By Joy Odor
The Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman has informed that the 20 years abandoned National Library, awarded in 2006 will be completed in the first half of 2025.
The Minister made this known in his address shortly after inspection visit to the abandoned project site in Abuja on Tuesday with his delegation team, the Minister of State for Education, Dr Yusuf Sununu, and other top officials of Federal Ministry of Education.
He said that contractor and consultant handling the project had assured of its readiness in the next 21 months, adding they will
return to site in earnest to deliver the national edifice for the good of the citizenry.
According to Mamman, whatever obstacles surrounding the project, President Bola Tinubu administration are determined to ensure the obstacle went away, affirming that the President is determine to deliver on what will bring progress, development as the national library is one of the major edifice anywhere in the world.
When asked about the cost required to complete the project, the minister refused to comment on it, saying there were issues surrounding the project but that is being worked out as everyone involved would come together to review the cost.
Recall that the initial contract sum of the national library as at March 11, 2006 when it was first awarded was N8,590,226,393.00 when exchange rate was N130.29.
The project was then expected to span through 22 months.
The ministry of education later re-awarded the project in March 2010 for 21 months at the cost of N49,643,337,960.32.
However, the construction firm in charge of the project, Reynolds Construction Company Nigeria Ltd. had in 2010 projected N120,327,599,990.45 as cost of completion of the project.
Also, as at 2012, when exchange rate was N163, N150 million was needed for the completion of the project.
So with the current exchange rate of the dollar at 774 naira per dollar, the government would be required to use over N100 billion to complete the project.
“There are some issues here and there but the project will be completed in about 21 months. But we are urging them (Construction company) to deliver the project earlier because we’ve dragged it for too long and the project is too important for it to be dragged any further.
”So whatever obstacles in the project, we are determined to go over it and attend to it so it doesn’t become an obstacle. This project is too important for Nigerians and we have this project uncompleted for close to 20 years. We know the importance of a library not to talk about a national library. So, the decision is that we have a president who does not tolerate uncompleted projects anywhere,” he said.
Also in her remark, the National Library, Professor Chinwe Anunobi faulted the issues of bureaucratic bottleneck to have hindered the completion of the project since awarded in 2006.
She assured that work would commence immediately, mentioning that the monitoring would be followed by meetings of stakeholders involved in the project.
