FG Plan To Repatriate JAPA TETFund-Sponsored University Lecturers

The Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund, Sonny Echono, disclosed during the TETFund Management retreat held in Makurdi, Benue State, on Monday, that the board would make the absconded lecturers refund money spent on them or be repatriated. He described the number of Nigerian university lecturers studying abroad under TETFund sponsorship that have absconded as alarming.

Echono said that TETFund devised the two ways, which he described as soft and hard measures, to ensure that the university lecturers who absconded are sanctioned.

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According to him, “I don’t want to give 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 database now, which we  are refining each time because the instiutions are the one submitting the report. Although it is a difficult thing to get accurate report but for some, it’s not that they absconded but they exceeded their course period.

“But  some have extension in their programme but we have a very good idea and the number is not encouraging and I can tell you that even the security agencies are also becoming interested and they are looking at that.”

Speaking on the sanctions, he stated, “What we are doing, first as a soft landing, we are requiring anybody who have benefitted from our programme and do not come back to make the full refund of the money expended  in training them.

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“The other option which is the harder one is that we are collaborating with our embassies, the embassies of the country where they are and the institutions. You will have recalled recently  when I met with foreign instiutions  that will sponsor our candidate. I made it a condition for further patronage that those of our scholars that went to such institutions and did not return, that they  must provide that information to the relevant authorities to their own equivalent of their internal affairs because they’re staying on visas that have not expired or did not permit them to seek employment.

“This means that they have abused their visa and they are subject to migration that is the next step we are going to take and we believe they will do the honourable thing and take the first option.”

He further said that TETFund had disbursed over N400 billion to tertiary institutions in the country.