New Tax Bill: ASUU Urges N/Assembly’s Intervention to Stop Abrogation of TETFund

Onyebuchi Ezigbo and Kuni Tyessi in Abuja

The Academic Staff Union Of Universities (ASUU) has asked the National Assembly to prevent the scrapping of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) as proposed in the new Tax Bill.
This was as the TETfund has denied reports that it paid the sum of N325 million to the Adamawa State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), for running the party’s activities in the state between October 2023 and 2024.
In a statement titled: ‘Nigeria Tax Bill, 2024 and its potential danger to Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND)’, ASUU said that any move to abrogate the TETFund Act 2011, either by design or default, will be a great disservice not just to education but to Nigeria as a nation.
The statement signed by ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, urged the National Assembly, especially the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to do all within their capacity to protect TETFund from being abrogated under the Nigeria Tax Bill 2024.
 “The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has observed with keen interest the ongoing debate on the review of the tax system in the country under a proposed bill tagged, Nigeria Tax Bill, 2024, which is currently before the National Assembly.
“ASUU is alarmed by this dangerous and unpatriotic aspect of the proposed new tax regime to wit: that the Education Tax, called Development Levy, used to bankroll TETFund’s programmes should be ceded to the newly established Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND).”  
“It is our considered view that abrogating the TETFund Act 2011, by design or default, will be a great disservice not just to education but to Nigeria as a nation.
“As a result, ASUU is urging the National Assembly, especially the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to do all within their capacity to protect TETFund from being abrogated under the Nigeria Tax Bill 2024,” it said.
ASUU expressed concern that Section 59(3) of the Nigeria Tax Bill (NTB) 2024 which specifically states that only 50 per cent of the Development Levy would be made available to TETFund in 2025 and 2026 while NITDA, NASENI, and NELFUND would share the remaining percentages.
It said the Tax Bill also proposed that “TETFund will receive “66.7 percent in 2027, 2028 and 2029 years of assessment” but “0 per cent in 2030 year of assessment and thereafter.
“The far-reaching consequence of the new tax system is that from 2030, all funds generated from the Development Levy will be passed to NELFUND.
“ASUU finds this development not only worrisome but also inimical to our national development objective because of the potential danger to the survival of TETFund.

The union said that TETFund has become the backbone for infrastructural development, postgraduate training and research capacity building in Nigeria’s public tertiary institutions in the last one-and-half decades.

It said that, “Taking any percentage out of the Education Tax (Development Levy) to service another agency not known to the TETFund Act 2011 is illegal and should not be allowed to stand; giving zero allocation of Development Levy to TETFund as from 2030 is a technical way of abrogating the agency.”

It said the purported admonishment that TETFund should seek innovative ways of generating its funds is spurious and ill-advised, “because as a creation of an Act, the institution dies without the fund.”

According to ASUU, replacing TETFund with NELFUND is comparable to killing a parent to keep a newborn child alive; adding that it is unethical and against the principle of natural justice.

ASUU noted that the impact of TETFund on the campus of every tertiary institution in Nigeria is beyond description; adding that abrogating it will take public tertiary education many years back and undermine the modest gains in repositioning Nigerian universities for global reckoning and transformative development.

“ASUU has resolved not to stand by and watch the denigration or obliteration of TETfund, which represents a positive testament to our Union’s constructive engagements with Nigerian governments since 1992”.

In another development, APC Woman Leader in Adamawa, Mrs. Patricia Yakubu, had in a petition addressed to the National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, asserted that the TETFund doled out N25 million monthly to the party between October 2023 and October 2024.

Mrs. Yakubu in the petition, accused the state party leadership of monumental fraud and misappropriation of party funds totalling N500 million.

Among them, the Adamawa APC Woman Leader said the party received a total of N325 million from TETFund in the said period using contract sales at General Murtala Mohammed College, GMMC, Yola and Federal College of Education, Yola.

“The money is meant for running day-to-day party activities in and outside the state. The party account has been completely abandoned; the Financial Secretary has been removed as a signatory against the party constitution.

“Treasurer has been totally sidelined in all financial dealings. All financial transactions are done through an individual account (account details for investigation available).

“There was this time they collected three months at once totaling Seventy-Five Million naira (₦75,000,000.00). Sometimes, these monies are paid through BDCs,” Yakubu alleged.

The Director, Public Affairs of TETFund, Abdulmumin Oniyangi, however, said the allegations are false.

He said, “The assertion is not only preposterous and totally false, but also a great disservice to the nation that an individual of such political standing, would engage in frivolity without an iota of evidence.

“To further buttress the futility of the allegations, we wish to state in clear terms that General Murtala Mohammed College (GMMC), Yola, where TETFund contracts are alleged to have been sold, is not a beneficiary institution of TETFund,” he explained.