By Comfort Olayinka
A civil society organisation, the Save Humanity Advocacy Centre (SHAC) has called on Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities who failed to defend their 2025 budget to do so ahead of the passage of the Appropriation Bill.
SHAC’s counsel comes on the heels of a recent media report accusing the National Assembly Committees on Tertiary Education of demanding a minimum of N50 million from the federally-owned varsities to pass their budget proposal.
Recall that last week, the House through its spokesman, Hon. Akin Rotimi, dismissed the media report, adding that the budget defence sessions have been carried out with an air of transparency and openness.
Wading into the controversy, the coordinator of the group, Mary Johnson challenged the affected Vice Chancellors to disclose the identity of those who made financial demands of them or forever keep their peace.
Addressing journalists on Tuesday, Mary noted that some revenue-generating agencies of government have appeared before the various committees to defend their budget without issues, wandering why university administrators would be the ones lawmakers would demand money from.
She said, “We have the Nigerian Customs Service, the Federal Inland Revenue Service and a host of others at the budget defence sessions. Some questioned and asked to go home and return with adequate information on their operations.
“In some cases, some heads of agencies apologised for the errors in their presentation and had to return on a later date. The question is, do these VCs have something they are hiding from Nigerians? How come they are the only ones accusing lawmakers of demanding bribes from them?”
That said, Johnson added that some VCs in the nation’s ivory towers share family relationships with their lecturers, stressing that it was not out of place for them to dodge the bullet that awaits them at screening exercises, given the established cases of sexual harassment and other forms of irresponsible behaviours of their staff members.
“Do not forget that some of these lecturers are married to the daughters of VCs, registrars and what have you. Some of these lecturers are facing allegations of sexual harassment and the VCs have done nothing to discipline them or have them prosecuted.
“Are we there shocked that they are shying away from telling Nigerians how they spent their 2024 allocations and what they intend to achieve in 2025? She asked even as called on Nigerians to give the parliament the support it needs to succeed.
“The parliament is the symbol of our democracy. At times, we need to cut them some slacks. It is painful that every time, our lawmakers are the target of frivolous allegations. A lot of shady deals take place in MDAs but no one cares about this. Without the parliament, there is virtually no democracy,” she concluded.
