By Joyce Remi-Babayeju
The Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Minister, Barr. Nyesom Wike has promised that the FCT Administration will sustain partnership with Japanese International Cooperation Agency, JICA, for continuous development and improvement in the areas of nutrition, education, agriculture health and Water and Sanitation.
Wike made this known on Tuesday when the Chief Representative JICA Nigeria , Mr. Yuzurio Susumu led a delegation on a courtesy visit to his office.
The minister commended JICA for sustaining their activities on improving the quality of education , nutrition and water in Nigeria and in the nation’s capital.
He said, “Your activities are quite wide, spreads all over the country and we sincerely commend you, you’ve been a serious organization and your relationship with Nigeria is quite solid.”
” I’ve seen the activities which you carried out in the FCT, particularly when we approved in 2019 about the Abuja urban master plan.”
The minister said, “the activities of JICA in agriculture particularly in nutrition is highly commended and the training you will be having for our mothers for the sake of our children in making sure our children have nutritious foods that will aid their health, so we want to sincerely commend you for that.”
The minister particularly noted the completed water project, adding, ” we believe we can still sustain our relationship by making sure that we put more efforts to see all the activities lined up are completed within the time frame that is scheduled, we on our part will do all we can to see that we fulfill our own obligations too in matching your own support.”
Meanwhile, he stressed that JICA is one international organizations that come to make promises without fulfilling them.
” I have no doubt of your capacity I know you will continue to do more for us, so this administration is willing to cooperate with you more, we would like to achieve more for our people so on behalf of the FCT we sincerely welcome you and we believe that our relationship will continue to grow.”
Wike also promised that the Administration will continue to partner with JICA in training teachers, especially on subjects like science and mathematics.
Earlier in his remark, Susumu said that JICA has a longstanding relationship with Nigeria in the areas of agriculture, infrastructure and private sector development as well as social development, including education, health, agriculture and nutrition.
He expressed his delight at the minister’ s willingness for continuous development and review of the Abuja Masterplan.
Speaking on the issue of the review of the Abuja Master Plan, the JICA head stated that talks were underway with the Tokyo Mission for the review of the master plan, explaining that the project was stalled during the COVID 19 pandemic.
He said, “We were happy to get the project for review of the Abuja masterplan several years ago and it was approved by Japan’s government for implementation.”
Since then, we’ve been trying to start the project, but unfortunately, there have been unfortunate issues like COVID outbreak and bureaucracy and we couldn’t start up till this moment, Susumu explained.
