No, Nigeria’s Government Didn’t Say It Would pay FUOYE Students Fees Due To Fuel Subsidy Removal

By Precious Onajobi

Claim

A graphic post circulating on social media platforms, especially Whatsapp statuses, had a claim that the Federal Government will pay the tuition fee of students in Federal University, Oye (FUOYE) due to the hike in fuel price.

The post reads:” BREAKING NEWS: FG TO PAY FUOYE STUDENTS FEES- As a result of rise in fuel, FG orders payment of students school fees”

ROUNDCHECK received the claim on Friday, June 2, 2023, through a WhatsApp group consisting of students. The claim has since been going viral on Whatsapp statuses.

Federal University, Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE) is a federal university located in Ekiti state south west Nigeria and was established In 2011 and was accredited by the National University Commission

We gathered that FUOYE school fees have been reported to be less than N100,000 for some faculties (Social Sciences, Education, etc) and slightly above N100,000 for others (Science,  etc); and it provides other facilities for its students.

The Nigerian government introduced an oil subsidy to cushion the effect of rising global oil prices in the 1970s. The Olusegun Obasanjo military regime formalised the subsidy in 1977 when it promulgated the Price Control Act which regulated the prices of items including fuel.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) released a report in October 2022 that revealed that the agency recorded zero revenue from oil export due to the subsidy payment.

Chief Bola Ahmed Adekunle Tinubu GCFR (born 29 March 1952) is a Nigerian politician who is the 16th and current president of Nigeria. He was the governor of Lagos State from 1999 to 2007; and senator for Lagos West in the Third Republic.

On 29 May 2023, Bola Ahmed Tinubu was inaugurated as the Nigerian president. 

In his inauguration speech, Tinubu said, “Subsidy can no longer justify its ever-increasing costs in the wake of drying resources. We shall instead re-channel the funds into better investment in public infrastructure, education, health care, and jobs that will materially improve the lives of millions.”

His speech birthed several headlines amongst which is the popular ‘subsidy is gone’ statement.

Did the FG promise to pay FUOYE students’ tuition fees? We checked.

ROUNDCHECK Findings

We used different keywords on Google to check if there are mainstream media platforms with the report. There were no reports linking the FG to the payment of FUOYE students’ tuition fees.

The viral graphic post did not specify where or when the federal government made the comment, nor was there any text report attached to it.

A thorough keyword search via Google found no link between FUOYE and petrol price hike.

Further findings show that the breaking news banner was created with an online tool – www.sweary.com.

The tool has a template that allows users to generate all kinds of news headlines and captions of their choice.

The website invites users to: “Discover and try out our full range of almost useful tools and stupid generators and have some laughs.”

We also conducted a thorough search on the websites of FUOYE, NNPC, and all related federal government ministries and agencies; no information or press statement was released relating to FUOYE students and petrol price hike.

Ordinary observation also revealed that the graphic post was made to amuse and those spreading it are mostly doing that to jest about the current fuel subsidy removal

Verdict

Based on our findings, we, therefore, rate the claim INCORRECT.

This report was written by the author under the ROUNDCHECK’s Volunteers Network, cohort III project.