2025 Education Budget: Allegations of Bribery Baseless, Says Hon. Fulata

The Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on University Education, Hon. Abubakar Hassan Fulata, has dismissed an allegation by an online medium that lawmakers demanded a certain amount of money as a condition for the passage of the 2025 budget for the education sector.

Hon. Abubakar Hassan Fulata, who is also the Lead Chairman of House Committees on Education, said the allegation was designed to undermine the efforts of the lawmakers, particularly his committee, to improve the standard of education in the country.

In an interview with journalists, Fulata said that ordinarily, he wouldn’t have commented on the allegation from Premium Times, but he decided to respond to avoid misleading the general public about the activities of the committee and the 10th House of Representatives.

Fulata said due to the advocacy of the legislators against the inclusion of tertiary institutions in the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), President Bola Tinubu graciously removed universities and all tertiary institutions from IPPIS. According to him, IPPIS is “anti-intellectual, anti-academics and retrogressive.”

He said that following the absence of councils for universities and other tertiary institutions nearly a year after the inauguration of the present government, the House of Representatives considered the effects and adopted his motion urging the President to constitute the councils. He said shortly after the House’s resolution, the President constituted the councils.

Fulata noted that the House Committee on University Education had, in 2024, carried out an oversight visit to all federal universities under his committee’s supervision, except Federal University Gusau, Zamfara State, whose vice chancellor not only blocked the legislators from accessing the school but also failed to provide documents regarding the budget performance of previous years (2022 to 2024) and the 2025 budget proposal. He said the oversight visit was aimed at getting a clearer picture of the progress and challenges of the universities.

According to him, the management of almost all the universities visited complained seriously about the hike in electricity tariffs.

“Some of the universities were paying about N100 million as electricity tariffs every month, and we thought this cannot help our tertiary institutions. I moved a motion on this issue, and the House came up with the resolution urging for a downward review of electricity tariffs or removal of these institutions from Band A group of electricity tariffs. Mr. President again listened to our appeal and approved a 50 percent subsidy on electricity tariffs for universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, and all tertiary institutions and hospitals,” Fulata said.

He appealed to media practitioners to always cross-check the information at their disposal before disseminating it.

Regarding the allegation by Premium Times that a meeting “initially scheduled for 10 a.m. that day, was delayed until 3 p.m. due to behind-the-scenes discussions between lawmakers and some vice-chancellors,” Fulata said the committee had a budget defense meeting for the National University Commission and vice-chancellors of universities on January 15th, 2025, which was Armed Forces Remembrance Day, not the date and time stated by the medium.

He said the budget defense, which took place at the House’s temporary chamber, was open to the general public and media, as there was no executive session or closed-door meeting. The meeting was concluded before another committee, the House Committee on Water Resources, commenced its budget defense meeting in the same venue at 2 p.m.

Fulata, who was the Chairman of the House Committee on Rules and Business in the 9th National Assembly, said it is ridiculous for anyone or any group to claim that he is demanding a kobo as a condition to approve a budget proposal.

He said if the President, despite his tight schedule, could appear before a joint session of the National Assembly to present the Appropriation Bill, he sees no reason why heads of MDAs would find it difficult to defend their budget proposals.

“Similarly, if the Ministers of Education, the Executive Secretary of NUC, and other parastatals under the Ministry, as well as over 50 universities, could come and defend their budget proposals before the Committee, there is no reason why the Vice-Chancellors of the University of Lagos, Federal University Gusau, and Army University Bi’u should refuse to come and defend their budget proposals. Instead, they have resorted to blackmail, smear campaigns, and sponsorship of public outcry against the Committee.

“Interestingly, the University of Lagos and University of Ibadan are part of the universities indicted by the Auditor-General of the Federation for financial malfeasance and refused to appear before the House Committee on Public Accounts to answer to the audit queries. The Committee has placed the matter before the Leadership of the House, insisting that the House should not approve the budgets of all institutions whose chief executives refused to come and defend their budgets,” Fulata said.