*FEC approves N658m for sniffer dogs, education, others N21bn

The Federal Executive Council on Wednesday approved N21,107,212,510, for various projects in the education and aviation ministries as well as a few other federal agencies.

The approvals were made at a meeting of the council presided over by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).

The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika; Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba; and the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, briefed State House correspondents of the outcome of the meeting.

Sirika told reporters that the council approved four memoranda for his ministry, which totalled N16.7bn.

According to the minister, the projects to be executed in the contracts include the construction of Wachakal Airport in Yobe State at N6.3bn; post construction services for the same airport at the cost of N219.8m; procurement of eight airport rescue and firefighting vehicles at the cost of N9.5bn; and a contract for the deployment of sniffer dogs to the Lagos and Abuja international airports at the cost of N658.8m.

He said, “FEC approved four memoranda from civil aviation. One of them is approval for the construction of Wachakal Airport in Yobe State and at the contract sum of N6,284,065,056.”

Similarly, Adesina said council approved contracts worth N1.71bn for four federal agencies including Federal Road Safety Commission, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and National Drug Law Enforcement Agency.

According to him, while a total of N187.5m was approved for procurement of operational vehicles for the FRSC, a total of N537m was approved for NEITI’s permanent office building for its head office, and a total of N985m for the procurement and installation of dual body scanners for four international airports in the country.