The Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriations, Senator Solomon Olamilekan, has said that the 10th National Assembly would work harmoniously with the executive towards making Nigeria’s educational institutions globally competitive for economic and technological development of the country. He said this at the commissioning of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) – sponsored projects at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), Ogun State.
The commissioned projects are the Academic Office Complex with seminar rooms and electronic library, block of offices, Information Centre and extension of the College of Agricultural Management and Rural Development (COLAMRUD). Senator Olamilekan, represented by Prof. Tope Popoola, who is the Bobajiro of Yewaland, disclosed that TETFund had sponsored 47 lecturers for their PhD degrees in both foreign and local institutions, 43 lecturers for Master’s degrees, while 407 staff had been sponsored for conferences locally and abroad in FUNAAB. On his part, the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Arch. Sunny Echono, lauded the institution, saying that “TETFund’s interventions to the University has seen remarkable and plausible strides of the utilisation of its allocations for infrastructure-based projects”.
Architect Echono was represented by TETFund’s Director of Monitoring and Evaluation, Arch. Babatunde Olajide. The Vice-Chancellor of FUNAAB, Prof. Olusola Kehinde, who expressed the institution’s gratitude to TETFund for allocations they had made to the University so far, and said that FUNAAB had fully utilised most of the allocations given by the body. The Vice-Chancellor, who was represented by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Development), Prof. Kolawole Adebayo appealed to the Federal Government to establish a National Research Centre for Agriculture and Food Security within the campus, stating that the institution, which had been in existence for over 30 years, “is properly positioned to handle the food security agenda of the Federal Government”.