Reps Address Allegations of ₦480 Million Demand from Universities for 2025 Budget Approval

Abubakar Hassan Fulata, the chairman of the House of Representatives’ Committee on University Education, has refuted claims that lawmakers sought bribes totaling ₦480 million in order to authorized funding for certain federal universities and other postsecondary educational establishments in the 2025 budget.
He claimed that the only goal of those disseminating these reports is to thwart the lawmakers’ efforts.
Since there was no executive session or private meeting, Fulata defended the lawmakers by stating that the budget defense, which was held in the House temporary chamber, was accessible to the public and media.
An online news outlet reported that certain National Assembly lawmakers had established a bribery scheme that targeted federal universities and other higher education institutions across the nation.

The report claims that lawmakers are threatening and intimidating university heads into paying ₦8 million apiece in order to approve their budgetary allocations for 2025.

Senators and members of the House of Representatives are allegedly involved in the extortion scheme.

In order to approve their budgets, the lawmakers allegedly demanded funding from universities through the House Committee on University Education and the Senate Committee on Tertiary Education and TETFund.

Fulata, however, rejected the allegations completely.

Instead, he contended, the legislators have been leading the charge to make life easier for the universities by offering suggestions regarding their conduct.

He went on to say that members of the Green Chamber conducted oversight visits to every federal university under his committee’s jurisdiction, with the exception of Federal University Gusau in Zamfara State, where the vice-chancellor denied the lawmakers entry and neglected to produce documentation pertaining to the budget performance of the previous years (2022–2024) and the budget proposal for 2025.

According to him, President Bola Tinubu agreed to remove universities and other tertiary institutions from the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) because of the legislators’ opposition to its inclusion, arguing that it is “anti-intellectual, anti-academics, and retrogressive overall.”

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He claims that the House of Representatives considered and passed a motion urging Mr. President to form the councils because universities and other tertiary institutions lacked councils almost a year after the current government took office. The President promptly complied.

He clarified that in 2024, the House Committee on University Education conducted oversight visits to all federal universities under its purview, with the exception of Federal University Gusau in Zamfara State, whose vice chancellor not only denied lawmakers access to the institution but also neglected to produce documentation pertaining to the organization’s fiscal performance in 2022–2024 and the budget proposal for 2025. According to him, the oversight visit was intended to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the universities’ challenges and progress.

He claims that nearly every university he visited had management that voiced serious complaints about the increase in electricity rates.

We believed that this could not benefit our postsecondary institutions because some universities were paying roughly N100 million in monthly electricity tariffs. After I made a motion on the matter, the House passed a resolution calling for either a downward review of the electricity tariff or the removal of these institutions from the Band A group of a tariff.

Fulata stated, “Mr. President once more heard our plea and authorized a 50% electricity tariff subsidy for universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, and all tertiary institutions and hospitals.”

According to him, the National Universities Commission and university vice chancellors met in public on January 15, 2025, the day after Armed Forces Remembrance Day, to discuss the committee’s budget defense.