UNIBEN unveils N100b trust to augment govt funding

University of Benin (UNIBEN)

The University of Benin has unveiled a N100 billion Trust Development Fund (TDF) to serve as an alternative source of funding.

Speaking at the unveiling of the Fund’s web portal, the university’s Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Edoba Omoregie, said the UNIBENTDF was conceived to close infrastructure gaps at the university.

According to Omoregie, he was inspired by a similar initiative done by Oxford University about 30 years ago.

Omoregie explained that on his return to the university after seven years away, he found dilapidated infrastructure across the university’s two campuses, which, according to him, made it clear that the school needed extra funding beyond its allocations and Internally Generated Revenue.

The VC said: “When I took office as Vice Chancellor, I said to myself the first task was to visit the hostels. I went to all the hostels here in Ugbowo and also on the Ekheuan campus. I also visited some of the academic facilities, and for someone who had been away for about seven years from the university, I didn’t know that the facilities had decayed so rapidly.

“I was very concerned. I also looked at the books of the university, and I saw that finances were in a shambolic state. We could barely even pay the electricity bill; the university was cut off from the public supply system for three months, there was student unrest, I was in Abuja then, watching from afar, and I was weeping inside me about what was going to happen to our university.”

He said he began research to look at how the university can begin to assess alternative sources of funds even as he tried to eliminate waste.

In his speech, the chairman of the BoT, Osagie Ize-Iyamu, said the formal launching of the N100 billion Fund would be held on July 4, 2026.

He disclosed that the Fund would pursue strategic partnerships and sustainable development models through “grants, Public Private Partnerships, Build Own Operate and Transfer frameworks, endowment structures, and global institutional collaborations.