Nigerians spend a billion dollars on school fees in Ghana yearly

There are about 71,000 Nigerian students in Ghana paying about a billion US dollars annually as tuition fees, according to the governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.

Speaking at a book presentation in Kaduna during the celebration of the 80th birthday of Prof. Adamu Baike yesterday, the CBN governor said that the time has come when Nigeria needs to take the difficult step of overhauling political structures which have ensured that states spend about 96 percent of their resources paying salaries and allowances.

Sanusi also faulted the wisdom behind establishing nine new federal universities when existing ones have not been adequately funded by the government. According to him, the paucity of funding has led to a mass exodus of students and teachers to better organised educational settings such as Ghana, South Africa and other parts of the world.

Extracts from his his paper entitled “Re-invigorating education in Nigeria:

While lamenting the huge number of Nigerian students studying outside the country in what he described as “better organized educational settings” and the huge amount of money they pay as tuition, the CBN governor noted that the tuition paid by these students is more than the annual budget for all federal universities in the country.

In his words, “although there are no comprehensive data on the number of Nigerian students abroad, recent data have shown that there are about 71,000 Nigerian students in Ghana paying about N155 billion annually as tuition fees as against the annual budget of N121 billion for all federal universities.

“In other words, the tuition paid by Nigerian students studying in Ghana with a better organised system is more than the annual budget of all federal universities in the country,” adding that “Nigeria is today placed third on the list of countries with the highest number of students studying overseas”.