No going back on suspension of new varsities – FG to ASUU
The Federal Government has insisted that there will be no reversal of the ban placed on the establishment of new universities.
This followed concerns raised by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, which had questioned the rationale behind the approval of nine new universities by the Federal Executive Council despite the government’s announcement of a seven-year moratorium on the creation of new tertiary institutions.
Speaking in an interview with our correspondent, the Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, explained that the approval of the nine private universities did not contradict the moratorium. He clarified that the applications for the institutions had been pending for over five years and had undergone multiple accreditation processes.
He emphasised that the approved institutions’ seven conventional and two open universities were not fresh applications but proposals that had already passed several stages of accreditation, including multiple visitations.
Alausa said, “We already have an existing moratorium on private tertiary institutions—universities, polytechnics and colleges of education—which was instituted around December 2024 for one year.
“They are active applications, but because of inefficiencies at the National Universities Commission, those universities were caught in a slow process.
“These developers of the private universities have invested billions of naira; we cannot just turn around abruptly and cancel them. This was not a breach of the moratorium; these were long-standing applications that needed to be approved.
“Yes, the moratorium on private universities is still in effect, while the Federal Government moratorium on federal universities commenced on the day the FEC granted approval.”
