusi, there wouldn’t be any infrastructural deficit in any public university in Nigeria.
“If what Sanusi did when he was CBN governor was followed by other CBN governors, we would not be talking about projects in universities but the next one came and that is the end.
“There’s a new person there now and nobody is talking about that fund again; they call it (the fund) Community Social Responsibility, it’s there.
“So, we should ask you if the CBN governor is watching me: how did Emir Sanusi generate that money to put projects in all the federal and many state universities in this country within four years? How come Emefiele couldn’t put one anywhere? How come the present one has not even thought about that? How come all those who were there have not to do anything?
“He (Cardoso) is a year in office, has he done anything? Have you seen any project in any university?” he queried.
