By Gloria Ikibah
President Bola Tinubu has declined assent to the Federal University of Education Numan, Adamawa State (Establishment) Bill, 2024.
The President in a letter transmitted to the House of Representatives and read by the Deputy Speaker, Benjamin Kalu, on Tuesday at plenary.
The bill sponsored by Senator Binos Yaroe, lawmaker representing Adamawa South Senatorial District, was passed by the National Assembly in 2024 and transmitted to the President for assent.
In the letter, President Tinubu raised concerns over Section 22 of the bill, which grants the authority to dispose of land belonging to the federal institution to the Adamawa State Governor, and emphasised that the President has authourity on issues relating to Federal Government-owned property, especially federal-owned universities.
The letter read in part: “Pursuant to section 58(4) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended, I hereby convey to the House of Representatives my decision taken on December 23, 2024, to decline presidential assent to the Federal University of Education, Numan Establishment Bill 2024 recently passed by the National Assembly.
“I am declining assent to the bill as Section 22 of the bill confers the authority to the disposal of the land of the university on the governor and not the President as it ought to be in the case of land belonging to the federal government”.
At a stakeholders’ forum last week in Mayo-Belwa Local Government Area of Adamawa State, Senator Yaroe stated that President Tinubu did not reject the bill, and noted that he only pointed out clerical errors in the proposed legislation.
He explained, “The President pointed out certain errors in the bill that needed to comply with the constitution. For instance, we mistakenly assigned the power to grant land authority to the governor instead of the President, who is the rightful visitor for the institution. We will rectify this error by replacing the governor with the president in the bill”.