The tax reform bill initiated by President Bola Tinubu has faced growing condemnation, with Dr Tunde Olagunjembi, a Research Fellow at the Institute of Project Management Jos and university lecturer, calling on the president to reconsider the bill in a statement issued Monday.

Olagunjembi also advised President Bola Tinubu against abandoning the needs assessment scheme designed to provide funds for the reinvigoration of public universities, particularly for the rehabilitation of decaying infrastructure, as well as the provision of state-of-the-art teaching and learning equipment for tertiary institutions.

He said the president should sustain the Needs Assessment Scheme in the interest and development of the Nigerian university system.

He appealed to the president to approve the immediate release of funds for the continuation of critical projects in the institutions being executed under the scheme.

He Insisted that the university community and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) are eagerly waiting for the commencement of the projects under the present administration.

The university don stated that the stable academic calendar being witnessed today is the result of the sacrifices by ASUU members, whom he revealed resolved to allow the president time to settle down.

He warned that time Is fast running out, and the president must take immediate steps towards funding the needs assessment projects.

According to him, the introduction of the intervention funds for needs assessment projects was a result of an agreement entered into between the federal government and ASUU, based on a fact-finding committee of the government to change the state of infrastructure at the various citadels of learning in Nigeria.

He lamented that the immediate past administration could not sufficiently release funds for the project, hence the incessant, prolonged industrial action by the various unions in the universities.

He advised the president, whom he acknowledged has made significant statements towards the revamping of the education sector, to release funds for the projects to ensure a stable and quality academic environment at the institutions.

Olagunjembi, who has spent over two decades teaching in various institutions across Nigeria, expressed deep concern that more than a year into the life of the Tinubu-led government, nothing has been heard about plans for the implementation of the needs assessment programme of the federal government.

He hinted that the academic calendar of the universities could be once again disrupted if the government refused to make funds available for the implementation of critical projects across the tertiary institutions of learning.

The associate professor of project management noted that the relative peace being enjoyed on the campuses of the universities is a demonstration of the unions? desire to fully cooperate with the present administration for the ultimate benefits of the education sector and, indeed, society at large.

He, however, warned that the various unions would have no choice but to act appropriately in the interest of the public universities if the government continued to show a lukewarm attitude towards the implementation of the agreement reached with ASUU on the intervention funds for needs assessment, earned academic allowances, staff salaries, and pensions.

The renowned university lecturer called on the new Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, to urgently address the challenge of non-releasing of funds for needs assessment projects and also take steps to reverse the brain drain syndrome in the educational sector.

It will be recalled that the federal government had, in 2009, reached an agreement with ASUU for the provision of 220 billion naira annually as intervention funds for the revitalisation of universities across the country under the needs assessment programme.

The Implementation of the scheme has, however, been at a snail?s pace, leading to several industrial actions.

A renewal of the agreement was done in 2014, but it has yet to witness significant progress, a development the Tinubu administration is expected to correct by adequately funding needs assessment projects. (Daily Sun)

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