150 More Nigerian Private Universities to be Approved over the next 3 years




The Executive Secretary, Nigeria Universities Commission, NUC, Prof Adamu Abubakar Rasheed, has disclosed that the commission will give approval for the establishment of 150 additional private universities in the next three years.

According to him, those calling that establishment of universities should stop are ignorant as the current 152 universities are not enough for a population of over150 million people.

Speaking at the first founders day lecture of the University of Medical Science, Ondo State and analysing the Nigerian universities system with the State Governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, and Emeritus Prof Oladipo Akinkugbe, Rasheed noted that 

Nigerian universities cannot isolate themselves from the rest of the world. 

Using Argentina as a yardstick, the NUC boss stated that Argentina’s population of about44 million has 1705 Universities while several other developing counties with lesser population than Nigeria has over 300 universities.

According him, the challenges facing the Universities include: the governing structure, the provincial forces competing against the actual forces that seek to retain the established or sustain the cut of the University, where university community are arguing about who will be the next Vice-Chancellor and who comes from the community where the University is located.

“Presently, 243 applications are being processed for private universities, so in the next two to three years, we will have about 150 private universities,”.