The Registrar, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Emeritus Prof Ishaq Oloyede has called on the Federal Government to allow the National Universities Commission oversee the budgets of Nigerian universities, rather than individual institutions.

The JAMB registrar asserted that such a move if implemented, would enhance the autonomy of the universities.

Oloyede, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, stated this as a guest on the Sunday edition of a socio-political programme, Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, on Channels Television.

He noted that aside from the commission’s role as the regulator that accredits courses in Nigerian tertiary institutions, the NUC should be left alone to run the universities.

“We can still re-engineer the situation to have the things we need. We need to look at the funding mechanism. The National Universities Commission (NUC), for example, should be left alone to run the universities. Hold the National Universities Commission responsible for the management of the universities.

“I was chairman, Committee of Vice Chancellors and I was involved in re-organising and retooling the National Universities Commission. When the NUC was in charge, things were done well.

"I strongly believe that the autonomy that we are talking about for our universities can be better achieved if we allow the NUC to coordinate the affair.”

Oloyede recalled that there was the Universities Annual Review System which looked at the number of candidates universities have across multiple disciplines and used that to determine the next year’s budget.

He also played down the influence of favouritism during the budget defence.

“Now, every university goes to the National Assembly for their budget for their defence, and the more you can pull the weight, the more will be determined.

“Whether you know anybody or you don’t does not come in. The NUC will determine the parameter number of students and so on. And it is the NUC that will defend at the National Assembly and the Ministry of Education.

“I believe that the way we are running and the way we are funding, it could get to a level that we will say: University of Abuja, you are producing XY medical doctors, what does it take to train one medical doctor? This is the quota we have given you. So, we now calculate (the amount). Both your capital and your recurrent expenditure won’t be our business. And we would have built research into it to ascertain the amount,” he added.