By Eunice Orike
Federal Capital Territory Administration FCTA, and the Chinese Government has agreed to partner in security and infrastructure development in the FCT.
This decision was made during a meeting between the FCT Minister, Wike, and the Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria, H.E Yu Dunhai in his office in Abuja, yesterday.
The Ambassador in his opening speech, said China would be very proud to be partnering with Nigeria to achieve their common development.
He noted that he is the 15th Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria, and has been in Nigeria for six months.
He commended FCT Minister on area of infrastructural development in FCT.
According to him, a lot of new roads have been built, and particularly my colleague told me in the past there are a lot of roads that become suddenly abrupted, but under the leadership of Honorable Minister, that you have got all those roads connected.
“So as the new Chinese Ambassador, I came at, I would say, a very important juncture, because China, we are moving forward to materialize the national rejuvenation of the Chinese nation through the Chinese way of modernization, while Nigeria, under the strong leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is engaging in the Renewed Hope Agenda, particularly in the eight priority areas.
“So during this process, China would be very proud to be partnering with Nigeria to achieve our common development”.
The Ambassador reminded the Minister of recent President Tinubu state visit to China and also attended the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation, during which the Minister was accompanyed His Excellency the President all the way.
“So as Chinese Ambassador, I would like to reconfirm our commitment to this very important bilateral relationship. This is a relationship that’s pillared in so many areas. I think one of that is high level of mutual political trust, and the second one is the high level of cooperation of development, and then high level of mutual learning and high level of security assistance”,he said.
To this end, the Chinese ambassador said his government would like to continue to strengthen their bilateral cooperations in all these areas.
“But all in all, as Chinese ambassador, I would say that I will spare no efforts in materializing the very important consensus reached between our two heads of states”, he said.
in his response,The FCT Minister emphasised the importance of these partnerships, noting that they will improve the lives of residents in Abuja.
According to the Minister, “CGC is to carry out the satellite water development, while CCECC and CGC, will have to share up the city, to lit up Abuja, because we found out that most of the streetlights we have have been vandalized and stolen, and we had to reach an agreement to put the type of streetlight that will have a strong room, that if you want to vandalize or you want to steal, we will notice it in the strong room. And so that is on procuring process now, which is going on.
“And then, like you said, the water thing, too, is very important.So for Mr. President, he believes that this has to be done, particularly that Abuja will be 50 by next year, so the government is open to celebrate the jubilee for the government, for the territory.
“I would like us to also partner in terms of agriculture. It’s very key. We have very good land for whatever kind of farm. So it would interest us more if we can partner on that. And then the vocational school, particularly as it relates to ICT”, he added.
