The Vice Chancellor of Al Hikmah University, Ilorin, has thrown his weight behind a growing campaign to open TETFund schemes to private Universities, describing the current exclusion as both unjust and damaging to the broader health of Nigeria's higher education system.

Professor Lateef Oladimeji made the call in remarks that cut to the heart of a longstanding grievance within Nigeria's private University sector. He argued that the legal framework barring private Institutions from accessing the Tertiary Education Trust Fund intervention is particularly difficult to justify, given that the fund is partly financed through taxes paid by the organised private sector, the same ecosystem in which private Universities are embedded and contribute to. "It is unfortunate that funds sourced partly from the organised private sector exclude private universities from benefiting. We are part of that ecosystem," he said.

Oladimeji confirmed that stakeholders are actively lobbying the National Assembly to amend the relevant clause in the TETFund Act, describing the required legislative change as straightforward. "All that is required is a review of the relevant clause to allow inclusion in the disbursement framework," he said, expressing cautious optimism that the push would yield results.

The Vice Chancellor acknowledged that the exclusion has placed real constraints on research financing at private Institutions, with Al Hikmah University relying on institutional linkages and external partnerships to attract research grants. He noted, however, that even these alternative channels remain inadequate to meet the institution's research funding needs.

The argument for inclusion is one that deserves serious legislative attention. Private Universities in Nigeria collectively educate hundreds of thousands of students, employ thousands of academic staff, and contribute meaningfully to research and national development. A funding framework that continues to shut them out while drawing from the very sector they represent is one that works against the very outcomes it was designed to produce.