The Federal Executive Council (FEC) Wednesday approved N6,347,967,644.21 for the provision of training logistics, operational equipment and maintenance support under the Integrated National Surveillance and Waterways Protection Solution Infrastructure in Nigeria. This was disclosed by the Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the weekly FEC meeting chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari. “This is also what we call the Deep Blue Project. That’s the project that the president launched some months ago, around May or June. The contract was awarded at N6,347,967,644.21, inclusive of 7.5% VAT for a period of two years. “It’s also important to say that the cabinet was briefed that there’s huge improvement in the security on our waterways now and we hope that it will continue as we progress,” he said. Just before the commencement of the FEC meeting, President Muhammadu Buhari led cabinet members to wish his Chief of Staff, Professor Ibrahim Agboola Gambari, a happy 77th birthday celebration. This followed an announcement to the FEC by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha of Gambari’s birthday. President Buhari congratulated him on the attainment of age 77, and jocularly injected that “you are still going strong, congratulations!” The ministers present chorused with laughter and birthday good wishes. Professor Gambari joined the government as Chief of Staff twenty months ago following the demise of the former holder of the office, Abba Kyari. Before this time, Professor Gambari had served as Minister of Foreign Affairs under the Military Government led by the then Major General Muhammadu Buhari in the 1980s and went on to serve as Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations. He thereafter joined the United Nations system, rising to the position of Under-Secretary General and Special Adviser on Africa, serving as the joint African Union and UN Special Representative in some of the world’s troubled countries including Angola, Darfur, Iraq and Myanmar. Described as an accomplished academic, Professor Gambari has taught at the City University of New York, the State University of New York at Albany and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, as well as served as a Visiting Professor at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Baltimore, Maryland. He is widely published in Nigerian and international scholarly journals and has written several books on Nigerian foreign policy. Professor Gambari is the founder of the Savannah Centre for Diplomacy, Democracy and Development, a non-governmental “think-tank” established in Abuja.
