The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has disclosed that the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) received a total of N1.024 trillion from education tax contributions sourced from the extractive sector over a five-year period.
The Executive Secretary of NEITI, Ogbonnaya Orji, made this known on Monday during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between NEITI and TETFund in Abuja.
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The agreement is aimed at strengthening data sharing, ensuring timely remittances, and improving accountability in the use of public revenue for tertiary education.
According to NEITI’s audited industry reports, TETFund received N322.99 billion in 2022, while the figure rose significantly to N571.01 billion in 2023, the highest annual inflow on record. Between 2019 and 2021, a total of N644.19 billion accrued to the fund, out of which N624.32 billion was disbursed.
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Mr Orji said NEITI will support TETFund with independently verified data to help track revenue accruals, monitor payments, and identify outstanding remittances. The goal, he explained, is to “uplift educational institutions, enhance access to scholarships, and strengthen the research ecosystem.”
“Today’s MoU connects the source and the application of public revenues. NEITI tracks and verifies what is paid. TETFund ensures that what is received is invested for impact. Together, we are creating a value chain of accountability from extraction to education,” he said.
He added that the over N1 trillion received by TETFund must be accounted for and transparently deployed towards improving infrastructure and research in public tertiary institutions.
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The Executive Secretary of TETFund, Sonny Echono, described the MoU as a milestone in a series of engagements between the two agencies. He said the partnership would help recover unremitted education taxes and improve revenue generation for the education sector.
“The MoU will also define a framework that will enable us get accurate, credible, and up-to-date data that will culminate into a very firm agreement between the two agencies,” Mr Echono said.
The Permanent Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education, Abel Enitan, welcomed the development and called for the swift recovery of unremitted education taxes by extractive companies. He reaffirmed the Ministry’s support for the initiative, emphasising the importance of transparency in public finance.
The MoU is expected to deepen collaboration between NEITI and TETFund, improve data accuracy, and ensure that Nigeria’s natural resource wealth is better utilised to support education.
