Senate begins process of converting YabaTech, Kaduna Poly to varsities

THE Senate has begun the process of converting Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, and Kaduna Polytechnic into city universities.

YABATECH main gate

The Bills, titled City University of Technology Yaba Bill, 2016 sponsored by Senator Gbenga Ashafa, APC, Lagos East and that of City University of Technology Kaduna Bill, 2016, and sponsored by Senator Jibrin Barau, APC, Kano North, were introduced as first reading.

While Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, was established in 1947 as Nigeria’s first higher educational institution, Kaduna Polytechnic was founded in 1956 as Kaduna Technical Institute.

Meanwhile, a bill for an Act to amend the Tertiary Education Trust Fund 2011 and other matters to approve and checkmate the disbursement of funds by the agency, yesterday scaled second reading in the Senate.

Sponsor of the Bill, Senator Jibrin Barau, who noted that the Bill was designed to correct the anomaly in Tetfund Act, however, explained that the spending and disbursements of funds by TetFund was a clear violation of the constitution.

“The tenement of this bill is to correct the constitutional aberration which was capitalised upon in the recent past to divert the fund to other uses.

“It is therefore certain that when the proposed amendment is made to the Principal Act, monies belonging to TetFund shall be duly secured,’’ he said.

In his contribution, Senator Adamu Aliero (APC-Kebbi) noted that it was really a constitutional aberration for money to be spent without the approval of the National Assembly.

He said: “In the past, the executive was in the habit of borrowing money, either from TetFund or from ecological fund and spent it without going through the National Assembly.

He explained that the Bill, if passed, would be “a safeguard against borrowing money from special funds.”