The Influence of Federal Administrative Trends on The Budgetary Processes of Nigeria’s Federal Universities.

The proliferation of university educational demand in Nigeria occurred as a result of the oil boom and the subsequent creation of nineteen states. In 1974, Ibadan and Lagos Universities were the only federal universities; in 1976 seven more universities were created. The sudden increase, from two in 1974 to thirteen federal universities in 1976, necessitated the adoption of the formula funding model, which was perceived as being capable of allocating resources to all similar academic programs in the institutions. The thirteen federal universities were used in the study. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the applicability outcome of the model seven years after adoption. The effectiveness and the congruency of the model were tested for significant differences between the National Universities Commission\u27s recommended estimates and those of the individual institutions. The result was significant at the .01 alpha level. Another test for significant differences between the Commission\u27s estimates and the actual allocations resulted in a significant difference at the .01 alpha level. The third measure of effectiveness was the significant difference test between the institutions\u27 estimates and the actual allocations. There was a significant difference at the .01 level. The congruency measure of the formula model was computed by determining the relationships between student headcount enrollments and the three developed budgets (the Commissions\u27, the institutions\u27 and the administrations\u27). A significant positive relationship was found between the student enrollments and the Commission\u27s estimates. For the student enrollments and institutions\u27 estimates, a positive relationship was computed and was significant at the .01 alpha level. The conclusive findings, therefore, were that the formula funding model was not effective because arbitrary budget estimates were developed by the instructors, the National Universities Commissions and the Administrators within the seven years of adoption. The formula budgeting model was however found to be congruent because the direct instructional cost index formed the major portion of all the budget estimates that were developed by the three agencies and within the institutional categories. Significant differences between the level of influence exerted by the military and civilian administrations on the budgeting processes were not found