By Christiana Ekpa
The Speaker of the House of Representatives Rt. Hon. Abbas Tajudeen, 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.”
