Federal government has declared that it has no plans to increase the pump price of the premium motor spirit ( PMS) also known as petrol and its associated products
This is just as Federal Executive Council also approved six new private Universities to bring the number of private Universities in Nigeria to 74
Federal Executive Council (FEC) also gave the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation ( NNPC) marching orders to end the present long queues at the filing stations across the country, before the end of this week.
Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed stated this while briefing Journalists after the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
The Minister said government frowned at the return of long queues and the sufferings to which Nigerians are being made to face saying that after a careful review of the situation, FEC gave NNPC management marching orders to end the problem.
Mohammed said government pump price of N145 per liter still stands adding that ” We have told them that they must not allow the problem to last beyond this week end and l know it will soon be dealt with”
Following the marching order, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu had to cut short his meeting at the Presidential Villa, to attend to the issue.
According to Mohammed, the “Minister had to attend a very important meeting so that this crisis would be resolved”
” The government has no intention at all that to increase the pump price of PMS, the minister assured the council that we have enough products till the next one month even till the end of January”
The increase in World demands for fuel during this winter season, has also been blamed for the long queues currently being experienced in Nigeria.
According to Mohammed ” The council gave the Minister a matching order that this fuel scarcity should not last beyond this weekend and they are going to work very hard to ensure that it is curtailed. He assured council that there is actually no cause for alarm”
The number of new private universities also increased by six as FEC approved six new private Universities at its meeting, brining the number of private Universities in Nigerian to 74
The Minister of Education Adamu Adamu announced the approval of six new private Universities to include the Admiralty Univerity, Ibusa, Delta state, Spiritan University, Nneochi, Abia, Precious Cornerstone University, Ibadan.
Other private Universities also approved by FEC include, the Pamo University of Medical Sciences, Port Harcourt, Atiba University, Oyo State, Eko University of Medical and Health Sciences Lagos.
The Minister said the number of Universities will continue to increase to meet the increasing demands for higher education in Nigeria, adding that Brazil with about 120 million population has over 1200 Universities.
“There are some more applications and I believe we will still bring more for Council approvals”
The Minister assured that the National Universities Commission (NUC ) is going to take the issue of accreditation very seriously adding that ” If any university fails to meet their standard, we are going to deregister their courses and enough courses are deregistered, it will lead to the closure of the University”
Speaking on the memorandum of settlement signed with the non teaching staff unions of Universities especially on Earned Allowances, Salary shortfalls and reinstatement of sacked teachers in staff schools?
The Minister said all issues had been settled with the unions, adding that ” we met and these issues had been thrashed out, I don’t know if there was problem that arose later because I travelled out of the country and came back yesterday (Tuesday)”
” But as far as I am concerned, these things had been addressed before I left and the formula that was used to share the money was agreed by them. They sat down with the officials in the Ministry of Education and agreed. So the money was not for ASUU alone, it was for all the unions”
He declared that the shortfall in salary was already being addressed.
” On the teachers of staff schools, it will certainly take time. Government has accepted the Court verdict that says they should be reinstated and they will be reinstated. I think the only issue before I left was that they will be in salary relevant to the what they are doing, they are not university staff, so they will just be receiving normal salaries like the grade level they get”
Foreign Affairs Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama who briefed on the the issue of Nigerians stranded in Libya, said Nigeria has taken statistics of the number of Nigerians stranded and are in the process of evacuating them back home.
“What we have done is that first of all, we got our Charge D’ Affairs in Tripoli to come to Abuja to give us the full details of what is actually going on there.
So, once we establish that and we are given all those facts, we are now meeting with various agencies like National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP ) to now arrange the evacuation process and this will be done in co-ordination with international organisation for migration (IOM) and see if we can very quickly repatriate all our Nigerian nationals who are there who want to return home”
“The charge d’ affairs said a number of Nigerians (and not all of them) do not want to come home. Certainly, it has to be those who want to come back home.”
Tony Ailemen
