Foreign
FCTA to partner with South Korea, Turkiye on vocational education, agriculture – Wike
The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mr Nyesom Wike, said on Tuesday that the FCT Administration would partner with the Republic of South Korea on vocational education.
Wike also expressed willingness to partner with Turkiye on agricultural development.
The minister stated this when the Ambassadors of South Korea to Nigeria and his Turkiye counterpart visited him in his office.
He told the Ambassador of South Korea to Nigeria, Kim Young-Chae on Tuesday, that he visited the country while he was the minister of education and discussed the issue of vocational education.
He described South Korea’s vocational education model as “impressive”, saying that the model enables students who do not want to go further, to have some skills.
“It was my desire that we would have concluded with that partnership then, but unfortunately, that was not to be.
“I would also like to reintroduce that as the FCT minister to see how we can also have that vocational school,” he said.
Wike added that he would like to introduce a hands-on model to the vocational schools and skill acquisition centres in the FCT.
This, he said, would be in partnership with the Republic of South Korea.
He said that he was impressed when he visited Samsung and noticed that sometimes, the company supplies refrigerators and cars to the vocational schools for practical purposes.
“I think we have to see how we can come back to that issue because vocational education is very key to us,” he said.
Earlier, Young-Chae informed the minister about his country’s collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Rural Electrification Agency.
He said that the aim was to build a mini electricity grid in the FCT which was ongoing.
He also disclosed that South Korea plans to introduce a grant project to help young businessmen start new businesses.
This, he said, was in addition to the Nigeria-Korea Model School in the FCT and other training programmes for teachers.
“In addition to that, we have launched a smart school project, one in each of the six geopolitical zones, to help innovate schools in terms of communication technology and teachers’ education,” he said.
In a related development, the FCT minister, while hosting the Turkiye Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr Hidayet Bayrakter, on Monday, said that FCT has large arable land for agricultural development.
He said that collaboration with Tirkiye in that regard would be beneficial for both countries.
On the Abuja metro rail line, the minister said that the FCT Administration has an open-door policy and would be willing to discuss with companies from Turkey.
Wike, however, appealed for a review of Turkish visa policy, pointing out that the policy of short-term, single-entry visas may not be good enough to enhance business collaborations.
Earlier, Bayrakter sought the collaboration of the FCT Administration in the construction of the second phase of the ongoing Abuja metro line system.
The ambassador said that Turkiye had very capable construction companies with experience in rail constructions as well as suspension bridges.
Some of the companies, he said, were involved in the construction of the metro system in Dubai and Qatar, in addition to building one of the biggest suspension bridges in the world.
He said that the companies have expressed interest in partnering with the FCT Administration.
He expressed the readiness of Turkish investors to meet with the FCT minister for further discussions on the second phase of the rail project.
German authorities have arrested three teenagers aged 15 and 16 on suspicion of plotting a deadly Islamist terrorist attack in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, prosecutors said on Friday.
The state’s Central Office for the Prosecution of Terrorism (ZenTer NRW) sought an arrest warrant for the teenagers over the Easter holiday.
They were suspected of plotting a terrorist attack in accordance with the aims and ideology of (extremist militia organisation) Islamic State.
The detained suspects are a 15-year-old girl from Dusseldorf, a 16-year-old girl from the Märkischer Kreis district and a 15-year-old boy from the Soest district, located about 100 kilometres to the east of Dusseldorf.
A fourth suspect has reportedly been identified in the south-western German state of Baden-Württemberg, and the local court there has issued an arrest warrant.
According to the investigators, the teenagers are accused of having agreed to commit murder and manslaughter.
This is in conjunction with the preparation of a serious act of violence endangering the state.
The presumption of innocence applied in all stages of the proceedings.
Security sources told newsmen that the young people had formed a chat group, but had not drawn up a concrete attack plan for a particular time and place.
However, sources said the cities of Dortmund, Dusseldorf and Cologne were discussed as targets, and attacks with knives and Molotov cocktails on people in churches or police officers in police stations had been considered.
The sources said authorities had also conducted searches as part of the investigation.
A machete and a dagger were seized in Dusseldorf, but no evidence of the construction of incendiary devices was discovered.
Sources said the father of the Dusseldorf suspect had already attracted attention from authorities in the past because he had allegedly collected donations for the Islamic State.
The investigators declined to reveal how the suspected terrorists were tracked down, but said that foreign intelligence agencies “did not play a role.”
Russia on Monday officially recognised Vladimir Putin as a candidate for the presidential elections in March, a vote that he is all but certain to win.
The 71-year-old has led Russia since the turn of the century, winning four presidential ballots and briefly serving as prime minister in a system where opposition has become virtually non-existent.
The Central Election Commission said it had registered Putin, who nominated himself, as well as right-wing firebrand and Putin-loyalist Leonid Slutsky as candidates for the vote.
The election will be held over a three-day period from March 15 to 17, a move that Kremlin critics have argued makes guaranteeing transparency more difficult.
Following a controversial constitutional reform in 2020, Putin could stay in power until at least 2036.
Rights groups say that previous elections have been marred by irregularities and that independent observers are likely to be barred from monitoring the vote.
While Putin is not expected to face any real competition, liberal challenger Boris Nadezhdin has passed the threshold of signatures to be registered as a candidate.
However, it is still unclear if he will be allowed to run, and the Kremlin has said it does not consider him to be a serious rival.
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