NUC Presents Provisional Licences to 12 New Private Universities

The National Universities Commission, NUC, has presented licenses to 12 new private universities recently approved by the Federal Executive Council, FEC.

With the presentation of the licences, Nigeria now has 111 private universities and the total number of universities in the country is 215.

The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu presented the licences to proprietors of the universities at the NUC auditorium in Abuja on Thursday.

The universities are: Pen Resource University, Gombe; Al-Ansar University, Maiduguri, Borno State; Margaret Lawrence University Galilee, Delta State and Khalifa Isiyaku Rabiu University, Kano, Kano State.

Others are: Sports University, Idumuje, Ugboko, Delta state; Bab Ahmed University, Kano, Kano State; Saisa University of Medical Sciences and Technology, Sokoto, Sokoto State, and the Nigerian British University, Asa, Abia State.

Also presented with the provisional licences are: Peter University, Achina/Onneh, Anambra State; Newgate University, Minna, Niger State, European University of Nigeria, Duboyi, Abuja, FCT and Northwest University, Sokoto, Sokoto State.

Adamu noted that while the number of universities may seem large, there was a need to establish more universities in the country.

He said the universities would be affiliated to older generation universities for academic and administrative mentoring which would be moderated by the NUC.

The Minister urged the proprietors to sustain funding towards improving infrastructure, equipment for teaching and learning as well as human resources up to earn the universities accreditation by NUC.

The Executive Secretary of the NUC, Prof. Abubakar Rasheed charged proprietors of the new universities to ensure that quality is not compromised at the expense of maximisation of profit, adding that NUC will not hesitate to sanction institutions that violate its operational guidelines.

In his remarks, a former Executive Secretary of National Universities Commission, Prof Julius Okojie, stressed the need to encourage the establishment and operation of private universities to ensure quality university education.

May 13, 2022