Nigeria’s N365m laureate prize and the question of public trust
By Precious Ebere-Chinonso Obi
The Federal Government’s decision to establish the Tertiary Institutions National Laureate Prize is a welcome recognition of something Nigeria has often struggled to institutionalise: the deliberate identification, recognition and financing of excellence within its tertiary institutions.
Announced by the Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, the programme will commit N365 million annually to outstanding research and innovation, including N35 million for the Undergraduate Star Prize, N50 million for the Master’s Star Prize, N100 million for the Doctoral Star Prize and N180 million across 15 thematic excellence awards. The initiative is being implemented by the Federal Ministry of Education and the Nigeria Education Repository and Databank (NERD), with the Ministry describing the process as transparent, competitive and merit-driven.
While this is important, I believe Nigeria has no shortage of students, researchers and young innovators developing solutions across technology, agriculture, health, education and engineering. What has been less consistent is the ability of public institutions to identify these ideas early, finance their development and create pathways through which promising research can become products, enterprises, policies and services that improve people’s lives.
The National Laureate Prize could therefore become an important intervention but the announcement also comes at a time when questions about the implementation of existing education commitments deserve attention.
I took out time to read some of the comments beneath the Minister’s announcement that came from students and education workers asking the government to address outstanding obligations. One group raised concerns about beneficiaries of Federal Government scholarships who are still waiting for payments. Another appealed for the completion of the mainstreaming process for staff of demonstration schools in Colleges of Education, noting that verification had reportedly been completed in February 2024.
These concerns deserve to be considered alongside the new prize because they point to a broader issue in public education policy: citizens increasingly judge government programmes by the reliability of implementation, not simply by the quality of the announcement.
I also remember reading some recent reports supporting their comments. In January 2026, Premium Times reported that beneficiaries of the National Award Scholarship were still awaiting their 2025 payments, with some beneficiaries describing previous delays as well. FIJ subsequently reported cases involving students who had received Federal Scholarship Board awards but were still waiting for disbursement. In July, the National Association of Nigerian Students also raised concerns about delayed Federal Government scholarship payments.
These cases do not mean that the National Laureate Prize will suffer the same problems. They do, however, provide an important lesson for its design. If the government wants this programme to build confidence among students and researchers, the accountability framework needs to be visible from the beginning.
The Ministry has already spoken about a merit-based and transparent selection process. That should extend beyond who wins the prize. Nigerians should eventually be able to see how the annual allocation is managed, how applications are assessed, how conflicts of interest are handled, when awards are approved and when successful candidates actually receive their money.
There is also a need to protect the programme from the kinds of institutional weaknesses that have affected other public interventions. Nigeria’s education sector has had repeated experiences with delayed projects, incomplete implementation and allegations of financial mismanagement. The ICPC has documented challenges around publicly funded tertiary institution projects, while investigations and prosecutions have also occurred in relation to alleged financial diversion involving education-sector interventions. These cases are not evidence that the National Laureate Prize will be compromised, but they demonstrate why strong controls should be built into the programme before significant funds begin to move.
The most useful approach would be to treat the prize as more than an annual award ceremony. Each winning project could have a publicly accessible record showing the research area, institution, amount awarded and subsequent milestones. After one, two and three years, the programme could track whether research has resulted in a prototype, patent, enterprise, policy adoption, additional investment or measurable community benefit.
That would allow the government to answer a question that is often missing from public funding programmes: what happened after the money was released?
There is another issue that the Ministry should consider. New programmes should not inadvertently create the impression that the government is moving forward with new commitments while older obligations remain unresolved. A student waiting for an already-approved scholarship may find it difficult to view a new national prize as evidence of a functioning education system. The same applies to academics and education workers waiting for commitments that have already passed through verification or approval processes.
This is not an argument against the National Laureate Prize, quite the opposite. If the government wants the programme to succeed, it should use it as an opportunity to demonstrate a higher standard of public programme management.
Nigeria needs to reward intellectual excellence. It needs to give researchers the resources to turn ideas into solutions and create stronger connections between universities, government and industry. But the credibility of such an investment will ultimately depend on what happens after the launch.
The Minister’s stated ambition of building an education system that produces solutions, innovations, enterprises and measurable national value is worth pursuing. The next step is to ensure that the systems supporting that ambition are equally capable of delivering, tracking and protecting the public resources invested in it.
For a country where many young Nigerians have watched promising government programmes struggle at the implementation stage, the National Laureate Prize has an opportunity to demonstrate that public investment in talent can be both ambitious and accountable.
That would make the ₦365 million more than prize money. It would make it a test of whether Nigeria can build a public system in which excellence is identified, properly funded and followed through to impact.
- Precious Ebere-Chinonso Obi, CEO of Do Take Action, is an independent consultant on edtech, climate change, public policy, and women’s procurement empowerment
