President Bola Tinubu has signed a bill seeking to establish the North Central Development Commission into law.
Senate President Godswill Akpabio announced on the floor of the senate on Tuesday that Tinubu has also signed the bills establishing a federal polytechnic in Rano, Kano state, and a federal university of health sciences in Tsafe, Zamfara state.
There have been calls on the president to sign the bill establishing the north-central commission into law. The law seeks strengthen the economy and infrastructural development of the geopolitical zone.
Akpabio did not give the date when these bills were signed, but his announcement came a day after Tinubu assented to a bill establishing a federal university of environmental technology in Ogoni, Rivers state.
During a signing ceremony at the presidential villa on Monday, Tinubu said the institution would address the environmental issues in Ogoni and expand educational opportunities in the Niger Delta as a whole.
“For decades, the Ogoni people have been at the forefront of the fight for environmental restoration and sustainable development, shaping both national and global conversations on these critical issues,” Tinubu had said.
The Ogoni are known for their long-standing activism against environmental degradation caused by oil exploration, particularly by multinational corporations.
In the early 1990s, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), led by the late Ken Saro-Wiwa, an activist, drew global attention to the environmental destruction of Ogoni land.
This led to widespread protests and conflicts with the Nigerian government.