Chinwendu Obienyi
Private sector-led organization, the Coalition against COVID-19 (CACOVID), has announced that it will rehabilitate all 44 damaged police stations nationwide in a bid to restore provision of security in affected police stations.
This is even as the coalition group said it is committed to providing N100 billion to procure equipment and gadgets for the Nigerian police over the next 2 years as its contribution to fully modernise the Nigerian police.
The Co-Chair, CACOVID and Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, disclosed this to newsmen in a briefing in Lagos yesterday.
Emefiele, while speaking in the company of President, Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote; Chairman, United Bank for Africa (UBA Plc), Tony Elumelu and the Chief Executive Officer, Access Bank, Herbert Wigwe, said, the decision by the coalition group came as a result of the aftermath of the ENDSARS protest that took place in several parts of the country in October 2020, which led to the vandalisation of private and public assets which include business houses, shopping malls, banks and police stations.
He said the Bankers Committee and critical stakeholders under the aegis of the CACOVID alliance had held a series of meetings towards supporting the government’s effort in rebuilding confidence in the nation’s economy.
He revealed that some of the measures agreed upon include extension of relief packages by banks through concessionary loans to affected businesses and firms to ensure they rebuild and continue to conduct their business activities.
“CACOVID has fully committed to rehabilitating all 44 damaged police stations nationwide in a bid to restore provision of security in affected police stations. Also, CACOVID has also committed to providing N100 billion to procure equipment and gadgets for the Nigerian police over the next 2 years as its contribution to fully modernise the Nigerian police.
Furthermore, CACOVID has committed to creating a high impact youth development program that will provide technical and vocational education to cover 4 million Nigerian youths over the next 5 years”, he stated.
While rendering account of the activities of the private sector led initiative, Emefiele said CACOVID received a total of N39.64 billion as donation from members of the private sector and incurred expenditure in the sum of N43.272 billion on the acquisition of not only medical and equipment supplies but also food palliatives for 1.7 million vulnerable households.
Speaking further, President, Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, disclosed that plans are in place to empower 4 million youths with a N25 million employment programme.
According to him, this is the coalition’s way of supporting the government because they cannot do it all alone.
“As soon as we kickstart the training for our Nigerian youths which is free then they have a guarantee that there will be jobs for them. We have about 30,000 workers at our refinery which are looking at increasing it to 50,000 workers. 25 to 28 per cent will be foreigners but the rest will be Nigerians in which they will go through training and by the time we are finished with it, bringing in foreign workers will substantially reduce in Nigeria and we will have skilled Nigerians.
So what we are doing is create skilled manpower who can also be employed outside Nigeria for mega or mini projects like ours here. We will not be giving the N100 billion in cash. With the N100 billion, we are looking at importing vehicles and ammunitions that were destroyed during the protest. We can never get investors to come to an environment that is not conducive for business and so we need to make sure that we put things right”, he said.