Niger appoints consultant on FCT benefits

The Niger state governor, Abubakar Bello has said that his government has appointed a consultant to put all the necessary documents together in other to recover all the benefits his state deserve from the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The governor also assured that his leadership will continue to push until the state gets the last dime of what is meant for it, even as he lamented the neglect by the FCT.
Addressing newsmen last night after he returned his nomination and expression of interest to seek re-election, Bello revealed that the most important promise the FCT made to the state was to improve the infrastructure of the state with the hope to reduce hardship in Suleja.
“At the moment, we have formed a committee, a pressure group that would interface with the government to enable us recover some of those commitments.
The most important of those promises then was to improve on our infrastructure in Suleja, to provide tertiary institutions, access roads to reduce pressure in the main Suleja road itself.
Doing this would reduce hardship in Suleja LGA.
So, you are right, we haven’t yet reaped the right benefit of being close to FCT.
“I hope once we compile all our documents together, we have a consultant working on all the benefits and compensations but unfortunately, I know most of those for compensation must have died but it is better late than never.
So we will continue to push until we get the last dime of what is meant for Niger state.” While commenting on the recent flood disaster in the state, the governor said: “Thousands of hectares of lands submerged with water, and more than 100 communities are experiencing this.
So, this year, unfortunately, food production will be less than last year which was close to 540,000 metric tonnes of rice.
As regards to education, this is something we need to take seriously.
We have started a teachers training center to reduce the gap, which is functional now and few years from now, it will start yielding fruit when we start producing good quality teachers.
So, those are the main problems we found in education, infrastructure and technical issues as regards to the classrooms, dormitory, materials and the technical side.” Bello said: “Why I am seeking for a second time is simple; we have started some good works and most of them are near completion and we must do our best to complete those projects.
These are projects that are of high impact to the citizens of Niger state.