The Former Candidate of Labour Party in the last presidential election Mr. Peter Obi, said the N39 billion spent in the renovation of the International Conference Center (ICC), Abuja by the Federal Capital Territory Administration !FCTA), is a misplacement of priorities.
Obi, who spoke in Abuja while announcing the facilitation of three projects amounting to N6 million and some computers, in Girls Secondary school, Chibok, Borno State, called for promotion of education.
The projects included digging of a borehole, provision of solar light and a laboratory in the school where girls were kidnapped in 2014 by the Boko Haram terrorist group.
Obi said that the donations would have been done in the Chibok community, but because of the security situation in the area.
“If a section of the country is not safe to visit, the whole country is not safe,” he said.
The facilitator of the donations, Mrs. Alisha Yusufu, an activist for the free of Chibok girls, said that the Chibok community got in touch with her soliciting help to improve computer literacy in the school on May 31 this year, and she immediately got in touch with Obi, who quickly obliged.
The leader of the Chiboku community who received the 10 laptops and two Laser printers, Dauda Iliya pledged to ensure that the items were put to use for the maximum benefit of the students.
The former Anambra State governor in a statement by spokesperson of Peter Obi Media Reach (POMR), Ibrahim Umar, described the renovation of the International Conference Center, which was later renamed after President Bola Tinubu, as a wasteful venture, urged the federal government to always invest in ventures like education and health that would be profitable to the youth in future.
According to him, such money could have been invested in the welfare and educational benefits of children.
“The N39 billion used to renovate the International Conference Centre would have been better used to issues that would benefit the school children who are in dire need of such investment.
”N39 billion would have been used to procure thousands and thousands of computers that would have benefited the schools because the children who are leaders would have benefited from it.hey are the leaders of tomorrow,” he said.
Obi noted that while the FCTA could afford to spent such huge amount of money, teachers in the territory are on strike for three months, over non-payment of salaries.
”This was one of the things I did when I was the governor of Anambra State. I made it to the extent that students use the computers, 10 students to one computer,” he said.
Echezona Okafor.
