Speaking in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bakari accused lecturers across the country's tertiary institutions of diverting research grants to build houses, purchase cars and engage in other frivolous activities, Premium Times reports.

According to the TETFund director, the huge sums of money often made available to the lecturers, and sometimes their teams for research exercises, conference attendance, among others, are usually misappropriated.

Bakari expressed that the culture of impunity, breach of trust, and violations of funding agreements and rules of engagement by the lecturers is unimaginable.

“It is sad to note that public funds made available to lecturers to conduct groundbreaking and demand-driven researches towards solving Nigeria’s socio-economic, and even political challenges, are misappropriated by those who are expected to be above board. I mean the beneficiaries of our grants.

“Through our recovery efforts, we had traced monies to houses built by lecturers with the public fund; there are cases of cars purchased with the money, without any research work done. And these are the people who would be accusing politicians of being corrupt," Premium Times quoted Bakari as saying.

Bakari further noted that TETFund's new policy engagement, introduction of strict conditions, and the process towards recovering public funds misappropriated by both the individual lecturers and institutions, will help to reduce malfeasance across various campuses.

He however stated that since TETFund has commenced the shifting of focus from infrastructural development of higher institutions to content development, lecturers and institutions are not accessing the huge funds available at the agency for research activities and development of innovative programmes.

While noting that globally, high-flying academic institutions are no longer known to occupy large space but are recognised with their innovative ideas, rich content and advancements in technology, the TETFund director lamented that as much as the agency is trying to democratize access to its large pool of resources, “lecturers and their institutions are not coming forward to access the funds.

“Today, we have decided to shift our focus and we have opened more doors of opportunities for both the lecturers and their institutions to attract funds to showcase their expertise. But what do we see? No one is coming for the funds.

“For instance, as at 2019, out of 220 public tertiary institutions that are eligible to access our funds for journal publications, only 26 applied. We now also have financial interventions in the areas of manuscript development, ICT development, basic research fund, national research fund, advocacy, among others," he added.

The Nigerian educational system has over time been enmeshed in corruption allegations across all levels. And in order to curb the menace of looters of educational funds in tertiary institutions in the country,TETFund partnered with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Speaking on the partnership with the EFCC, the former Executive Secretary of TETFund, Dr. A. B. Baffa said the collaborative effort had become necessary as it seeks to halt all manners of financial malpractices in handling education funds, such as inappropriate projects, abandoned projects, mismanagement and stolen funds.