President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has appointed Wale Edun, Nuhu Ribadu, and Dele Alake as his trusted special advisers.

Dele Alake has been appointed as a special adviser on special duties, communications, and strategy.

Nuhu Ribadu, who previously served as the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has been appointed as a special adviser on security. Additionally, Wale Edun has been named as a special adviser on monetary policies.

On Thursday, the State House's director of information, Abiodun Oladunjoye, issued a statement announcing their appointment.

In all, the President has designated a total of eight individuals to serve as special advisors.

In recent developments, Yau Darazo has been appointed as the special adviser on political and intergovernmental affairs, while Olu Verheijen has been named as the special adviser on energy.

In a recent development, the president has appointed Zachaeus Adedeji as a special adviser on revenue, and John Ugochukwu Uwajumogu as a special adviser on industry, trade, and investment.

Salma Ibrahim Anas has been appointed as a special adviser on health.

According to the president, the appointments will take effect immediately.

On June 6th, 2023, the Senate granted Tinubu's request to appoint 20 special advisers.

President Bola Tinubu has inaugurated the National Economic Council (NEC), charging the Council to work with his administration to revive the economic fortunes of Nigerians.

Speaking at the inauguration of the NEC at the Council Chambers of the State House in Abuja, President Tinubu noted that the task of reviving the economy before the new administration is daunting but noted that there would be no excuses not to deliver, since they all begged and even danced before Nigerians to give them the job.

He charged the Council to get to work, pointing out that Nigerians are waiting for them, saying “it is very reassuring that our citizens are behind us, but they want reforms and they want them very quickly”.

The NEC, which is under the chairmanship of the Vice President, was inaugurated on Thursday, a week after Tinubu called for its convening to fast track the process of finding answers that will mitigate the effects of the petroleum subsidy.

The NEC meets monthly and has the mandate to “advise the President concerning the economic affairs of the Federation, and in particular on measures necessary for the coordination of the economic planning efforts or economic programmes of the various Governments of the Federation.”

Those in attendance when meeting commenced are Governors Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq (Kwara); Ademola Adeleke (Osun); Yahaya Bello (Kogi); Biodun Oyebanji (Ekiti); Abdullahi Sule (Nasarawa); Umo Eno (Akwa Ibom); Peter Mbah (Enugu); Bassey Otu (Cross River); Caleb Muftwang (Plateau); Nasir Idris (Kebbi); Aliyu Radda (Katsina) and Hycinth Alia (Benue).

Others are Dauda Lawal (Zamfara); Dapo Abiodun (Ogun); Charles Soludo (Anambra); Mai Mala Buni (Yobe); Agbu Kefas (Taraba); Sheriff Oborevwori (Delta); Siminalayi Fubara (Rivers); Mohammed Bago (Niger) and Ahmad Aliyu (Sokoto).

Others are Francis Nwifuru (Ebonyi); Uba Sani (Kaduna); Godwin Obaseki (Edo); Alex Otti (Abia); Douye Diri (Bayelsa); Abba Yusuf (Kano); Bala Mohammed (Bauchi); Seyi Makinde (Oyo) and Borno Deputy Governor Umar Kadafur with Ondi Deputy Lucky Ayedatiwa.

The Secretary to the Government of the Federation George Akume; Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila; the Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari; Acting Accountant General of the Federation, Oluwatoyin Madein, Acting Governor of Central Bank, Folashodun Shonubi, Permanent Secretaries Budget and National Planning, Federal Capital Territory Administration, and State House are also there.

Popular social media commentator, Daniel Regha has reacted following the suspension of the Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), AbdulRasheed Bawa, by President Bola Tinubu.

Taking to his Twitter handle Wednesday, Regha claimed Bawa’s suspension means “nothing”.

According to him, “If Tinubu & this administration are serious, they should sack the INEC chairman (Yakubu)”.

“Bawa (EFCC boss) was incompetent but let’s not pretend like Tinubu is suspending anyone to fight corruption or fix Nigeria. There’s ulterior motive,” he stated.

This is the second time in barely a week Tinubu will be suspending principal officers since he was sworn-in as Nigeria’s 16th President.

Recall Tinubu on Saturday, June 10, had suspended the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr Godwin Emefiele following an ongoing investigation of his office and the planned reforms in the financial sector of the economy.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is thinking of extending the validity of old naira notes.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had redesigned the naira last year and set a deadline that was extended after outcry.

However, ruling in a suit filed by some aggrieved governors, the Supreme Court shifted the deadline to December 2023.

But in an Advisory Report released by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Policy Advisory Council chaired by Senator Tokunbo Abiru, a December 2024 deadline is said to be considered for the old naira notes.

Abiru was the Chief Executive Officer of Polaris Bank before he was elected into the Senate to represent Lagos East following the death of Senator Gbenga Oshinowo, his predecessor.

Also on the council is Dr Yemi Cardoso, a strong ally of the president, who played key role when Tinubu was governor of Lagos State.

The policy also outlined the planned achievements of the incumbent administration within 8 years, revealing Tinubu’s plan to seek a second term.

Tinubu currently has a 4-year mandate, having been elected on February 25, 2023.

Listed among the plans are doubling the economy to $1 trillion, achieving 7% average annual GDP rate; lifting 100 million people out of poverty; creating enabling environment to generate over 50 million jobs, among others.

Also listed in the advisory is the president’s position on abolishing of multiple exchange rate window, which was finally implemented by the CBN on Wednesday.

Daily Trust understands that the council will be inaugurated at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Thursday.

Elder statesman and South-South Leader, Chief Edwin Clark, has urged President Bola Tinubu to prioritise the provision of palliatives to mitigate challenges that have arisen from fuel subsidy removal.

Clark made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Thursday.

NAN reports that Tinubu had, during his inaugural speech on May 29, announced the removal of fuel subsidy which pushed the pump price of fuel from N194 to over N500 with variations in states.

Clark who commended the president on the removal of subsidy said the government had done the right thing.

June 12: Your sacrifices over fuel subsidy removal not in vain, Tinubu assuages Nigerians
“They have done the right thing. After all, all the candidates before the 2023 general election had advocated and promised to remove fuel subsidy.

“Everybody regarded it as a scam; it does not exist. Where are these faceless people we are paying the oil subsidy to, how has it benefited the ordinary man in Nigeria?

“Remember in January 2012, the Jonathan-led administration attempted to remove it, but the very people and leaders who opposed it at that time have now turned round to say yes it must go,” said Clark.

He added that removing the fuel subsidy was a very bold step taken by President Tinubu.

“Some people believe that since Tinubu was talking about subsidy removal during his campaign and also in his manifesto, he should have strategised how to provide the palliative to cushion the effect,” he said.

Clark explained that government workers understood that fuel subsidy had never been in their favour, adding that spending trillions of naira on fuel subsidy is unacceptable.

According to him, if the money is spent on the country’s transportation, education and health sectors, life will be much better: “we will have a better Nigeria.

“Now that a committee has been set up, where all parties will be involved, they should work it out.”

President Bola Tinubu has directed that the l Director of Operations at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Abdulkarim Chukkol immediately takes charge of the anti-graft agency following the indefinite suspension of the Chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa.

A statement issued from the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation says weighty allegations of abuse of office had been levelled against Bawa, who has been in office since February 24, 2021.

Chukkol is one of the young officers elevated following the appointment of Bawa over a year and half ago.

Chukkol earned a degree from the University of Maiduguri in 2000 and has attended various trainings such as FBI National Academy, Quantico Session 244 2011, University of Virginia Postgraduate Diploma in Criminal Justice Education 2011 and United States Telecommunications Training Institute Cybersecurity and Spectrum Monitoring 2010.

The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has been ordered by the Federal High Court in Abuja to pay MEDIA Rights Agenda, MRA, N1 million in damages for improperly denying access to information, the organization stated yesterday.

The group in a statement, said the court also directed the apex bank to make available all the information it requested in its May 22, 2020, letter regarding the bank’s data protection policies and practices.

According to MRA, in the suit instituted against the CBN, CBN Governor and Attorney General of the Federation, Justice Donatus Uwaezuoke Okorowo held that the failure of the apex bank to disclose or make available to MRA the information it requested amounts to a violation of its right of access to information established and guaranteed by Sections 1(1) and 4 of the Freedom of Information Act, 2011 and also constituted a wrongful denial of access to information under section 7(5) of the Act.

The statement, signed by the Communications Officer, MRA, Idowu Adewale, read: “MRA filed the suit on June 15, 2020, through its lawyer, Mr. Darlington Onyekwere, challenging the CBN’s refusal to disclose the information it applied for and asked the court to compel the bank and its governor to make available the information it requested in its May 22, 2020.

”It also asked, among other things, for copies of all the CBN’s data protection policies issued in conformity with the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation, NDPR, 2019; the name and contact details of the CBN’s Data Protection Officer, designated in accordance with the NDPR and its relevant data privacy instruments and data protection directives.

“MRA had also asked for details of all capacity building training or other capacity building activities undertaken for the Data Protection Officer and other CBN personnel involved in any form of data processing since the issuance of the NDPR, among others.

The Ministry of Education has said the federal government can no longer foot the bill for universities.

The Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Andrew David Adejo, said this at a press briefing Wednesday in Abuja while clarifying the Students Loan Bill signed into law by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Monday.

“Introduction of tuition fee is not arising from the act; No! Whether we like it or not, the government can no longer foot the bill for universities. That is why we are doing Private Public Partnership (PPP),” he said.

Responding to a question on if the act would introduce tuition fees in public institutions, Adejo said, “The universities already have autonomy, the autonomy they are yet to have is financial autonomy. It is when they get it that they can answer that question and the government is working towards that.”

The Permanent Secretary said the federal government was working out modalities to begin the disbursement of student loans in September because the president had directed that the first recipients of the loan must be available for the 2023/2024 academic session.

He said an inter-ministerial committee would be inaugurated on Tuesday to fine-tune the process for students to get the loan within six weeks.

He explained that the Act addressed the purpose of making sure that persons that get the loan pay their tuition, saying, “Without meaning to say what the committee set up would do, we don’t want to make something that only public school students would benefit from.

“For now, private schools are paying tuition so you have to give somebody who is going to private school an opportunity to get and pay tuition.

“What you have been seeing is the bill that was presented and went through final reading at the House of Representatives and before Mr President signs a bill, he looks at it and sends it to relevant ministries and then decides if it is okay and if there are modifications that are necessary.

“Let us wait to see the Act and you will get the Act when it is transmitted to the Ministry of Justice to produce into a gazette,” he said.

Adejo further explained that there were other fees apart from tuition that could make indigent students need a loan.

“You can’t give someone a loan and say pay tuition without sustaining his school. No. You have to get accommodation, even if tuition fee in public universities is free, you still pay for your accommodation and the federal government would not give you loan that will not make sure you get in school, stay in school and graduate,” he added.

While noting that such scheme had failed in the past, he said the government wanted to learn from the past, adding, “We want the current act to learn from the mistake of the past where there were more defaulters than people that paid. In the past, it is like it is a government money come and take and go, free money but that is not going to be the case with this.”

He however, assured that the process would be depoliticised and that jobs would be created even though it cannot be created 100 per cent, adding that universities and polytechnics were being redirected to focus on innovation and produce job creators.

The suspension of EFCC Chairman Abdulrasheed Bawa did not come as a surprise to the organisation, according to Mr. Auwal Rafsanjani, the head of Transparency International in Nigeria.

In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday, Rafsanjani—who is also the organization’s executive director—made this statement.

Recall that the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) released a statement on Wednesday, the day after President Bola Tinubu stated the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) had been suspended.

Bawa was put on administrative leave due to “weighty allegations of abuse of office” that were made against him.

”The suspension did not come to us by surprise, this is because of the way and manner the previous regimes or governments have always removed the EFCC leaders when they come into power.

”For this development, with regard to the removal of the EFCC chairman, we believe that already we knew that he was going to be removed because of so many political interests and changes that can happen,” TI said.

He said that Tinubu might not likely retain Bawa because of how he was appointed and his affiliation.

”He will want to get rid of anything that has to do with that.

”Also there are some political interests, some politicians associated with the government also have issues with the current suspended EFCC chairman and therefore they are likely not to be comfortable to have him there,” the group added.

Rafsanjani stated that ”the EFCC office has been unnecessarily made to be too much political.

”Therefore, it is making it difficult to do what ordinarily government agency is supposed to do.

”So, we need to look at it from that context and from that perspective, so I’m not surprised.”

Rafsanjani, however, said that ”what is important is that we must insist and demand that the anti-corruption and the good work of agencies, including EFCC must continue in the country.”

He also advised the government to look beyond politics in appointing the next chairman of EFCC.

“In appointing the next one, I think first and foremost, lets make that office to be a technical professional office,” he stated.

Within minutes of the release of the video of President Bola Tinubu signing the students’ loan bill into law, it was trending on Twitter as was the name of Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila, who sponsored the bill in his former life as Speaker.

Apart from the Nigeria Maritime University which was charging N81,500 per semester in 2019 – the highest in a federal university – the average tuition is about N45,000. State universities charge between N60,000 and N120,000, while polytechnics and colleges of education charge less of course, but only slightly less than federal universities.

Strangely, the word, “tuition,” does not exist in the bills of public universities. In the make-believe world of officialdom, tuition is “free,” in the sort of way that salvation is free, but the message is delivered at a cost. Universities still charge under sundry headings like acceptance fees, departmental charges, course registration, result verification and so on, but shy away from calling it tuition.

Private universities are in a class of their own. A number of them charge fees almost comparable to those in schools in neighbouring countries, particularly Ghana, a favourite destination of middle-class Nigerian families.

But the bulk of higher education students — in fact, about 90 percent according to the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) — are in public schools. Out of the 110 private higher institutions, only about two or three, particularly Covenant and Afe Babalola universities, are able to fill their quota. The rest are struggling.

If public institutions of higher learning are charging about N90,000, a fraction of what even those below middle-class pay for their children in private secondary schools (increasingly the place of choice for Nigerians across income levels), it would seem rather awkward, if not ridiculous, that they’re unwilling to pay more for higher education.

In an article in ThisDay last September 23, former pro-chancellor of Ambrose Alli University, Lawson A. Omokhodion, said he believed that a typical public university could survive on tuition fees of N250,000 per session, whereas universities currently receive only about one-third of that as fees.

How, therefore, can students’ loans be justified under this unsustainable cost structure? I think it can, but not at the scale contemplated by the new law. And certainly not within the existing structure of the public university system. With a few exceptions, the public university system is no longer fit for purpose. The system is retrograde, stifling and underperforming. 

Pouring resources into the system as it currently is, whether directly, or indirectly through infusion of students’ loans, is throwing good money after bad. I’m aware that long-established systems are difficult to dismantle. But the present economic difficulties make it foolish to turn a blind eye to structural changes for temporary political benefits.

Nigeria has 49 federal universities, 59 state-government-owned universities and 110 private universities. The first two categories are underperforming and overwhelmed. It’s difficult to say exactly how much of it is a funding or management problem.

For example, federal allocations to Nigeria’s top 10 federal universities in 2023 range from N25.84 billion to Ahmadu Bello University, to N22.37 billion to the University of Lagos; and from N19.28 billion to the University of Ibadan to N14.31 billion to the Federal University of Technology, Owerri. Yet, the bulk of these sums can hardly cover overheads, a malaise that tends to highlight corruption and sheer lack of imagination.

A number of private universities are glorified secondary schools. On top of the pie sits the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), a federal bureaucracy that struggles to find its left from its right. Except the system is fixed – and quickly – the students’ loan would at best be a waste or at worst an enabler for producing more garbage. 

Students’ loan is not new in Nigeria, and is quite different from bursary which is still provided by a number of states for indigenes, and is not repayable. Some states even provide scholarships for students in specific areas of need. The students’ loan board was set up by General Yakubu Gowon’s government in 1974 to provide loans to students repayable after 20 years of graduation. At the time, the loans were disbursed to students through the universities.

Beneficiaries of state or federal government bursaries were excluded from the loans, which targeted the poorest of the poor. But then there were only six federal government universities with an estimated total student population in 1970/71 of about 16,000. 

In 1993, the military promulgated a decree to establish the Nigeria Education Bank and eight years later the university autonomy bill was passed, which was supposed to unleash the creative capacity of the schools, but sadly this has not been the case.

The state of our universities reminds me of what Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, once told university administrators at a time when he had to tackle Israel’s backwardness and unleash its innovative and creative spirit. 

“Even though I have the utmost respect for the study of humanities,” he said, “If I had to share government shekel between Tibetan poetry and microelectronics, I would have no hesitation putting the money in the latter.” Nigeria’s institutions of higher learning, especially public universities, have lost their way, led astray by the military, politicians, and sadly, university administrators, too.

For a start, the federal university system has to be dismantled and reduced to only two or three per zone, at least one of which should be devoted to STEM, the study of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The rest can be taken up by either state governments who wish to do so and can afford it or may reorganise into autonomous units for teaching special skills. It’s only after such a restructuring that students’ loans can make any significant long-term impact. And the loan cannot and should not be for all courses, as is contemplated in the current law 

It should be restricted to only students in any of the STEM courses rather than making it an all-comers affair. Also, as it was in the Gowon era, and for wider coverage, beneficiaries of bursary should be excluded and universities must start charging tuition and betting on outstanding STEM students and innovators. 

The financial threshold for the students’ loans should also be adjusted from applicants/families earning less than N500,000 yearly to those earning N720,000 or less. Over time, schools with a demonstrable capacity to attract higher endowments could get slightly more than others.

I find it difficult to understand the rationale for having the Education Bank branches in all 36 states of the country as proposed by the law, if the loans will be disbursed through the schools to the students. With a strong ICT backbone, the country does not need more than two branches of the bank at this time. 

Boards of the numerous parastatals, MDAs and commissions are some of the major public sector waste pipes. We don’t need another 12-member board with all the costs attached to compound our misery.

I understand the temptation among politicians to milk every opportunity, including this one. The branches would yet be fresh dumping grounds for incompetents dispatched by politicians either to fill quotas or to settle IOUs. The danger in multiplying branches, however, is that they would also multiply bureaucracy, inefficiency and sooner than later, we might be spending funds set aside for students’ loans to service overheads.

The bank board should be leaner. I honestly do not know what the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) are doing there, whereas the National Association of Nigerian Students is excluded. It doesn’t make sense. 

The law is a good start but needs to be saved from the surrounding ruins to be useful to students and serviceable to the schools.