FG approves 20 private universities
- THE Federal Government on Thursday said the 197 universities in Nigeria were too small given the country’s growing population which presently stood at over 200 million.
- The Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, represented by the Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, stated this during the presentation of provisional licenses to 20 newly approved private universities by the National Universities Commission.
- With the approval, Nigeria now has 99 private universities, and a total of 197 universities, private and public.
- The universities granted provisional licenses included Mudiame University, Irrua, Edo State; James Hope University, Lagos; Maryam Abacha American University of Nigeria, Kano; Capital City University, Kano; Ahman Pategi University, Pategi, Kwara State; and University of Offa, Kwara State.
FG meets resident doctors after eight-day strike today
- The Federal Government and the National Association of Resident Doctors will on Friday (today) hold a meeting to address the ongoing strike embarked upon by the doctors.
- The Ministry of Labour and Employment spokesman, Charles Akpan, disclosed this in an invite to journalists on Thursday.
- He said the parley which would hold at the ministry, will be chaired by the Minister for Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, and attended by resident doctors and representatives of the Federal Government.
- The agreement between the FG and doctors broke down after the medical workers expressed lack of confidence in the Memorandum of Action signed with the government representatives.
- The NARD had after its Executive Council meeting accused the government of insincerity and dismissed the MOA as a plot by the government to hoodwink the union.
- But Ngige said the Federal Government had not only substantially met the seven-point demand by NARD, it has also demonstrated transparency in their implementation.
- He said the House Officers have started receiving their payments in the federal government teaching hospitals and federal medical centres across the federation.
- According to him, by the close of work on Thursday, all would have been paid as the officers at the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation worked even during the Easter public holidays to effect the payment.
NIN inclusion delaying commencement of UTME registration
- THE Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has apologised for the delay in the commencement of its registration which it said was speculated to begin on Thursday.
- A statement issued on Thursday by the spokesperson of JAMB, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, disclosed that the delay was caused by some unforeseen circumstances occasioned by its determined effort to have National Identity Number integration.
- He said, “To be sure all processes are completed before the commencement, the Board did not place its advertorial as it was yet to complete the process of a smooth pin vending and candidate access to the registration app for the 2021 UTME/DE.
Delta communities threaten to shut down oil firm over massive spill
- Seven oil producing communities in Delta State have threatened to shut down the operation of a multinational oil exploration firm operating in their areas over an alleged “lackluster, wicked and barbaric approach” towards the clean-up of the oil spill on their ancestral lands.
- The affected communities, Erhobaro, Etavwobakai, Etewhia, Obaro-Uku, Ovara-Unukpo, Atagbuwe and Eroike, all in Ughelli North and Ethiope East local government areas of Delta State, also called on the Federal Government and the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency to caution the oil firm, Heritage Energy Operational Services Limited, in order to avert the crisis that might erupt over the spill.
- Representatives of the communities on Thursday said they woke up sometime in August 2019 to see their “farmlands, ponds, rivers and streams covered by hydrocarbon (crude oil) from the failed facility of Heritage Energy Operational Services Limited.
- “As a result, all the means of livelihood of our people, who are predominantly farmers, got perished, leaving many households in the communities in acute poverty, hunger and suffering,” they lamented.
- They explained that several letters had been written to the oil firm and Joint Investigation Visits (JIV) by all affected stakeholders carried out, while NOSDRA had even promised that the affected communities lands, ponds, rivers and streams would be cleaned up and adequate compensations paid by HEOSL.
- But till date, no action has been made in fulfilling those promises.
CBN freezes another 194 accounts of firms, BDCs
- The Central Bank of Nigeria on Thursday said it got orders from the Federal High Court, Abuja division, to freeze 194 bank accounts belonging to firms and Bureaux de Change to enable it to conduct investigations into suspicious activities.
- It disclosed this on Thursday in three separate documents on its website.
- In one of the documents, the CBN said it got an order to freeze 60 bank accounts of Bluebeam Capital Limited.
- The accounts were domiciled in 13 different banks, the CBN as the plaintiff stated.
- Bluebeam, as the respondent had eight accounts each in Access Bank and Keystone Bank; seven each in First Bank and Ecobank; five each in UBA and GTBank; four each in Fidelity Bank, FCMB and Sterling Bank; three accounts in Polaris Bank; two each in Wema Bank and Heritage Bank; and one in Providus Bank.
- In another document, the CBN said it got an order to freeze 84 accounts in 17 banks. The third documents revealed that the banking regulator had the court order to freeze 50 accounts domiciled in different banks.
- The motions exparte which were signed on different dates sought the orders of the court to direct the banks to freeze all other bank accounts of the defendants for a period of 180 days, pending the outcome of investigation and inquiry being conducted by the CBN.
