The President will meet with the governors before departing for the African Union meeting in Ethiopia
President Bola Tinubu is scheduled to hold a crucial meeting with governors from all 36 states at the Presidential Villa on Thursday morning.
The President will meet with the governors before departing for the African Union meeting in Ethiopia.
Tinubu will later today depart for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to participate in the 37th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU).
The theme of this year’s summit is ‘Educate an African for the 21st Century: Building resilient education systems for increased access to inclusive, lifelong, quality and relevant learning in Africa”.
On the margins of the summit, the President will also attend an extraordinary summit of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS in his capacity as the Chairman of the regional body.
He will be accompanied on the trip by some ministers and other top government officials, and he is expected to return to Abuja following the summit's conclusion.
Tinubu’s second meeting with the 36 governors comes amid hardship, rising inflation and high cost of living in the nation.
This has led to protests in some parts of the country and governors in the opposition Peoples Democratic Party recently said Nigeria was going the way of Venezuela with increasing poverty and starvation in the land.
Last week, the President directed the immediate release of 42,000 metric tons of assorted food items from both the Strategic Reserve and the Rice Millers Association of Nigeria.
SaharaReporters reported last Wednesday that Nigerians in more states were embracing the call for protests against the harsh economy occasioned by the policies of President Tinubu’s government.
Traders in Kogi State and Suleja in Niger State, which is a few kilometres away from the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja staged protests over the high cost of food items.
Market women and men who protested in the streets of Lokoja, the state capital, lamented the increasing prices of essential commodities and how it had affected patronage of their businesses.
The angry Nigerians in a video obtained by SaharaReporters, called on President Tinubu’s government to end the hardship and inflation in the country.
After a meeting of the special presidential committee on emergency food intervention on Thursday, Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, said the President’s directive was part of the government’s short-term measure to address the high cost of food.
Idris warned that the government would sanction food hoarders, noting that emergencies require emergency measures to ensure food availability to Nigerians.
Also, he noted that the government would embark on importation to plug any shortfalls that may be experienced after the release of the food items.
On February 6, the presidential committee on emergency food intervention met at the Presidential Villa in Abuja over the rising cost of living in the country.
The committee was convened by Femi Gbajabiamila, Chief of Staff (CoS) to the President.
The meeting was attended by Nuhu Ribadu, the national security adviser (NSA); Yemi Cardoso, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN); Tahir Mamman, minister of education; Wale Edun; minister of finance and Abubakar Kyari, minister of agriculture, as well as Mustapha Shehuri, minister of state for agriculture.
SaharaReporters had reported that the decision of President Tinubu's administration to remove the petrol subsidy on May 29, 2023, was the beginning of the rising cost of living.
The high cost of petrol immediately led to hikes in the cost of goods and services.