The Speaker of the House of Representatives Rt. Hon. Abbas Tajudeen, Ph.D has explained why he facilitated four major legacy projects to Zaria, which include Federal College of Education; a state-of-the-art College of Health Sciences; a National Open University campus, and a College of Legal Studies campus.
The site will be known as Zaria Education City. A police station will also be built on the premises.
The Speaker, while performing the groundbreaking of the four projects in Zaria alongside the Governor of Kaduna State, Senator Uba Sani, the Minister of Environment, Malam Balarabe Lawal Abbas, and the Emir of Zazzau, His Royal Highness, Amb. Ahmed Nuhu Bamalli, on Sunday, said Zaria deserved the projects as it is known for education.
The School of Health Sciences will be located at the Gambo Sawaba General Hospital, while the remaining three will be cited within the expansive land of the Government Girls Secondary School, Kofar Gayan, Zaria.
Speaker Abbas said, “The idea behind the conceptualization of these laudable projects came as a result of the realization that Zaria is only known for one thing. Zaria is not known for commerce; Zaria is not known for industry; but Zaria is known in Nigeria and everywhere in the world as centre of learning.
“So, there’s no any befitting gift that you can give to the people of Zaria and to Kaduna State rather than consolidating in an area where it is known for a long time, and that is to create more and more institutions that will complement the other ones that we have within the ancient city. That is why we decided that these four important institutions should be established.
“We have selected these projects based on needs assessment. Kaduna State today has three or four areas where it has manpower shortage. One of them is the area of health sector. We do not have enough qualified nurses and midwives in Kaduna State. We believe that Kaduna State and the Northwestern part of Nigeria require more health workers. It is the reason we decided, among many other alternatives, to establish a federal college of health sciences here in Zaria.”
On the Federal College of Education, the Speaker said with the upgrade of the former institution to a federal university of education, “Zaria, and indeed Kaduna State, will not have any federal institution that is responsible for teaching, or at least producing teachers of NCE level.
“That is one of the reasons why we felt that Zaria should continue to maintain or have an institution that will be dedicated to training the manpower required in our primary and junior secondary schools. This is why we decided to facilitate the construction of a federal college of education.”
The next is a campus of the National Open University of Nigeria, which the Speaker said, “We have always been told that we have many elders and workers in Zaria, who, for one reason or the other, cannot go into conventional institutions to learn, because of the exigencies of their work.
“We felt that those people also deserve to be provided an opportunity to excel in the field of education to the best of their ability. That’s why we felt that a campus of the National Open University of Nigeria in Zaria will be of great importance to the teaming population we have here.
“The last, but not the least, is the college of legal studies, which, again, from our investigation and research, we discovered that Zaria is still lagging in Kaduna State in terms of legal experts. We do not have enough lawyers, khadis, and magistrates. We believe that the establishment of an institution to fill that vacuum will be of great help to the people of Kaduna State and the North West. That informed our decision to bring a campus of the college of advanced legal studies to Zaria.”
Speaker Abbas noted that at completion, the four projects would gulp “nothing less than N80 billion. We are ready to find means and ways to fund these institutions. This is what will raise the soul of Zaria and Kaduna State.”
He thanked all those that made out time to attend the groundbreaking ceremony of the four projects, especially Governor Uba Sani, whom he said expeditiously granted the approval for the land to be used for the four projects in less than 48 hours.
“Thank you very much, Your Excellency, for being part of this history and for fast tracking the allocation of this land within just 48 hours. When I informed him 48 hours ago, he told me that even if he’d lose sleep to attend to all the details to sign the documents for this land, he’d do so.”
Earlier, the Speaker joined Governor Uba Sani, and His Royal Highness, the Emir of Zazzau, at the groundbreaking of the Malam Abdulkarim Central.
The over 180-year-old mosque had some of its parts collapse last year, which resulted in the deaths of some worshipers at the time. The rebuilding of the mosque is expected to be completed in 18 months.
On Saturday, the Speaker inspected some of the ongoing projects that he facilitated to Zaria, which included the renovation of Barewa College, Zaria Road to Agoro bridge Tudun Wada; Construction of the Kofar Doka road and flyover; construction of Gadar Aba in Wuciciri village; Sani Adamu LGEA Primary School, Tudun Jukun, and GSS Rimin Doko; Sports Complex in Alhudahuda College, and construction of Amaru Modern market in Amaru Kwarbai.
Signed:
Musa Abdullahi Krishi, Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the Speaker, House of Representatives, Federal Republic of Nigeria.
