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JUST IN: FG opposes N/Assembly’s proposals for 200 new varsities
The federal government has expressed opposition to the proposals by the National Assembly for creation of nearly 200 new universities in the country.
It said with almost 200 bills in the National Assembly for establishment of new universities, there is a growing concern that the system is becoming overwhelmed.
The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, stated this in Abuja yesterday during the third edition of the 2025 Ministerial Press Briefing.
The country currently has 278 universities, 64 of which are federal; 67, state; and 147, private.
The government had, last month, announced a one-year moratorium on the establishment of new private universities “to enhance the quality and sustainability of private universities, ensuring that only institutions with the necessary financial and academic capacity are granted licenses.”
The minister yesterday emphasised that strengthening the capacities of the existing universities is more important than establishing new ones.
He said: “They (lawmakers) are passing a lot of bills. Today, I can tell you that there are almost 200 bills in the National Assembly. We can’t continue like this.
Even though we have a lot of them, the capacity for a university to admit is not there. What we need to do now is to rebuild the capacities so that we can offer more viable courses to our citizens.
“We need to stop this (the 200 bills for new universities) from happening. There is so much pressure on the president. We have to, at least, be sensitive to it as well.
“I understand the sentiment of our legislators. They want to show that they are working. We know they are working. But then, we have enough assets, we have enough opportunities out there for students to go to universities.
“What we now need to do is to begin to mobilise more resources to develop infrastructures, build engineering workshops, build laboratories in these universities, recruit international standard teachers, so that we can begin to get these universities to develop, to deliver high quality of education that will be known for as a country.
“Today, if you care to know, we have 64 federal universities, 67 state universities and 147 private universities.
If you look at the entire enrolment together, the private universities account for just 7.5% of total undergraduate enrolment.
I will tell you the meaning of the number. The total number of undergraduate enrolments today is just about 875,000, which is, at least, fairly low.
“We have universities with less than 1,000 undergraduate students, and there is this intense demand for more universities to be opened. We have to stop that.”
however, it is not only the legislators that are obsessed with pushing for the establishing of universities as constituency project or for status symbol.
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Reps minority caucus confirms authentic version of tax laws passed by NASS were altered
This is a clear case of the Executive undermining legislative powers by illegally altering an already passed law to drag more taxpayers into the net,” the report read.
The House of Representatives Minority Caucus said that its investigation has confirmed that the tax federal government’s tax reform laws were altered after they had been passed by the National Assembly.
“This is a clear case of the Executive undermining legislative powers by illegally altering an already passed law to drag more taxpayers into the net,” the Cacus said, warning that the actions amount to a direct assault on the constitutional authority of the National Assembly and a threat to democratic governance.
In an interim report, released on Friday the Cacus, under the leadership of Kingsley Chinda, said that it set up a 7-man Fact-finding Committee on January 2nd “to get to the root of the scandal” after public outrage over allegations of discrepancies in the passed and gazetted tax.
The ad-hoc committee set up by the caucus is independent of the committee set up by the House leadership.
It is led by Afam Victor Ogene. Other members of the committee include Aliyu Garu – Bauchi, Stanley Adedeji – Oyo, Ibe Osonwa – Abia, Hon. Marie Ebikake – Bayelsa, MB Shehu Fagge – Kano and Gaza Gbefwi Jonathan – Nasarawa.
The Cacus said that as part of its investigations, it’s Ad-hoc committee compared the Certified True Copies of the Acts released officially by the House of Representatives as directed by the Speaker, with the already gazetted version already in circulation before the alarm was raised by the House, and confirmed that there were some alterations as alleged by Dasuki on the floor of the House of Representatives, especially in the Nigeria Tax Administration Act, 2025;
The Cacus also confirmed that there were three different versions of the documents in circulation, particularly the Nigeria Tax Administration Act, 2025.
According to the interim report by the caucus, the Nigeria Tax Administration Act (NTAA), 2025, has a number of discrepancies from the version passed by the National Assembly and the version earlier published in the official gazette. These discrepancies are obvious, going by the released Certified True Copies (CTCs) by the House referenced earlier.
..i. Section 29(1): On Reporting Thresholds: While the NASS Certified version provided for a tax compliance reporting threshold of N50 million for individuals and N100 million for companies, the gazetted version lowered the reporting thresholds for individuals to (N25 million from N50 million) and (N100 million from N250 million) for companies.
ii. Section 41: Introducing new subsections (8) and (9) prescribing a mandatory 20% Deposit for Appeals:The gazetted version introduced new subsections 41(8) and 41(9), which required taxpayers to deposit 20% of the disputed tax amount as a condition for appealing Tax Appeal Tribunal (TAT) decisions to the High Court.
These sections were not in the authentic version passed by NASS.
News
TCN records National grid collapses first time in 2026
The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), which manages the national grid, had yet to disclose the cause of the collapse as of the time of filing this report.
The national grid collapsed on Friday for the first time in 2026.
The system failure occurred around 1 pm, when load allocation to all electricity distribution companies (DisCos) fell to zero.
Data obtained from the Nigerian Independent System Operator (NISO) showed that power generation dropped to zero megawatts (MW), leading to a total shutdown of electricity supply across the country.
A review of the national distribution load profile at the time of the incident indicated that all DisCos — including Abuja, Eko, Benin, Enugu, Ibadan, Ikeja, Jos, Kano, Kaduna, Port Harcourt and Yola — recorded zero load, confirming a nationwide outage.
The collapse came shortly after grid operators reported strong electricity demand in major urban centres.
Before the system failure, Abuja Electricity Distribution Company was receiving about 639 MW, while Ikeja Electric drew approximately 630 MW, reflecting what officials described as robust demand across key cities.
The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), which manages the national grid, had yet to disclose the cause of the collapse as of the time of filing this report.
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Awujale stool: Protest rocks Ijebu Ode over imposition plots
The protesters marched through Awujale Palace Road on their way to the Ijebu Ode Local Government Secretariat to register their displeasure over the development.
• Awujale stool protesters, Friday 23 January, 2026.
A peaceful protest broke out on Friday in Ijebu Ode over alleged plans to impose the next Awujale of Ijebuland.
The protesters marched through Awujale Palace Road on their way to the Ijebu Ode Local Government Secretariat to register their displeasure over the development.
Earlier, the Ogun State Government, on Tuesday, in a statement signed by the Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Ganiyu Hamzat, halted the Awujale selection process following a flood of petitions received from security agencies and other stakeholders.
The nominees for the stool were mandated to report to the Department of States Security (DSS) office in Ogun State.
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