Why Government Funding Alone Won’t Fix Nigeria’s Education Crisis

BY ADEOLA AKINREMI

A country’s investment in research and development (R&D) is one of the clearest indicators of how seriously it takes its future. Scientific discoveries do not happen by accident. They require sustained funding, functioning research institutions, skilled people, technological infrastructure and governments willing to invest in knowledge before its economic benefits become visible. The United States spent an estimated $993 billion on R&D in 2024, approximately 3.4 per cent of its GDP. Nigeria’s internationally reported R&D expenditure data, by comparison, remain remarkably outdated. The UNESCO series available through the World Bank records expenditure of just 0.22 per cent of GDP in 2007, with no sufficiently recent comparable observation. This is not merely a statistical inconvenience. It raises questions about how seriously Nigeria measures and prioritises the scientific capacity required for development.

In March, I visited the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where my daughter is currently a pre-med student. The university, often described as one of America’s Public Ivies because of its academic reputation and standing among leading public universities, has Professor Omolade Adunbi, a Nigerian, as its Director of the African Studies Center. I have maintained a relationship with Professor Adunbi for nearly two decades, and he joined my daughter in welcoming me to campus. During our conversation, I asked him about innovative ways American universities finance their programmes and what Nigeria and other African economies could learn. He introduced me to what I would call the Michigan template.

One of the things he drew my attention to was the commercial value of university research as a source of funding. The University of Michigan has an extensive research-commercialisation ecosystem, connecting faculty research with corporations, foundations, investors and entrepreneurs through its Innovation Partnerships office.

At Michigan, research output creates opportunities for corporations to sponsor research, enter partnerships with academics, license intellectual property and commercialise discoveries. Professor Adubi mentioned Google co-founder Larry Page as an illustration of the relationship between university education, research and entrepreneurship. Page graduated from Michigan before proceeding to Stanford, where he and Sergey Brin developed PageRank, the technology that became foundational to Google. The research that produced Google was conducted at Stanford, but the example illustrates the wider value of university education and innovation.

Our conversation moved effortlessly from the political economy of Nigerian academic institutions to the politics of their governing bodies. Professor Adubi outlined four pathways through which universities can generate value from research: corporate-sponsored research, in which companies finance research addressing technological or commercial challenges; intellectual property licensing, through which universities protect and license commercially valuable discoveries; university spinouts, which allow researchers to establish businesses around campus innovations; and strategic research partnerships, through which corporations support longer-term research programmes relevant to their industries.

As Nigeria continues to approve licences for more universities, the value of these institutions must extend beyond the degrees they award. It should also be measured by their capacity to produce people, ideas and discoveries that create economic value. In fiscal year 2025, Michigan recorded $2.16 billion in research expenditures, attracted $170.6 million in corporate-sponsored research awards and supported the creation of 31 startups. Its experience demonstrates what becomes possible when academic research, government investment and private-sector participation reinforce one another.

For Nigeria, this raises a fundamental policy question. Why should universities remain so heavily dependent on government allocations and tuition when their research capabilities could also attract corporate investment, generate intellectual property and support new businesses? This requires more than asking companies to fund universities. It requires institutions capable of producing credible research, protecting intellectual property and negotiating commercial partnerships.

It is against this background that I find the latest findings of the Wellcome Global Monitor particularly troubling. Published on October 10, 2026, Trust in Science Under Pressure draws on interviews with more than 140,000 people across 140 countries. Its findings show that public trust in science has declined globally since the COVID-19 pandemic and fallen below its 2018 level.

Nigeria’s experience reflects this worrying trend. In 2018, 26 per cent of Nigerians said they trusted science a lot. By 2020, that figure had fallen to 13 per cent. It recovered modestly to 15 per cent in 2025. Although the recovery is welcome, Nigeria remains 11 percentage points below its pre-pandemic level. Overall, 57 per cent of Nigerians reported at least some trust in science.

The survey’s findings on vaccination make the challenge more concrete. Asked whether they would take a vaccine recommended by a doctor or nurse, 35 per cent of Nigerian respondents said they would take it immediately. Another 36 per cent preferred time to think about it, while 24 per cent said they did not take vaccines at all. Someone who wants time to consider a vaccine is not necessarily opposed to vaccination. Such concerns should not automatically be dismissed as ignorance. The more important question is whether people can obtain clear, credible answers that allow them to make informed decisions.

The pandemic provides an important context. Scientific recommendations sometimes changed because the evidence changed. That is not a weakness of science; it is how science works. But when authorities communicate uncertainty poorly, subsequent changes can be interpreted as evidence of incompetence or dishonesty.

Nigeria must nevertheless resist the temptation to explain its figures entirely through COVID-19. For many Nigerians, the most immediate encounter with science is not a laboratory or research institution, but a hospital, clinic, pharmacy or conversation with a health professional. The Wellcome report identifies an important relationship between confidence in healthcare institutions and trust in science. Globally, 43 per cent of people expressing a lot of confidence in their country’s hospitals and clinics also reported a lot of trust in science, compared with 26 per cent across the survey population.

Economic insecurity adds another dimension. Globally, 39 per cent of people living comfortably reported a lot of trust in science in 2025, compared with 20 per cent of those finding it difficult to get by financially. Families preoccupied with food, rent, school fees and medical bills may have fewer resources to seek reliable information or act on professional advice. When institutions appear disconnected from those struggles, their pronouncements may carry less weight.

To be fair, the Nigerian government has announced an initiative that could address some of these challenges. Following Federal Executive Council approval, the Federal Government announced in May 2026 plans to establish the National Research and Innovation Development Fund (NRIDF), with an annual funding target of up to $500 million, approximately ₦673 billion at the current official exchange rate. The fund is intended to support competitive research grants, strengthen innovation infrastructure and commercialise research findings.

However, there is a difference between what a government promises and what it commits to funding. The $500 million figure was announced as an estimated annual target. On October 8, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Kingsley Udeh, clarified that the exact amount could not yet be determined because the proposed funding mechanism would draw on different sources calculated as percentages on a year-by-year basis. He also confirmed that the enabling bill had been forwarded to the National Assembly. In other words, the government has secured executive approval for the initiative, but the legislative and funding arrangements are not yet fully established. An announcement is not an appropriation, and an appropriation is not necessarily a disbursement.

The government must therefore demonstrate that the fund will be backed by a sustainable revenue framework, independently governed, transparently administered and accessible to credible researchers.

I have not found a specific public response from the Nigerian government to the Wellcome report since its October 10 publication. But to turn discoveries into commercially viable solutions, Nigeria needs research that addresses local priorities and stronger university-industry partnerships.

Adeola Akinremi is a public policy advisor, strategic communications expert, and the founder and CEO of Hintells, an AI-powered intelligence platform serving businesses and diplomatic missions in Washington, D.C. He has extensive multilateral experience advising on governance, economic and policy reforms across global markets and can be reached at: adeola@hintells.com