President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in his determination to uplift the education sector for rapid development in all sectors, recently commissioned educational projects worth N873, 666, 894 at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU) and Abubakar Tatari Ali Polytechnic (ATAP) in Bauchi State.
Four out of the six Tetfund sponsored projects at the ATBU are Faculty of Management Technology which was officially moved to the Gubi Main Campus of the university from the Yelwa Satellite Campus, a suburb of Bauchi metropolis, under the 2017 – 2020 annual intervention by the fund.
President Bola Tinubu who was represented at the occasion by Nigerian Foreign Affairs Minister, Amb. Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, gave the other ATBU projects as two different departmental buildings, classrooms and laboratories.
The president, while performing the commissioning ceremony at the respective institutions’ projects sites in Bauchi, outlined the Abubakar Tatari Ali Polytechnic (ATAP) projects as 500-Seater Capacity Examination Hall, the 300-Seater Examination Hall and students hostel.
According to the president, the projects are part of his administration’s conscious efforts to address students’ challenges, and create industrial harmony between staff of tertiary institutions and the government.
President Tunubu has in a bid to further support and strengthen the intervention activities of the TETfund, approved the implementation of the upward review of the Education Tax (EDT) to 3 percent with effect from September, 2023.
Also speaking at the event, the Executive Secretary of the TETFund, Arc. Sonny Echono said that the Federal Government under the leadership of President Tinubu is committed to providing a conducive learning environment that could enable students as future leaders, excel among their contemporaries around the world.
Represented by the TETfund Fund Director of Research and Development, Dr. Salihu Bakare Girei, the fund scribe described President Tinubu’s commitment to the education sector as a demonstration of his administration’s resolve to ensure that Nigerian public institutions attain high global ranking and become more competitive in their mandate.
Ealier in his welcome address, the ATBU Vice Chancellor, Prof. Mohammed Ahmed Abdul’azeez, recalled that when the central administration of the university moved into the Senate Building at the Gubi Main Campus in 2010, only the Faculty of Agriculture was there.
He said, “However, thirteen years after, the campus now has in addition, the Faculty of Technology Education, Faculty of Management Technology, Faculty of Science, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, College of Medical Sciences, the Postgraduate School, Directorate of Entrepreneurship, and the main library of the university”, attributing it all to the intervention of the TETfund.
Prof. Mohammed Abdul’azeez noted with delight that without the TETfund intervention over the years, the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University could not have realized its dream of moving to its main campus at Gubio. He expressed gratitude to the federal government for giving a breath of life to the institution which, he said, the entire public tertiary education sector in the country is pleased with.
“We will continue to justify the confidence reposed in us, to uphold the virtue of excellence. The hallmark of success is quality. We shall remain at the top of this virtue until the dream of our dear country is realised in the field of technology. We shall continue to join hands with our stakeholders in order to achieve our target goals as a science and technology based university”, Abdul’azeez concluded.
He Commended and appreciated President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for being present through our own son of soil, Amb. Yusuf Tuga to commission the educational projects.
