In a keynote address delivered at the first annual lecture of Osun State University, the Chief of Staff to the President and former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, called on Nigerian universities to embrace alternative models of funding or risk falling behind globally competitive institutions. He emphasized the urgent need for academia to collaborate with the private sector in order to drive innovation, generate revenue, and remain relevant.
“Across the world, when academia collaborates with the private sector, it creates a robust ecosystem for innovation, research, commercialization, and economic growth,” Gbajabiamila said. “Universities provide cutting-edge research. They provide talent and expertise, while businesses offer funding, marketing sites, and real-world application for discoveries.”
Drawing comparisons with global examples, he cited Silicon Valley, Cambridge’s tech cluster, and Shenzhen’s innovation hubs as outcomes of university-industry partnerships. “This synergy between the business world and the universities has led to the rise of technology parks, incubators, research clusters that accelerate breakthroughs in biotechnology, AI, renewable energy, and so on and so forth,” he stated.
He further illustrated how prestigious institutions have leveraged commercial ventures to sustain their operations. “Oxford University Press is a world-renowned publishing house with over 6,000 employees. It is a department of the University of Oxford,” Gbajabiamila noted. “Harvard University, Cambridge University, and the University of Chicago all own similar thriving publishing businesses.”
Gbajabiamila referenced the 2023 U.S. General Services Administration report to show how universities abroad diversify revenue streams. “Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the California Institute of Technology all made the list of the top U.S. government contractors for the year, collectively receiving contracts valued at more than 6.5 billion dollars,” he said.
According to him, Nigerian universities must learn from this model. “These universities conduct research and development activities to develop intellectual property that can be created, transferred, or licensed for commercial value,” he explained. “This is how these universities that we all aspire to go to, this is how they are funded.”
Gbajabiamila praised the brilliance of Nigerian students and scholars, expressing confidence in their potential if given the right environment. “We have eggheads in our universities. Our students are very, very smart people,” he said. “It is because they have been given the environment to do those things [abroad].”
He also spotlighted university-owned investment management companies in the U.S., such as Stanford Management Company and Harvard Management Company, as models to emulate. “They are investment companies fully owned by those universities for investment,” he said. “Why can’t our universities invest and make money and pay their lecturers big, fat salaries which they deserve with due respect?”
He acknowledged that commercial ventures are not a new concept in higher education. “The Oxford University Press, which I referred to earlier, was established in 1586,” he reminded the audience. “What has changed is the nature of the commercial interests that universities have begun to pursue.”
Gbajabiamila encouraged institutions to think beyond traditional academic services. “We see universities as start-up investors, as vendors of software services to businesses and government, and as defense contractors,” he said. “Whatever the nature of the commercial interests, the objective remains the same: establishing multiple sources of revenue to sustain universities and support their core functions as centers of learning, scholarship and innovation.”
He challenged both academic leaders and policymakers to reconsider existing legal and structural limitations. “Are there limitations of law that prevent them from being able to operate in this manner?” he asked. “And if, as I suspect, we are limited not by law, but by imagination, then there is no better time to begin to think about the possibilities that exist.”
On the controversial issue of tuition fees in public universities, Gbajabiamila offered a nuanced view. “We cannot thoroughly interrogate the funding of public universities and education in Nigeria without honestly discussing tuition fees,” he said. “We have, for the most part, ended up with tuition fees, except we refuse to call it that.”
He highlighted the reality of indirect costs already burdening students. “Whether we choose to call these plethora of fees or whatever we choose to call them, the consequences of being unable to pay those fees remain the same: denial of access to education,” he warned.
In response, he stressed the importance of accessibility through financial support. “Access is the ability to pay for your education,” he said. “As a member of the House of Representatives and later a speaker, I sponsored and ensured the passage into law of the Student Loan Access to Higher Education Act 2023.”
He described the Student Loan Act as a milestone in ensuring equitable access. “That law established the National Student Loan Program to ensure that the doors of our public tertiary institutions will never again be closed against capable and willing candidates solely based on an inability to pay whatever fees are required,” Gbajabiamila declared.
Concluding his address, Gbajabiamila called on all stakeholders to rethink the country’s education financing system with boldness and creativity. “The promise of our democracy isn’t that we will arrive at a place of perfection overnight,” he said. “The promise of our democracy is that by the joint efforts of millions of citizens, we can build a better tomorrow.”
