Lecturers at the University of Abuja (UniAbuja) have urged the federal government to investigate the disappearance of N3 billion uncovered by a presidential visitation panel in June 2021.
The panel, chaired by Bujar Goni Aji and inaugurated on April 13, 2021, submitted a 342-page report examining the institution’s operations during the 2011–2015 and 2016–2020 academic sessions. The former Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, who received the report, identified irregularities in the 2019/2020 audit. The panel’s findings also highlighted that the UniAbuja governing council failed to address the noted discrepancies.
Some lecturers, speaking anonymously, expressed concerns about efforts by certain individuals to block further investigations into the panel’s findings. They also suggested a link between the recent appointment of Aisha Maikudi as the substantive Vice Chancellor and an alleged attempt to shield the activities of the previous governing council, which was chaired by her father, Sani Maikudi.
The Panel Report
According to the 2021 panel report, the governing council of the University of Abuja had introduced certain policy measures aimed at increasing the institution’s internally generated revenue (IGR). These measures included the upward revision of student fees and efforts to eliminate payment leakages.
To implement these measures, the council approved the hiring of Messrs Edutech Portal Solutions at a cost of N18,900,000. The purpose of this engagement was to deploy a student fees management portal, which was intended to prevent revenue losses caused by payment leakages.
Despite these initiatives, the panel discovered a significant discrepancy in the university’s revenue records. Based on the official enrollment figures and the approved student fees for the 2019/2020 academic session, the university had the capacity to generate a total of N4,869,033,958.
However, the amount reported by the bursary department was far lower, standing at only N1,654,896,918. This finding raised concerns about the accuracy of the revenue declaration and the effectiveness of the measures taken to block financial leakages.
