The Registrar, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Prof Ishaq Oloyede has called on the Federal Government to allow the National Universities Commission oversee the budgets of Nigerian universities, rather than individual institutions.
The JAMB registrar asserted that such a move if implemented, would enhance the autonomy of the universities.
Oloyede, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, stated this as a guest on the Sunday edition of a socio-political programme, Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, on Channels Television.
He noted that aside from the commission’s role as the regulator that accredits courses in Nigerian tertiary institutions, “We can still re-engineer the situation to have the things we need. We need to look at the funding mechanism. The National Universities Commission (NUC), for example, should be left alone to run the universities. Hold the National Universities Commission responsible for the management of the universities.
“I was chairman, Committee of Vice Chancellors and I was involved in re-organising and retooling the National Universities Commission. When the NUC was in charge, things were done well. I strongly believe that the autonomy that we are talking about for our universities can be better achieved if we allow the NUC to coordinate the affair.”
Oloyede recalled that there was the Universities Annual Review System which looked at the number of candidates universities have across multiple disciplines and used that to determine the next year’s budget.
He also played down the influence of favouritism during the budget defence.