The Senator Abdullahi Adamu-led National Reconciliation Committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC) arrived in Kwara State on Monday, saying it has the mandate to listen to and reconcile all the sides in the “family feud” within the state chapter of the APC.

Speaking during a visit to Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, Adamu said it would meet first with the aggrieved members of the party and then listen to the party executives, stakeholders and elders led by the Governor in order to strike a balance and reconcile them.

He added that the committee will not accept any action or utterances that would deepen divisions or rubbish the APC-led administration in Kwara State.

“We are in Ilorin today to listen to complaints and grumblings that were expressed through the petitions received by us, and we felt a sense of duty as a committee to listen to those who are complaining, the issues they have, and see how best we can find a way out. Some of these (complaints) may be imaginary. Some of them may just be perceptions. But we don’t want to preempt what they mean until we listen to them.

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“The essence is to avail the petitioners what is called a fair hearing. By the time we hear them, we will be able to place some judgements. The government is our government. And anything that will rock the stability of the ship of State we will take every precaution to ensure that we discourage that.

“We want to assure Your Excellency and the leadership of APC in the state that we will not accept anything that is planted to discredit the administration of the state. We will try our best to reconcile all the reconcilable.”

The governor received the team alongside his deputy, Kayode Alabi; Speaker Kwara House of Assembly, Salihu Yakubu Danladi; Senators Umar Sadiq (Kwara North) and Lola Ashiru (Kwara South); House of Representatives members Raheem Olawuyi Ajulo-opin, Ismail Tijani, and Umar Bio; Acting Kwara APC Caretaker Committee chairman Abdullahi Samari; Kwara APC chairman-elect Prince Sunday Fagbemi; Secretary-elect Mustapha Isowo; among others.

AbdulRazaq said the party and the government are always open to reconciliation and would support the committee in its “patriotic mandate” to unify the party.

The National Universities Commission (NUC) has stated that universities should be isolated from the Federal Government’s circular on new employment owing to the shortage of lecturers.

According to the commission, 100,000 academic staff members were attending to 2.1 million students in Nigerian universities.

This was disclosed by NUC in its latest bulletin, which was made available to our correspondent in Abuja.

The Deputy Executive Secretary, Administration, NUC, Mr Chris Maiyaki, who was quoted in the bulletin, explained that the commission was supervising over 200 universities consisting of 48 belonging to the Federal Government; 54 states and 99 private institutions.

He said, “The entire system has about 2.1 million students and staff strength of about 170,000 non-teaching and 100,000 academic staff.

“Some of the problems facing the system include increased running cost, meagre budgetary allocations, issue of power shortages and shortages of manpower.

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“There is a need for universities to be isolated from the Federal Government’s circular on embargo on new employment because of the peculiarity and distinctive nature of the universities in order for them to keep up the pace in attaining comparable standards with their counterparts globally.

“We also have incessant interference in the NUC’s functions by some professional bodies and associations, which have continued to issue needless instructions to universities.

“Other challenges in the Nigerian university system include the issue of digital response to COVID-19 lockdown.”

Maiyaki recounted that 2020 was an unusual year for everyone due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which ravaged the whole world, noting that Nigerian universities were forced to start embracing the use of technology in knowledge delivery.

He explained that the advent of coronavirus had enabled Nigerian universities to begin to explore the dual mode of teaching with more institutions developing and expanding their digital hub to commence extensive use of the online platform.

“Within the period, the NUC had been conducting some activities, which included major curriculum review, assessment of universities on their E-Learning requirements, strengthening of quality assurance mechanism as well as fortifying modern methods of data processing and retrieval,” Maiyaki added.