Some vice chancellors of the Federal Government-owned universities are lobbying members of the University Needs Implementation Committee headed by Governor Gabriel Suswam in the bid to get the favour of the committee in the sighting of projects.
The committee was recently set up by government to identify priority projects for each federal university with a view to addressing the lack of infrastructure in the ivory towers.
Sources disclosed that shortly after the committee was inaugurated by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chief Anyim Pius Anyim, about two weeks, some of the VCs immediately began to reach out to some members of the committee on the need to consider their universities under the first phase of these project allocation.
About N6 billion has been earmarked for the first phase of the programme, with one federal university in each of the six geo-political zones to be considered.
Mostly involved in the lobby, according to sources, are VCs in zones where there are two or more federal universities. They include the South West, which boasts of the University of Ibadan, University of Lagos, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Federal University of Science and Technology, Akure, and the new Federal University in Oye Ekiti.
In the South East are the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nnamdi Azikwe University, Awka, Anambra State and the Federal University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State.
Sources revealed that while the VCs of the first, second and third generation of federal universities are claiming that their institutions should be considered first, their counterparts in the new universities set up by the current administration are said to have argued that their institutions’ newness and lack of basic structures, among other reasons, are enough to be accorded priority by the Suswam committee.
Though the modalities on the selection of the universities that will emerge as the first set of beneficiaries are still being worked out, sources revealed that the VCs are not leaving anything to chance, including reaching out to top government officials, to influence the decision of the committee in favour of their institutions.
