Caption: The ongoing Construction of the ASR Africa Centre for Innovation and Product Development at the University of Maiduguri Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development (UM-CEED) Complex, Borno State, Nigeria.
As part of its efforts to enhance infrastructure across the nation’s higher institutions, the Abdul Samad Rabiu Africa Initiative (ASR Africa), on Thursday, announced a grant of N5.5bn to 22 of them at N250m each under its ASR Africa Tertiary Education Grants Scheme (TEGS).
The institutions were selected from Federal, State, and Privately owned universities.
They are: Bayero University Kano; Adamawa State University; Federal University of Technology Owerri; Federal University of Petroleum Resources Effurun; Nigerian Law School (Lagos); University of Uyo; University of Lagos; University of Jos; Federal College of Education Technology, Gusau; Federal University Lokoja; and Nasarawa State University.
Others include: the University of Port Harcourt; Federal University of Technology Minna; Uthman Dan Fodio University; Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike; Crescent University; Babcock University; Al-Qalam University; Baze University; Nigerian Defence Academy; Federal University Gashua, and the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru.
These, the initiative said in its statement, brings to 30, the number of tertiary institutions currently benefitting from various ASR Africa education interventions in the country.
Before Thursday’s announcement, a total of eight universities had benefitted from the ASR Africa TEGS Scheme – with some of the projects already at the verge of completion.
The statement quoted Abdul Samad Rabiu, Chairman of ASR Africa and BUA Group, as saying ASR Africa, believes “in Africa’s capacity to leapfrog the development divide through the SDGs. Good, quality investments in education is one of the ways through which we can achieve that. This is why education remains one of the three focal areas for ASR Africa’s interventions in Nigeria, and Africa and our investments in infrastructure for tertiary institutions are showing good promise.”
