Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, has called on the Federal Government to, without holding back, inject all the proceeds make yearly by the Joint Admission and Matriculations Board (JAMB), from the sales of forms on the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations(UTME), into the public university education in Nigeria.
He also called for proper accountability of funds generated by the National Examinations Council (NECO), from the sales of examination forms to its candidates.
Falana made the call on Tuesday in Lagos at a commemorative symposium in honour of retired and dedicated lecturers, which was organised by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the University of Lagos (UNILAG) chapter.
Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, spoke as a guest speaker on “Funding public education in a neo-colony: Imperatives for Nigeria’s development.”
And among high profile individuals at the event held at the Jelili Omotola Multi-purpose hall of UNILAG included the ASUU President, Prof Biodun Ogunyemi; Prof Omotoye Olorode; Prof Wale Babawale; immediate past vice-chancellor of UNILAG, Prof Rahamon Bello and former ASUU chairman, Prof Mustapha Danesi, and a host of others.
Speaking further, Falana explained that it was wrong for the Federal Government to be diverting remittance from JAMB and other government-owned examination bodies in the country to other activities outside the education sector
According to him, JAMB and other examination bodies were not set up purposely as revenue generated ventures for the government and therefore any money they are able to generate due to their prudence should not be categorised as government income let alone used for purposes other than education development.
“It is even unheard of that the same JAMB which could not boast of N50 million annual remittance before is now able to remit up to N18 billion in just two years under the current leadership of the examination body.”