The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Students’ Matters, Sunday Ashefon, has urged the Students Union Government and the National Association of Nigerian Students in varsities across the country to take up the task of quizzing the management on how school funds are appropriated.

Ashefon said the reason why certain provosts, vice chancellors, bursars and school administrators end up in the custody of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission over fraud after leaving office was because people are scared to ask questions.

The presidential aide disclosed this to PUNCH Online in Abuja on Tuesday.

His concerns come on the heels of recent invitations by the EFCC to some senior officials in the varsity system.

On June 5, 2018, the commission arraigned some top officials of the Federal School of Medical Laboratory Technology, Plateau before Justice Y. G. Dakwak of the State High Court sitting in Jos on 15 counts bordering on conspiracy and diversion of funds to the tune of N359m.

Similarly, on March 29, 2023, the EFCC arraigned a former vice-chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, and the bursar, at the Federal High Court in Kaduna for over N1bn fraud.

A former VC of the National Open University of Nigeria, and some other staff were also on the radar of the EFCC on May 13,
2024 for allegedly diverting over N275 million from the school bank accounts.

The EFCC told a Federal High Court in Abuja that a property in Kaduna, among others, was suspected to be proceeds of crime linked to a former NOUN Bursar, and others who were under investigation for conspiracy and stealing of public funds.

But Ashefon insisted that people cannot continue to be quiet over such ignoble acts being perpetrated by people appointed to oversee activities in the nation’s ivory towers.

He said, “I think the Students’ Union Governments and NANS should also have a mandate to check the school management. Today, you see vice-chancellors, rectors and provosts end up in the EFCC after they leave office. Why? This is because money meant to develop our campuses has been diverted to personal accounts. We must ask them questions.

“It has got to a stage where students and youth leaders need to start asking the management some questions. The problem between the Federal government and ASUU before President Bola Tinubu came on board used to be over IPPIS. Today, the lecturers have been removed from IPPIS.

“Again, there used to be a sharing formula for deduction on internally generated revenues at every university. The management of the university would take 60 per cent while the FG would take 40 per cent of the IGR deduction. But when this president came on board, he expressed concerns over the poor funding of the education sector and students receiving lectures in dilapidated buildings.

“He consequently called a meeting and said henceforth the 40 per cent deduction from the IGR of the institution should be stopped. I want to appeal to our students and youths to support this government. I am saying this because the cabal and bad elements in our society have seen what Asiwaju is trying to do in Nigeria by engaging and opening doors for young ones to participate in inclusive governance.”