Buhari welcomes IDB's loan offer

President Buhari has on Thursday welcomed the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) loan offer to organise a financing roundtable in Abuja to fund investment and development of infrastructures in Nigeria.

The president announced this while reacting to an offer by the President of the bank, Dr Ahmed Ali, during a meeting in Makkah, Saudi Arabia.

Ali assured President Buhari that the IDB would work with its traditional partners such as the Saudi Fund, the Kuwait Fund, Arab Bank for Development in Africa and the Abu Dhabi Fund, to increase the quantum of funding available to Nigeria.

According to the president, he said, "the days of Nigeria as a big oil producer with plenty of money are gone.

"We need all the support we can get to diversify our economy as quickly as possible.

"We also need to rehabilitate our infrastructure, develop the domestic capacity to feed ourselves and export the surplus,’’

The president welcomed the plan by the IDB to hasten creation of the Bilingual Education Programme, to integrate the Almajiri system of education with Western education in Nigeria.

The IDB which has planned to support similar project in some other states in Nigeria has already provided 98 million dollars for the Bilingual Education Programme in nine states which are: Adamawa, Gombe, Kaduna, Kano, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger, Osun and Yobe states.



Source: Vanguard