By Bisola Adeyemo
The Presidency on Sunday revealed 17 states that have shown interest to participate in the Federal Government solar power programme.
This came after 24 states received documents of over 2,000 hectares of land for the present regime’s social housing programme.
The Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, disclosed this in a statement made available to journalists in Abuja.
According to the statement, arrangements have been made with at least one major cement manufacturer in Nigeria to sell for as low as N2,600 per bag for the social housing scheme.
This is coming after a meeting involving Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo and three major cement manufacturers in the country, namely Dangote Cement, BUA Cement and Lafarge Cement.
The statement reads, “Osinbajo said the Buhari administration would continue to focus on creating more jobs while improving access to power and affordable housing for majority of Nigerians.
“The Vice President promised that the Federal Government would ramp up efforts to ensure more Nigerians have access to electricity and affordable housing.
According to a presentation by the Managing Director of the Rural Electrification Agency, Ahmad Salihijo, the Solar Power Naija team has engaged the six states that have identified private sector developers, the Punch reports.
The team has also selected Akwa Ibom, Ekiti and Kano as pilot states for the state-guaranteed transaction model for the solar power programme.
Salihijo clarified that REA was currently tracking transactions worth N55bn, potentially contributing the first two million connections in Nigeria and providing thousands of jobs.
He added that the programme was currently tracking four transactions in the commercial bank upstream channel, contributing 3,500 jobs and 100,000 connections.
Per contra, the Managing Director/CEO of the Family Homes Fund Limited, the implementing agency for the Social Housing scheme, Mr Femi Adewole, stated that 17,584 units across 16 locations were now in the pipeline.