Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Sonny Echono, has described as alarming the number of Nigerian university lecturers staying abroad after studying via TETFund sponsorship.
Echono, who disclosed this while speaking with journalists during the TETFund management retreat in Makurdi, Benue State, yesterday, vowed that the board would make the absconded academics refund the money spent on them or be repatriated.
He said the organisation devised the two ways – soft and hard measures – to ensure that the affected teachers are sanctioned.
His words: “I don’t want to give a figure because it’s alarming. It’s very sad that this opportunity that is being given is being abused.
“The figure is comprehensive. That is why it’s a bit large because there are others, who have come back home but did not complete the minimum of their bond before deciding to relocate or what is called japa syndrome.
“We have a database now, which we are refining each time because the institutions are the one submitting the reports. Although it is a difficult thing to get accurate reports, for some, it’s not that they absconded, but they exceeded their course period.’’
“But some have extensions in their programme, but we have a very good idea, and the number is not encouraging. I can tell you that even the security agencies are also becoming interested, and they are looking at that.”
On the sanctions, Echono noted: “What we are doing, first as a soft landing, we are requiring anybody, who has benefitted from our programme and does not come back, to make a full refund.
“The other option is the harder one, as we are collaborating with our embassies, the embassies of the country where they are and the institutions to repatriate them.”
He confirmed that TETFund had disbursed over N400 billion to tertiary institutions nationwide.
