President of the Senate, Senator Ahmad Lawan has canvassed the need for improved local contents in all engineering projects undertaken in the country.
The lawmaker, who made the remarks late Thursday spoke in Abuja at a book launch on ‘Engineering and Sustainable Rural Development In Nigeria’ authored by Engineer Ahmed Amshi, expressed his belief in the quality of Nigeria’s local contents, hence the need to increase them in construction projects nationwide.
He explained: “After all even if we don’t insist on the local contents, those big companies use Nigerian engineers.
“The bulk of the work, the real engineering work, is done by Nigerian engineers. So, we must insist on the local contents.”
The Senate President, who promised to take up the issue of local contents at the Senate as a good ambassador of the engineering profession, said Nigerians had always given good account of themselves anywhere in the world and in all fields of endeavour.
He urged Nigerians to believe in themselves, saying that that is the way they can develop their country as nobody else will undertake such an arduous task for them.
On the title of the book that was launched, the lawmaker pointed out that for Nigeria to develop at all, the process must start with the development of the rural areas since the bulk of the population resides in the rural areas.
Senator Lawan expatiated: “Therefore if there is anything we have to do, it’s for us to target the rural areas. Our farmers deserve every intervention. Our farmers and those in rural areas deserve every kind of subsidy.
“Other countries have achieved greatness because they face the reality of development. They subsidize farming, particularly those that have chosen to stay in the rural areas.
“Therefore as a government, we don’t have too many options but to face the reality that the rural areas have to be attended to properly”, the lawmaker added.
