Modibbo Adama University Under Professor Abdullahi Liman Tukur Asked To Account For Over ₦650 Million IGR Deficit And Unretired Advances

Secrets Reporters

Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola, later redesignated a conventional university, provides training in engineering, technology and related fields for Adamawa State and the North East. Professor Abdullahi Liman Tukur served as the eighth substantive Vice-Chancellor from 10 June 2019, succeeding Professor Kyari Mohammed. 

The university’s affairs for the period 2016 to 2020 reviewed has shown that the institution generated ₦4,329,558,511 in internally generated revenue and spent ₦4,981,510,509, producing a deficit of ₦651,951,998. The panel directed the university management to account for the excess expenditure. Over the same five-year window the university received ₦14,915,115,774.23 for personnel costs and paid out ₦15,358,213,875.71, resulting in a deficit of ₦516,057,360.71 that was met from internally generated funds.

The records further show that seventeen cash advances totalling ₦26,694,825 were granted to university officers between April and December 2017 for convocation activities. These advances remained unretired as of April 2020. Fifteen of the advances, amounting to ₦26,488,826, exceeded the ₦200,000 threshold set by Treasury Circular. 

The same records note that government was not credited with an estimated ₦2,648,882.60 in value-added tax and withholding tax that would have arisen from the transactions, and that three officers received multiple advances without retiring earlier ones.

In January 2021 President Muhammadu Buhari assented to the bill converting the specialised technology university into a conventional institution. The National Universities Commission had earlier estimated that the upgrade, including establishment of a medical college, would require approximately ₦17.4 billion. 

The Financial Regulations 2009 require that expenditure remain within approved budgetary limits, that cash advances stay within prescribed ceilings, and that every advance be retired promptly. Treasury Circulars set the cash-advance threshold at ₦200,000.