The Federal Executive Council (FEC) Monday approved N5.9 billion access roads for the Abuja light rail system, Minister of Federal Capital Territory, Mr Nyesom Wike, has said.
The minister said this while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the FEC meeting chaired by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
He said the President has set a timeline for the completion of the Abuja light rail, emphasising the importance of addressing the roads that connect to the rail system.
“Today, council approved the ward of contract thr construction of access roads for the Abuja light rail. We are aware that Mr. president has given a directive that very soon he would want to ride on the right rail. Now that would not be possible if there are no access roads for commuters in communities around.
“Last week, council approved for a lot 3 but this was has to do with Lot 4. Lot 4 has to do with communities around the airport. If we don’t create access road it will be difficult. And so approved to Messers CCPCC at the cost of N5.9 billion,” he said.
Also speaking, the Minister of Digital Economy Mr Tijani Bosun said the government is pushing forward with the agenda to create quality jobs for the nation’s youth.
According to him, at the heart of this agenda is the newly launched “3 Million Technical Talent” programme designed to train and employ millions of young technical professionals over the next four years.
“We’re happy to announced that while we were targeting just 30,000 for the first batch, we’ve actually received an application of over 550,000 applications from across the country. I think the spread in the application is also why we’re extremely excited about this programme.
“So we’ve been in deep conversations with state governors and different partner organizations. An announcement was made last week where IHS one of the local infrastructure company committed N1 billion towards the programme.
“We’ve been to states like cross river state, we’ve been engaging states like Kwara state, Ogun state, where we’re looking to share some of the infrastructure in the process of being able to deliver this training programme to this applicant.
“I think one thing that is important to note with why we’re doing this is not just another training. We all know that technology under this government is becoming a major part of how we do things, how we reposition public services, but you can’t really leverage technology if you don’t have the talents to drive it.
“So for technology to truly work for Nigeria we need a very deep workforce that can power our ambition, but the beauty also is that the world generally is adopting technology and there’s shortage of people and talent globally for this,” he said.
