The third meeting of the National Economic Council (NEC) under the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration has commenced at the Council Chamber of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The meeting, which is being chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima, is attended by governors and deputy governors who represented their states.
In attendance are governors of Osun, Lagos, Kaduna, Adamawa, Rivers, Benue, Sokoto, Delta, Ebonyi, Taraba, Nasarawa and Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, among others.
The meeting holds as the organised labour planned to declare nationwide indefinite strike on October 3 over what they called the government’s “failure” to address the suffering of Nigerians through structured post-subsidy programmes.
At its last meeting on August 17, NEC had approved a paltry N5 billion for each of the 36 states of the federation and FCT for procurement of food items and fertilisers as part of efforts to alleviate the suffering associated with fuel subsidy removal in the country.
Speaking after the meeting, Governor Babagana Zulum explained that the fund was part of measures to bring temporary solutions to the high cost of living caused by the subsidy removal as government continued to work on more enduring programmes.
He said the states were to purchase with the money 100,000 bags of rice and 40,000 bags of maize, as well as fertilisers, among other items.
The governor added that considering the urgent need to mitigate the effect of the skyrocketing food prices across the country, the federal government had earlier released five trucks of rice to each state of the federation.
