Echono: With Tinubu’s Unprecedented Investment, Nigeria’s Next Major Export Will Be Intellectual Assets, Not Oil

*How TETFund is shifting tertiary education from classrooms to innovation hubs, research commercialisation and global competitiveness

By Eniola Olakunri

For decades, Nigeria’s economic identity has been inextricably tied to crude oil. Millions of barrels shipped abroad, revenues dictated by volatile foreign markets, and an economy exposed to every international price shock. Yet, beneath the surface of this commodity-dependent nation lies an untapped reservoir far more valuable and endless: the intellectual energy of its youth.

​That narration is beginning to change. Through strategic interventions by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), driven by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope agenda, Nigeria is quietly building a new economic engine.

The nation’s tertiary education system is undergoing its most far-reaching transformation in decades. The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) is moving decisively beyond brick-and-mortar infrastructure into digital education, innovation hubs, research commercialisation, entrepreneurship, staff welfare and advanced medical training.

The goal, according to TETFund Executive Secretary, Arc. Sonny S.T. Echono, is to reposition universities, polytechnics and colleges of education from knowledge-consuming institutions into engines of job creation, wealth generation and national development.

Speaking at an interactive session with Eniola Olakunri, public sector analyst and CEO of Write Affairs, in Abuja recently, Echono was emphatic about where this leads:

“With President Tinubu’s unprecedented investment in education, our major export going forward will no longer be oil, but intellectual assets,” he declared.

This shift is not merely rhetoric; it represents a fundamental overhaul of how Nigeria approaches tertiary education.

Historically, Nigerian universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education were structured as consumer-oriented ivory towers. Students entered to memorise lectures, passed examinations, and stepped into a market that lacked jobs to absorb them.

​Today, TETFund is rewriting that script. The goal is to convert these institutions into active engines of wealth generation, job creation, and global competitiveness.

​The transformation is visible across several key fronts:

Opening the Door to the Global Knowledge Economy

One of the most visible signs of this shift is the Renewed Hope – TETFund ICT Experience Centre. Four centres in Lagos, Calabar, Anambra and Kwara were recently commissioned by First Lady Senator Oluremi Tinubu to expand digital access for students who lack devices or whose institutions lack adequate facilities.

Echono described it as a convergence of two visions: TETFund’s drive for digital technology and hybrid learning, and the First Lady’s focus on vulnerable groups.

Through the centres, TETFund provides computers, broadband, data and digitisation tools free of charge, linked to its TERAS platform for learning resources, assignments and research.

But the ambition goes beyond learning. “The jobs of the future are not necessarily going to be in traditional fields,” Echono said. Students can use the centres for outsourcing jobs and direct participation in the global knowledge economy.

Six centres – one per geopolitical zone – have been completed. Four have been commissioned, with Kaduna and Jalingo due before month-end. Another 15 are at advanced stages.

The centres are also gateways to employment through the ‘Learn to Earn’ initiative, where students acquire specialised skills alongside their studies to service global clients while still in school. With alternative power and 24-hour broadband, a student can work at 2 a.m. and synchronise with clients in Thailand, the US, Brazil or Japan.

From Job Seekers to Job Creators

The same philosophy drives the plan to establish 68 innovation hubs across tertiary institutions in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme.

The objective is to shift from memorisation to practical, problem-solving, analytical and critical-thinking skills; the premium skills of the modern economy.

TETFund is adopting a mixed partnership model involving UNDP, Innov8 Hub; an Israeli-Nigerian partnership leveraging Israel’s start-up ecosystem; and a group working with the European Union, particularly Sweden.

“We do not want graduates looking for jobs; we want graduates creating jobs and wealth,” Echono said.

Examples are already emerging. One polytechnic innovator developed specialised packaging for Nigerian export produce – addressing an estimated 35 per cent value loss due to poor packaging. Others are working on post-harvest losses, quelea birds, veterinary challenges, chemical preservation linked to cancer, and organic foods.

Every invention, he noted, creates a value chain – storage, distribution, maintenance – and each link creates jobs. Citing India and China, Echono said TETFund is cascading the model into its Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programme so technicians, machinists and fabricators can support industrial growth.

Closing the ‘Valley of Death’

For innovation to drive the economy, ideas must move from lab to market. That is the purpose of the National Research Fair.

The maiden edition brought together tertiary institutions, research institutes, manufacturers and fabricators and produced a robust, categorised national database of innovators.

It also exposed what Echono called the “valley of death” – where promising inventions die for lack of investment – and the troubling trend of Nigerian products being taken abroad, patented and manufactured there, then sold back at higher prices.

At the maiden fair, over 100 trademarks and patents were facilitated, with a dedicated fund for patent support. One individual alone secured six patents.

The 2026 edition, scheduled for five days in November, has been broadened significantly. All research institutes and production agencies are now on the organising committee, with 15 thematic areas including military sciences. Defence industries are expected to showcase drones, ammunition, surveillance equipment and detectors.

The fair will also feature lectures, investor hand-holding sessions and a dedicated Innovation Hub pavilion. The long-term vision is to evolve into Nigeria’s version of China’s Canton Fair.

Putting Capital Behind Student Innovation

Another pillar is the Student Venture Capital Grant, which provides up to N50 million in equity-free funding to student innovators.

Echono said it marks a shift from lecturers-only grants. Young people are more creative and tech-savvy globally. In Brazil, he noted, about 60 per cent of innovations come from undergraduates and postgraduates.

The grants are performance-based, with plans to increase both the envelope and number of beneficiaries. The expectation is that successful ideas become pipelines for SMEs.

“That creates a value chain,” Echono explained. “And every stage of that chain can generate jobs, wealth and demand – the essential ingredients for economic growth.”

Restoring Dignity to Intellectual Assets

TETFund is also confronting brain drain through the Tertiary Institution Staff Support Fund (TISSF), which provides interest-free loans of up to N10 million to academic and non-academic staff.

By June 2026, over N13 billion had been disbursed to 7,450 beneficiaries across 153 institutions. President Tinubu has since expanded the fund to over N40 billion.

Echono painted a stark reality: a professor unable to change his car tyres, living in a leaking house, unable to access credit because his salary cannot sustain him. While salary negotiations continue, restoring dignity, he said, is critical.

He urged academics to look beyond salaries. “If you write books, undertake research, manufacture or collaborate, you can earn far more than your salary,” he said. TETFund is providing innovation hubs and multipurpose research laboratories to make that possible without travelling abroad.

A New Era for Medical Education

The scale of investment is most striking in medical training. Echono said hundreds of billions are being invested in laboratories and workshops – “unprecedented” in history.

Teaching hospitals are receiving equipment for laser procedures, oncology and other specialised operations previously requiring medical tourism to India, Egypt, UAE and the UK. He projects that within six months, at least 18 tertiary institutions will be equipped to receive patients from other countries.

The plan for six world-class advanced medical simulation centres has been expanded to eight to accommodate new specialised universities in Lokoja and Azare, alongside ABUTH Zaria, University of Lagos, Sokoto and others. Procurement is complete; construction is beginning.

The impact is already visible: nursing output has quadrupled in three years. TETFund is targeting a gap of about 120,000 professionals, focusing on medicine, pharmacy, nursing and dentistry, to restore Nigeria as a regional hub.

Taking TETFund Closer to Institutions

TETFund is also decentralising. Three new zonal offices in Kaduna, Bauchi and Uyo are ready for commissioning, with three more under construction. Beyond offices, they include conference facilities and accommodation to generate revenue and reduce treasury dependence.

The National Board for Technical Education and other agencies have already indicated interest in using the facilities. With systems now online, bid openings and supply confirmations are handled within a two-hour radius by zonal staff, making services cheaper, faster and more efficient.

From Nigerian Model to Global Reference

The growing international interest is perhaps the strongest validation. A high-powered Gambian delegation led by Professor Pierre Gomez, Minister of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology, recently visited TETFund to study its model.

Echono said the strategy is partnerships; learning global best practices to make Nigerian institutions competitive.

The Minister of Education has tasked TETFund with ensuring that within five years, half of Nigeria’s specialised institutions make significant inroads in global rankings. This is driving investments in multipurpose research labs and hostels.

Over 100 campuses are receiving hostels through direct construction or over 50 public-private partnerships. Each PPP mobilises about N4 billion – N3 billion private, N1 billion TETFund counterpart – delivering about 1,600 bed spaces each, with specialised hostels for teaching hospitals.

Digitisation is central. “A university website is often the first point of contact,” Echono said. TETFund is compelling institutions to upgrade their digital presence and has onboarded all institutions onto TERAS at no cost, paying for international journal subscriptions and learning management systems to match Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge standards.

‘Hope Is Not Lost’

For Echono, it all comes down to making knowledge productive;  moving from classrooms to capabilities, research to commercialisation, job seekers to job creators.

“I think hope is not lost,” he said. “We must renew hope in tertiary education, production and knowledge, so that rather than pursuit of corner shops or crime, we build a culture of hard work where knowledge becomes highly profitable when properly packaged, deployed, harnessed and utilised.”

That, ultimately, may be the most consequential shift underway: from an economy powered by raw commodities to one powered by intellectual assets.

The Road Ahead

​Re-engineering an educational system takes deliberate funding, policy alignment, and time. By decentralising TETFund operations into modern zonal facilities, expanding university bed spaces via public-private partnerships, and driving global academic rankings, the infrastructure for a modern knowledge economy is being laid.

The transition from crude oil to human capital is no longer a luxury – it is an economic imperative. As knowledge becomes Nigeria’s primary product, the nation stands on the threshold of a new era where youth ingenuity, supported by deliberate policy, powers national growth.

*Eniola Olakunri, a Public Sector Analyst and CEO of Write Affairs, writes from Abuja.