By Jerry Daks
The Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, says it has disbursed the sum of N550 million to the Kaduna State College of Education, Gidan Waya, for the purpose of addressing insecurity in the institution.
Executive Secretary of TETFund, Arc Sonny Echono, disclosed this when a Kaduna State Government delegation, led by the state’s Governor, Sen. Uba Sani, paid him a courtesy visit at the fund’s headquarters in Abuja.
Echono, who noted that the disbursement was beyond the normal allocations, disclosed that the fund also disbursed N500 million to Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria for the completion of one projection, in addition to making it a centre of excellence.
According to him, the same amount was also given to Kaduna State University to complete some projects in its Kafanchan campus, adding that the fund will expedite action to complete some projects in the university which earlier had challenges.
The TETFund boss assured the state government that one of the public tertiary institutions in the state will benefit from the TETFund special high impact intervention in 2024, after the cycle of six years since the state last benefited.
He further pledged to look into the appeal lodged by the state governor to assist the Nuhu Bamali polytechnic Zaria in expanding its programmes through the building of a faculty of agriculture.
“This year already, we made some special allocation beyond the normal allocations that all institutions get. ABU Zaria for example, again, not only was it recognised as a centre of excellence, where we want to have a special centre in the area of education, but we also gave them some additional fund about 500 million to complete one project.
“The same amount was also given to Kaduna State University to complete some projects in your Kafanchan campus. The College of Education you mentioned, that had issue of security, I can confirm to you that in matter of weeks ago, or some days ago, we released N550 million to them to address the issue of security; that’s the Kaduna State College of Education in Gidan Waya.
“There is a sequence that we designed for the special high impact projects on zonal basis and I know the Hon commissioners has been following. So, saying that next year should be the turn of Kaduna State. I will check and know it’s definitely either next year or the year after the special high impact will be in Kaduna.
“I think the last time we were there was 2019 and we have a recycle of five years. We do it one per state. There’s equity in what we do here that when a state benefits, from a particular zone, it goes to other states before it comes back to that state.
“Especially when we had the North West zone with the unfair decision of having seven states. So, what we try to do is to address that by limiting it to six to have some degree of parity. So that cycle I think Kudana State should be coming on board now for special high impact,” he said.
He described Kaduna as one of the states that the fund has enjoyed the most support, adding that Kaduna hosts the North West headquarters of TETFund, adding that it is not by accident as the state used to be the headquarters of the entire northern region of Nigeria.