Barring last-minute change of plans, President Muhammadu Buhari will commission the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure’s (NASENI) newly built Agricultural Machinery and Equipment Development Institute (AMEDI) in Lafia, on February 4, 2023.
Executive vice chairman/Chief executive of NASENI, Prof. Mohammed Sani Haruna, said arrangements have been concluded for the commissioning of the edifice by the President, who will visit Lafia on February 4 for the flag-off of the APC presidential campaign in the State.
Haruna disclosed this on Wednesday at the Government House Lafia after meeting with Governor Abdullahi Sule. He said the Institute targets 10 million jobs for unemployed Nigerian youths.
“The civil work is completed, what we are trying to round up now is the installation of machines and equipment, so the site is ready, even today you can commission it.
“Operation of the institute is going to commence immediately after the commissioning, but we are not going to recruit fresh people for the site, we are posting people from different institutes of NASENI who are experienced, to commence operation and standardise how work can go on in the site,” he said.
He added that the Institute, ‘a purely an engineering science and technology institute’ would accommodate people with bias in science, engineering and technology field, noting that they will be able to know how to operate machine and to teach farmers how to use the machines that will be produced in the institute.
Recall that in 2021, the President approved 12 new institutes for NASENI and one of such institutes is the one in Lafia.
The NASENI boss said that out of the six institutes and six centers which are being developed across the nation at the same time, none is ready for commissioning except that of Lafia.
For his part, Governor Abdullahi Sule thanked Prof Haruna for reforming NASENI, and expressed happiness that the institute will not just be commissioned but will be operational.
