President Bola Tinubu has assured that some of the country’s refineries will soon start production and the current exorbitant price of fuel will be greatly reduced.
Tinubu stated this yesterday at the 11th convocation ceremony of the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State.
Represented by the executive secretary of Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria, Alh Garba Sharubutu, he announced that part of the supplementary budget the parliament recently approved would be used to bring intervention to critical segments of the agricultural sector.
He said the burden of insecurity was clearly a major challenge in the country, assuring that in no distant time it would become history.
Tinubu said it was gratifying to note that the management and staff of the university were working hard to realise its mission and vision despite the many challenges.
“As the nation grapples with the challenges of diversifying her economy, Nigeria certainly needs the solid support of her agricultural scientists and experts,” the president said.
He congratulated the graduands, their parents and guardians for their sacrifice and support and commended the management, staff and lecturers for them.
Vice chancellor of the university, Prof Maduebibisi Iwe, said it was graduating 8,229 graduands from the 2019/2020, 2020/2021, 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 academic sessions.
He gave a breakdown of the graduands as broadly distributed as; bachelor’s degree 6, 917; post-graduate diploma 159; master’s degree 802 and doctorate degree 491.
Speaking on his leadership of the university as the sixth vice chancellor since March 2021, he said it had made some modest achievements for which it won both local and international awards.
Iwe said the university was grappling with the challenges posed by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as instability in the academic calendar due to national industrial disputes by university-based unions.
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