The Federal Executive Council (FEC), on Wednesday, approved about N78 billion for contracts for water projects in Jigawa and Benue states.
This was disclosed by the Minister of Water Resources, Prof. Joseph Utsev, who briefed newsmen after the Council meeting chaired by President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa.
According to him, the Council okayed the sum of N59,457,319,900.94 for the Construction of the Greater Dutse Water Supply Project in Jigawa State.
He also disclosed that N18,993,279,411.42 was approved for the rehabilitation of the Buruku/Gboko Water Supply Project in Benue State.
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Heineken Lokpobiri, also told newsmen that the Council approved the printing and distribution of one million science textbooks for secondary Scholl’s across the 774 local governments in the country.
He said the memo was brought to the Council on behalf of the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF).
According to him, the distribution of the textbooks was in furtherance of the PTDF’s mandate “to build the capacity of Nigerians in the oil and gas industry.”
He said the PTDF STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Program was in recognition of Nigeria’s deficiencies in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and computer science.
“It is believed that for us to match up with the rest of the world, we needed to build capacity at the secondary school level. This program is meant to print 1 million textbooks, science textbooks that will be distributed to all the local government, 774 local government areas in the country, and also to support the 104 unity schools that we have in the country, and then 122 special schools, that we have in the country,” he clarified
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), Ekperipen Ekpo, who also briefed, disclosed that the President has mandated that most filling stations in the country be converted to CNG Conversion Centers.
He said “So, today, the President has talked about ensuring that most of the filling stations across the country are converted into CNG stations, where you have the conversion kits, so that people can convert their vehicle to CNG.
It is important to note that when you are using CNG, you save a lot of money, a litre of fuel can go for N1000, with CNG, you get it at N200, which saves you N800 and I believe, with the passion of Mr President, the push that he has given to us we’ll try as much as possible to drive the CNG programme to reach all the nooks and crannies of this country so that we will take advantage of the natural resources, gas, that God has endowed us.”