The Nation Newspaper

Tag: House

  • House joins bid to raise $500m for Ajaokuta Steel

    House joins bid to raise $500m for Ajaokuta Steel

    The House of Representatives will join the battle to raise $500million needed to complete the last phase of the Ajaokuta Steel project, Speaker Yakubu Dogara said yesterday.

    He said except the political will is lacking, getting the funds to complete the company should not be an issue, given the importance of the firm to the country’s development.

    Dogara spoke in Kogi State when he led a delegation of lawmakers to the state, which hosts the long-neglected steel firm.

    Dogara said the lawmakers would not support any move to privatize the company because doing so would be tantamount to “concessioning Nigeria’s future”

    The speaker described as “a collective shame to all leaders that the project is yet to be completed after so many years”

    He said the House would consult with stakeholders to work out ways to source for the $500 million adding that leadership problem was responsible for why the project was ledt uncompleted.

    He said there were many ways through which the $500 million could be sourced. He listed the Sovereign Wealth Fund, the Excess Crude Account and the recovered financial crimes loot.

    The Speaker said the House would invite Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Chairman Ibrahim Magu to brief the House on how much his agency had recovered from corruption proceeds that could be pumped into the completion of the project.

    He explained that his determination to ensure that the steel company is revived is borne out of the promises that the company held for Nigeria’s teeming population in the form of power and gas development, economic boost, thousands of jobs creation, development of manufacturing sector, development of infrastructure and investor appeal, among others.

    He said: “Imagine if this plant had been completed in 1986, where Nigeria would be at the moment.

    “Any patriotic Nigerian that visits this place will shed tears irrespective of the part the person is from and for a foreigner that visits here, when he hears people describe this place as a shithole, he will go with the impression that it may be true.   We have no reason not to complete that plant.

    “You cannot concession your future, it is never done. I’m yet to see a nation that even concessions its bedrock and still succeeded. If you see one, just tell me. And that’s why previous attempts to concession it were not possible.

    “We keep doing repeating the same things and expecting to get different results. That’s the definition of stupidity and since we are not stupid, we will not repeat it. We can make Nigeria proud so that every black man in the world can beat his chest. Anyone who plans to outsource the completion of this plant will definitely run into problems with us.”

    The team also visited Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello where Dogara said:

    “We all know the benefits of steel development. You cannot be an industrialised nation without developing the steel sector.

    “Of course, I’ve seen the resolution that was passed and adopted by the Kogi State House of Assembly but I feel that this is just not a Kogi issue, this is a Nigerian issue in view of the major promise that this sector holds for Nigeria.

    “I believe that as soon as we put this plant into operation, immediately there will be 10,000 jobs for engineers and technical staff. That’s even as the level of the first phase and talk about other non-engineering staff, thousands again and other splinter opportunities that will come, that’s a projected two million jobs.

    “We don’t need money, all we need is leadership. Wherever you see development anywhere in the world, it is not money that brought it, but leadership. As a matter of fact, it is even leadership that brings the money.”

  • I dreamt once that corruption moved house!

    As it is now, it is looking as if Sisyphus will have to succeed with his boulder before corruption can move house from Nigeria; so let us pray for Sisyphus.

    Moving house is a real harrowing experience. I’ve done it once or twice, the last one close to two decades ago and I don’t think I have truly recovered from it. Up till now, when I am looking for an item, I still remember exactly where it used to be placed in the old house but am entirely clueless as to its exact location in the new one. Sometimes, looking for an item is like searching for a needle in a haystack. I would need a metal detector, a team of detectives and possibly, a forensic laboratory to decipher for me the true significance of the clues (such as rat droppings) that are, may be, leading to my lost item.

    Failing those, I might have to apply to the children to give me the exact location of my lost item on a compass. When you vaguely believe sometimes that your gold necklace is on your dresser or your neck, your child may tell you that he has used it to tell his girlfriend how much he loves her. You know, one of the reasons why you have children is so they can dispossess you of your things as easily as autumn shaves leaves off trees.

    Yet still, the item’s location could come to me in a dream. Dreams do things to people. Someone once said that he dreamt he was eating chicken. When he awoke the next day, he found the feathers of his pillow in his mouth. Someone else said he dreamt he had a fight with a neighbour. Next morning, he woke up to go and continue the fight. ‘Ehen, that thing that you said in the dream was very stupid …’ And the fight got truly under way. Such experiences make you never to want to dream. Yet, I know that there be some among us whose heads do not touch the pillow before they go into la-la land, crossing seas, fighting dragons or just shopping with the queen. Such Josephinous dreamers not only hug all the dreams to themselves, they make sure some of us do not get any. I know some around me who claim that in all the years they have been sleeping, they have not recorded as many dreams as they have fingers.

    Dreams, I have been told, reflect inner desires, sorrows and pains. My dream-desire, and I bet yours too, is to hear that corruption has moved house, I mean really moved, in the sense of changing its address, from Nigeria to Never-Never land where dreams derive their contexts. Right now, the world capital of corruption appears to be Nigeria. Once, I was in a conversation with some foreigners while outside the country and I was asked the question, what is being done about the level of corruption in Nigeria? I could only mumble something about Nigeria not being the only country in the world going through the painful pangs of corruption; and that many of the so-called western countries had also gone through this phase until they were saved by the bolts of common sense striking their forebears right in the foreheads, bull’s-eye like. And yes, to answer the question, a great deal was being done about the corruption in Nigeria, even if I didn’t know exactly what then. Now, I know for sure very little is being done.

    Anyway, God knows how corruption has come to dominate and overrun the country, wearing, as Achebe once said, many hats, but I guess the problems with us Nigerians are many-fold. First is this national character that is the bane of our national life: doing things impatiently, improperly and with extreme gusto. This is why someone would defraud the state massively, leave office and then seek to go back to that office again because he feels he has not done it well the first time, which is translation for ‘to continue the plundering’. We are so cheap. It is also the reason someone would desperately show off his obscene life-style to the rest of the country without a care to its effect on the said country. How else can one explain how a man comes to have twenty-something cars in his garage, among which is the world’s latest car that arrives Nigeria five minutes after it is released in Europe?

    Just add to the above the problem of mass illiteracy which makes the powerful mass majority too powerless to stop the tiny minority from defrauding them as we have pointed out repeatedly on this page. What the people don’t know can’t hurt them, goes the slogan, which actually translates to what the people don’t know they have cannot be missed. This is why many politicians collect benefits for their constituencies and pocket them; the benefits that is, not the constituencies.

    Then there is the fact that most Nigerians have become dissociated and cut off from their cultural and moral roots that once kept their fathers and grandfathers sufficiently grounded in patriotic fervour and obedience. This means that most of us are walking around without a viable national identity connection – talk of real zombies. This, as we have also said on this page, makes it possible for people to rob, kidnap, kill and destroy others since they have no sense of connection with them. After all, we have met, as it were, in a place where everyman is for himself – the cemetery designed for the living.

    Directly arising from this last point is the fact that many now find refuge in group and factional adhesions, even if many times such adhesions are unhealthy and extremely costly to the nation. The reason is really very simple. It is such groups that offer safety nets and security in times of need. It is a man’s church or Islamic brotherhood that gives him succour in times of financial strain; it is the village people who rally around an individual when he has problems with the state; it is the social club that assists a man in his times of joy or sorrow; etc. Sadly, many times, it is also these groups that offer protection to a man when he defrauds the state.

    Then of course, there is the real fear that corruption persists in Nigeria because it suits the very high-ups who keep it there for their own personal benefits. It suits them that the country has no credible set of statistics of anything or group to work with; it suits them that the country has at best a very dubious and manipulatable accounting system; it also suits the high-ups in the country that I am not among the high-ups.

    So, you see, dear reader, when all is considered and done, we find that the real problem is not so much that of corruption as the things that engender and protect it – the fact that very few Nigerians feel any connection with Nigeria. Corruption is therefore a symptom arising from this very serious absence of patriotic feelings in her nationals. Lack of patriotism is the real culprit.

    In the myth of Sisyphus, the gods gave him the task of rolling a boulder up a hill for eternity as punishment for greed. Attempting to stamp out corruption in Nigeria now is actually rolling a boulder up a hill. Until such a time as the country can engender in her citizens that patriotic fervour which can commit them to both conscious and unconscious actions to benefit the general populace, until such a time, I’m afraid, corruption lives here still. As it is now, it is looking as if Sisyphus will have to succeed with his boulder before corruption can move house from Nigeria. So let us pray for Sisyphus.

     

    • ••I have reproduced this article to celebrate this year’s anti-corruption day. Celebrate it.
  • Access Bank’s customers win house, car

    Access Bank’s customers win house, car

    Access Bank Plc has rewarded over 137 of its  customers who won several prizes in the ongoing  Family Fortune promo.

    The prizes won  include a four bedroom terrace house in Lekki, a 2017 KIA Cerato car, two 15 KVA soundproof generators, three all-expense paid trip to Dubai by a family of four and  five scholarships worth N1 million each for any member of the family.

    Others are 20 shopping spree worth N25,000, 50 DSTV decoders with  one month  subscription and 50 GOTV decoders with one month subscription each.

    Celestine Ikwuka Obinabor, resident of Oka Afa in Ejigbo area of Lagos won the four bedroom terrace house in Lekki, while Ayoola Olayiwola Noah, resident of Jos, Plateau State won the KIA Cerato car.

    The well attended event was graced by officials of National Lottery Regulatory Commission, Ernst& Young, Lagos Lottery Board and the Consumer Protection Council.

    A total of N150,000 for seven days is the least cumulative amount a family must retain to qualify for the weekly selections. For the monthly and mega selection, a total of N300,000 cumulatively for 30 and 90 days respectively is required to automatically qualify.

    Speaking at the draws, Access Bank Executive Director, Business Banking,Titi Osuntokun, said the mega draw is the first time in the country where people will win a house, car, 15 KVA soundproof generators two all-expense paid trip Dubai for three families, full scholarships worth one million for five, 125 consolation  prizes in one sweep.

    Group Head, Inclusive Banking, Access Bank, Ope Wemi-Jones, expressed appreciation to customers for their loyalty and trust in the bank, adding that the promo was initiated to add value to customers, who continued to do business with the bank.

    Access Bank’s Executive Director, Personal Banking, Victor Etuokwu, said the system under which the promo was conducted remains transparent making it easy for customers to win.He said there is benefits in saving .

    “You can imagine what has happened to the lives of the people that won. Family that saves together stays together.”

  • CSOs unseal Peace Corps house

    There was a drama yesterday as some members of civil society organisations  (CSOs) in Abuja yesterday enforced the judgment of a Federal High Court against the Police by unsealing the corporate head office of the Peace Corps of Nigeria.

    The place had been sealed by police since February.

    But Justice Gabriel Kolawale of the Federal High Court, Abuja in a November 9 judgment ordered the police “to unseal and vacate the office with immediate effect”.

    The judge also imposed a fine of N12.5 million on police for breaching the fundamental rights of the Peace Corps National Commandant, Ambassador Dickson Akoh and 49 others with unlawful arrest and detention.

    However, following the refusal of police to obey the court order, 15 civil groups stormed the premises at No 59, Iya Abubakar Crescent, Abuja and opened the office.

    Led by a legal practitioner and President of Lawyer Integrity Crusade Network, Mr. Edward Omaga, the groups, which were armed with the court order, told the policemen, who barricaded the gate that they were there to enforce a valid court order.

    Without resistance, an unmarked Honda Bullet car used by police to block the gate was driven to another location by a policeman.

    After the members of coalition entered the premises, one of the officers contacted the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Command on phone on the development.

    This led to deployment of about 100 fully armed policemen to the scene.

    The armed policemen, led by an Assistant Police Commissioner, Danlami Yusuf Taura, on arrival, summoned the leader of the groups for explanation on their mission.

    He was told by Omaga that they were there to enforce a lawful court order.

    To justify their action, he presented a copy of the court order to the police boss and also drew his attention to another copy pasted on the gate of the Peace Corps house by the Federal High Court.

    ACP Taura attempted to defend police with a claim that they have up to seven days’ grace to unseal the office.

    But Omaga drew his attention to a portion of the court order that police must vacate it immediately.

    Another claim by the ACP that the Commissioner of Police in charge of the FCT Command had not been served with the court order was also punctured by Omaga, who drew his attention to the acknowledgement of the service of the court order on the Inspector General

    At the time of this report, there was no fracas between the groups and the policemen drafted to the premises.

    Omaga, thanking his colleagues for their courage in defending the rule of law, announced that the Peace Corps house has been unsealed incompliance with the court order.

    He added that officials and the workers of the Peace Corps are expected to resume work in the office today unhindered by the police or any other security agents.

    A statement signed by leaders of the 15 groups condemned Inspector General Ibrahim Idris for showing disrespect to the court order.

    Omaga, who read the statement, appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to call the IG to order so as to prevent him from instigating the masses against the Federal Government.

    The civil groups leader called on the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami, SAN to use his office as chief law officer of the federation to compel those in authorities to always respect court orders in the interest of justice.

  • House queries funding of Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Second Niger Bridge

    House queries funding of Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Second Niger Bridge

    The House of Representatives is worried about the stalling of work on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway project.

    After a debate, the lawmakers demanded a full explanation from the Executive on how the project will be funded.

    The lawmakers also expressed misgiving about the pace of work and funding of the Second Niger Bridge linking the West to the East.

    They wanted to know whether the projects are to be fully-funded by the Federal Government or to be executed under a concession agreement with private firms.

    The House Committee on Works was mandated to investigate the nature of the contracts and concession arrangement and report back in four weeks for further parliamentary action.

    But the discussion did not make reference to the pending virement request by the Executive on the 2017 budget.

    The virement is meant to take back the money removed from the Lagos –Ibadan project to service constituency projects by the lawmakers.

    The resolution of the House followed the passage of a motion by Solomon Maren with the title: “Need to investigate nature of the contract or concession arrangement on Second Niger Bridge and Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.”

    Moving the motion, Maren said the projects had not followed the established pattern of project execution and that the Minister of Power, Works and Housing Babatunde Fashola, recently warned on the possibility of both projects ending up as “white elephant” .

    Allocation for the projects in the 2017 budget were not adequate and they are not under concession agreement.

    He said: “Contracts for the construction of the Second Niger Bridge and reconstruction of the Lagos-Ibadan Express Road have continued to feature in the annual budgets without any seeming signal of their completion or the amount required to do so.”

    Maren, in response to a remark by the Deputy Speaker, Yussuff Lasun said though two contractors were handling the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the Federal Government is yet to make up its mind on the funding arrangement for the two projects.

    Lasun, against the tradition of not debating infrastructure motions, gave the floor to the Chairman,  Committee on Works, Tobey Okechukwu, to speak on the issue.

    Okechuwku, who supported the motion, said it had become imperative for government to come up with a framework for the completion of the projects, adding that this stemmed from the observation of his committee that while the Lagos-Ibadan Road is “supposed to have alternative funding”,  the Federal Government had not made a clear-cut decision on the funding plan for the Second Niger Bridge.

    The lawmaker said the “piece-meal procurement” funding method hitherto employed by the government should be dropped.

    Mohammed Sani-Abdul, who also supported the motion, said despite litigation on the Lagos-Ibadan Road, work was still ongoing.

    He said the situation of the Second Niger-Bridge project is of great concern.

    The non-utilisation of the N14 billion 2016 budget allocation and the N10 billion allocated in 2017 for the Second Niger Bridge was worrisome based on the fact that the concession agreement for the project was between Federal Government and an international investment company, which later sub-contracted the project to Julius Berger Plc.

    With no contract between the Federal Government and Julius Berger, the construction firm cannot be directly funded through budgetary allocations for the project, Sani-Abdul’s said.

  • House Minority Leader Ogor is recovering, says PDP Caucus

    There is no cause for alarm as regards the health of the Minority Leader in the House of Representatives, Leo Okuwe Ogor , a prominent member of the PDP Caucus in the Green Chamber, Tajudeen Yusuf, has said.

    Yusuf, who spoke in a chat yesterday, added that Ogor is recovering and did not suffer from partial paralysis as being reported.

    Though he refused to disclose the exact nature of Ogor’s ailment, he assured that there is no cause for alarm as regards the health of the Caucus leader.

    According to Yusuf, the issue that was reported happened at the beginning of the recess.

    The PDP Caucus leader, he said, is recuperating and will soon be back in the Chamber.

    Ogor, according to media reports, is said to be struck by partial paralysis and is undergoing treatment in a Switzerland hospital.

    The report stated the lawmaker’s speech was distorted by the stroke and a speech therapist was called in to enable him recover his speaking ability.

    But Yusuf debunked the report.

    His words: “What has happened to him is not stroke. I’m not aware that it’s stroke. He fell sick and was rushed to the hospital and I have spoken to him three days ago.”

    “This is not news. That’s long ago; it happened the very day we closed for the recess. But he is getting better now and will soon return.”

    Ogor’s absence became noticeable when two members of the PDP – Ahmed Tijani (Okene/ Ogori-magongo Federal Constituency Kogi State) and Zephaniah Jisalo(AMAC/Bwari Federal Constituency) – defected to the APC on the floor of the House on October 5.

    Though there was uproar, Ogor’s voice was conspicuously silent. Usually he would be the first to lead the attack.

  • Kanu’s family faults Abia CP’s claims over arms recovery

    Kanu’s family faults Abia CP’s claims over arms recovery

    Family of leader of proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu has faulted claims by Abia State Commissioner of Police, Anthony Michael Ogbizi that police recovered lethal weapons when they raided their compound at Afara Ukwu on October 8 together with soldiers from 14Brigade, Ohafia.

    Abia new commissioner of police had claimed during a press briefing in Umuahia on Thursday that lethal weapons including petrol bombs and one double-barrel gun were recovered during the raid.

    Kanu’s family spokesman Prince Emmanuel Kanu in a telephone chat with journalists however denied that the family had any gun in the house, adding that if actually there was any gun the police found, it was planted by them during the first raid.

    “This new CP was the same man who came to our house two days after the September 14 invasion with two Hilux vans and his Prado SUV and pulled down the car porch and destroyed the vehicles parked outside.

    “This same CP hurriedly after the invasion on the October 8, issued a press release telling the whole world that they discovered bombs in my house. The army on the other hand, denied that there was no invasion and that they never went to my house, what a contradiction.

    “A house that there has not been any person inside except our guard who we asked to look after the house, all of a sudden they invaded the house and came back to say they found a den gun, double barrel gun and petrol bomb. Who manufactured them? Who kept them there? That is the question to ask.”

    While denying that there was anything incriminating found in their home, the family accused Mr. Ogbizi of fabricating the story to justify what he described as illegal raiding of their compound and also to appear as if he was working in order to please his masters.

    The younger Kanu said what the police came to do in the home was to remove the CCTV which he said had been recording what the military and police had been doing in their house.

    “The policemen came to our house and ransacked the entire compound including my mum and my father’s rooms, removing my mum’s boxes, our TV and generator sets, bags of rice and many personal belongings without knowing that we had a CCTV recording their activities in the house. But when they got clue about the CCTV and in order to concoct whatever that they would present to the public to label our family bad, they came back and removed the CCTV from where they were hung.

    “I am telling the international community to prevail on this people. What the Police and other security agencies are doing in my house, my community, in my state and the entire Biafran Land is evil. It is clear that out of desperation, they are trying to cover their tracks and they have failed.

    READ ALSO: Igbo not marginalised in cabinet appointments —Buhari

    “Nobody can tag IPOB a terrorist organization. We don’t carry arms and arms never solved any dispute. They should engage IPOB leadership genuinely. We are not violent. We don’t give life and we can’t take one. They have rubbished the name of the country called Nigeria, that’s why we are called Biafrans.

    “They invaded the house and took away the CCTV now they said that they discovered petrol bomb and the rest of it, when we had only one person in the house. How possible is that? Who planted them?”

    He said if there was any bomb in their house, it was planted by the police the day they came on the October 8, adding that the police did not arrest any technician involved in bomb making, but their guard called Chukwu.

    Kanu further stated, “If Ogbizi was serving in his Cross River State, he wouldn’t have raided the palace of the Obong of Calabar under any guise the way hew raid my father’s palace and boasted he would raid it again, this can only happen in Igbo land.

    “And let me tell you something, the reason they removed the former CP (Adeleye Oyebade) was that he knew that IPOB has been non-violent in their activities and he stood on the side of truth, he refused to be compromised that was why they removed him and brought this one from Cross River State who is on a mission he will never accomplish.”

  • Senator asks Appeal Court to quash house forfeiture order

    Chairman of the Senate Committee on Niger Delta Affairs Senator Peter Nwaoboshi has asked the Court of Appeal, Lagos Division to set aside an interim order forfeiting Guinea House, Lagos, to the Federal Government.

    The Federal High Court in Lagos made the order on April 24, following an application by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), through its counsel, George Chia-Yakua.

    Nwaoboshi, who represents Delta North, and two of his firms, Golden Touch Construction Project Limited and Bilderberg Enterprises Limited, are the defendants.

    The court ordered that Guinea House, a 12-storey building at 29, Marine Road, Apapa, bought in 2010 for N805 million, be forfeited pending the EFCC’s conclusion of an investigation of a petition against the trio.

    Last Wednesday, the defendants through their counsel, Chief Anthony Idigbe (SAN), unsuccessfully applied to Justice Abdulaziz Anka at the same court to lift the interim order, which “perpetually put the property under investigation”.

    Justice Anka ruled that, notwithstanding a pending suit challenging EFCC’s alleged “unconstitutional” pasting of an “under investigation” notice on the building, the ex-parte order was necessary to preserve the property until the substantive matter was disposed of.

    “In the current action, the EFCC has put their intention to manifestation and I, therefore, see no abuse of the process,” Justice Anka held.

    But in their notice of appeal, Nwaoboshi and his firms raised four grounds, including that the judge erred in law when he dismissed their application.

    According to them, the court ought to have discharged the forfeiture order, because the EFCC did not place any cogent material before Justice Anka to indicate that any of the appellants would be prosecuted.

    No date has been fixed for hearing.

  • APC’s house of division

    SIR: All your strength is in your union, all your danger is in discord—Henry W. Longfellow

    It is strange for the ruling party to labour for a house, borrow from friends, banks, hire and finally erect a magnificent building only for same people to demolish the building?

    Very pathetic indeed! The ruling party has used two out of four years to war against itself.

    Take a look at the series of mumbo-jumbo in the last two years:   National Assembly versus party chieftains over National Assembly leadership; the Senate versus the chairman of EFCC over the confirmation of the latter and the role of the DSS in aborting Magu’s confirmation.

    The in-house war continues between the EFCC chairman and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) over superiority; it has moved to the states where delegates of local government elections throw stones on members for not keeping to the rules of the game. A serving senator almost lost his life in one of the northern states.

    And now the salvo from the chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Prof Itse Sagay. He allegedly referred to APC leadership as “lily- livered, weak and incompetent, rogue elephant which cannot run any organization”. What is happening? Is this ship sailing to its destination or capsizing?

    Now that the elephants fight, who stands to separate them without being torn into pieces? Do we really deserve this cat and dog war from our leaders? What do they stand to gain?

    Nigerians initially thought that the in-house war among the party members was as a result of the party trying to stabilize; more so that different people from different political parties, values and orientation came together.

    This political impasse should not be allowed to go beyond the current boiling point. The impact in all ramifications is unexplainable. This is felt in the economy that was said to be out of recession but in reality, Nigerians are still groaning, trying to cope with hyperinflation.

    As a concerned Nigerian, I appeal to the APC government to unite the country, party members like the broom and spider webs to tie down the loin and bring succour to the downtrodden. Nigeria never got divided this way before. Ethnicity, religious, hate speeches and all manner of divisive tendencies on social media are amazing. This is not a sign of togetherness and can’t take us to the Promised Land but rather, backwardness.

    How do we bridge the gap?  While the developed countries work to protect the interest of their countries and the people generally, the developing nations including Nigeria and their cabals serve personal interest at any cost and inflict injuries on the poor majority.

     

    • Alifia Sunday,

    Ilorin, Kwara State.

  • Net house nears completion  

    Net house nears completion  

    A computerised net house, measuring 53,000 square metres, believed to be the largest in sub-Saharan Africa, is at advanced stage. It is being built by Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima, who is determined to reposition the state’s economic potential through agriculture.

    The plan is part of the government’s response to destruction of livelihood by Boko Haram insurgents.

    Shettima inspected the site of the fully funded government project located opposite the state university at Jimtilo, a few kilometres from Maiduguri.

    The net house is being designed as a retractable net house measuring about 53,000sqm (5.3ha).

    It possesses a dual operation drip irrigation process and a factory for production and fabrication of drip line and emitters, to ease maintenance and operation of drip systems and long term sustainability of the project.

    Adviser to the Governor on Agriculture, Ibrahim Ali, said at the site that by design, the net house was to be operated and driven by instruments of sustainability – a closed loop system that would ensure sustainability of crop production within the net house.