Nigerian universities are sitting on an underused resource, and it is not buried in the ground: it is their own graduates, Nigerian Higher Education Foundation Chairman Wale Adeosun told university officials at the close of an advancement training programme in Lagos.
Government funding alone will not be enough going forward, Adeosun argued, making alumni donation and endowment programmes a necessary complement for institutions looking to invest in infrastructure, scholarships and academic development. The training itself was built to equip advancement officers with the skills to build lasting alumni relationships and mobilize financial support once they return to their campuses.
Adeosun, who also serves as chief executive of Kuramo Capital Management, tied the strategy to a simple feedback loop: how well a university treats its students shapes how willing those same students are to give back once they graduate. Endowment funds built through alumni giving, he said, would give institutions the financial flexibility to invest in research, teaching facilities and scholarships, arguing that stronger alumni engagement, paired with global best practices in institutional advancement, would ultimately raise both university finances and the quality of education Nigeria’s next generation of graduates receives.
