The Minister of Education, Malam
Adamu Adamu recently performed the ground-breaking ceremony for the
construction of a 10mw solar power plant estimated to cost N4 billion at Ahmadu
Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State.
The project, which is located at
Biye Village, Sabongari Local Government Area of Kaduna State, is expected to
be completed in six months and is meant to address the energy needs of the
university.
The project was designed, initiated
and financed by ABU in collaboration with Nigeria-German Energy Partnership
with assistance from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund.
The minister commended the
University for its Foresight and urged it to sustain the tempo.
Adamu who was represented by Hajiya
Fatima Jidda-Ahmed, the Director, Tertiary Institutions in the Federal Ministry
of Education.
He expressed hoped that the
institution would take advantage of the partnership with Germany, not only in
power generation but in encouraging engineering students to gain from the
partnership.
The German Deputy Ambassador to
Nigeria, Regina Hess, in her speech, said the partnership was based on the
passion Germany had for university education in Nigeria.
According to her, universities would
perform better if the education budget was used judiciously.
She said: “With this project, our
passion for Germany has become the passion for Nigerian government too.”
Hess promised to train engineers
from the ABU to become experts in the field of solar energy.
The Coordinator, Nigeria-German
Energy Partnership, Dr Jeremy Gains recalled that the project started in 2008
in Berlin when the late President Umaru Yar’adu’a and his wife visited Germany.
Gains said: “Both Yar’adu’a and his
wife were alumni of the university. He met Chancellor Martha and she asked how
Germany can help Nigeria.
“The late president said wisely in
just three words and those three words were; power, power, power, adding that
electricity is the key to development.”
Gains said another alumni of ABU who
also facilitated the project was the late Dr Rilwanu Lukman when he was both
minister and Secretary-General of Organisation of Petroleum Exporting
Countries.
He said: “The German company will
come to Nigeria to create power stations while in return, Nigeria will
guarantee energy security in the form of gas.”
Prof. Ibrahim Garba, the
Vice-Chancellor of the university earlier said ABU, the largest university, not
only in Nigeria but in West Africa, had the high demand for electricity.
He said the university spent about
N85 million monthly on electricity, “that’s why we need our own power source to
use and probably sell out to consumers out there.”
Source: Spark
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