By SADIQ ABUBAKAR, Maiduguri –
The management team of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) along with members of the World Bank led by the Acting Managing Director of REA, Abba Aliyu, visited Maiduguri on an inspection tour of the ongoing construction of 12 mega watts Solar Hybrid Power Plant at the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) and its teaching hospital.
Receiving the high-level delegation in the Council Chamber, Government House Maiduguri, the Acting Governor Dr. Umar Kadafur appreciated the giant strides of REA and the World Bank in ensuring the success of the second phase of the EEP (a World Bank funded project) which he said, will be a game changer in providing sustainable power solutions to the university.
” Your presence here indicates a clear testimony of the seriousness and commitment of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led administration in its quest to electrify our institutions of learning.
” This landmark project will no doubt impact positively our educational system. I want to call on the institutions to reciprocate this gesture by offering ways on how best to solve societal problems, thereby moving the country forward”, H.E Kadafur explained.
The Acting Governor, further, stressed the significance of the project, saying that electricity is now a key and essential component of survival in Nigeria.
Earlier, the leader of the team and the Acting MD Rural Electrification Agency, explained that REA is a Federal Government Agency with the sole mandate of providing Electricity to un-served and under-served communities in Nigeria.
” Your Excellency, in our quest to deliver on that mandate, we also intervene in different sectors of the Nigerian economy, specifically in education, agriculture and health”, Aliyu noted.
He further hinted that one of the agency’s interventions in education is provision of electricity access to the federal government tertiary institutions and we are working on completing the 2nd phase, which is being funded by the World Bank.
He averred that “I am happy to say that, University of Maiduguri is one of the benefiting institutions, not only to the university but its Teaching Hospital and that project is also the biggest of all the phases–providing 12MW electricity.
” Therefore, we are here to kindly inform the state government of our plan to commission the project in the near future”.
On his part, the World Bank Practice Manager West Africa, Ashish Khanna pointed out that, they came to see the level of the work done so far.
Dignitaries in attendance include: Commissioner for Transport and Energy, Alhaji Aliyu Lawan Bamanga, Commissioner for Finance, and that of Commerce, Trade and Investment Mr Tarfaya Asariya, Deputy Chief of Staff as well as other government officials.
