By MAUREEN OJINAKA

Gov. Peter Mbah of Enugu State has began the construction of innovative and scientifically driven Smart City in the state with no fewer than 22,000 structures.

The Enugu State Commissioner for Science and Technology, Dr Lawrence Eze, disclosed this in a chat with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Enugu.

He said that the smart city would be driven by innovation and technology, adding that everything about the city would be carried out by the state Ministry of Science and Technology.

“Everything that needs to make life better technology-wise, is going to be found in that city and this ministry will manage that,” he said.

Eze said that the ministry would also get people to train those that would manage the city.

“We are also going to put people to train our people, the people who are developing the place have obliged to train our people to take over the management of the smart city.

The Commissioner added that the smart city would have a filling pipe gas network, Wi-Fi, monorail, Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) buses and electric cars plying only within that city.

He added that the city would be filled up with vegetation and all kinds of things that made up a great city, noting that there would be artificial lake and rivers.

Eze said that funds had already been made available for the construction of the city as it would be the first smart city in Sub Sahara Africa.

He added that the governor gave the Chinese company two years to deliver the first phase of the project.

“We took the city from China and we brought this city and gave it to the Chinese that built the one in China to replicate what they did in China here in Nigeria.

“So you cannot say that the same company that actually gave their people that portion of smart city in China cannot replicate it when the resources have been given to them.

“This is because they demonstrated capacity that they can execute this kind of project in the past,” he said.

“Once that city is in place, a whole lot of people in the diaspora might decide to start relocating some of their children here because some of them have the intention to bring their children to learn our culture or learn a few things that is going on and even learn our language.

“But they don’t have a beautiful city to compare to where they live and also the issue of security.

“The governor is deploying both kinetic and non-kinetic approaches in confronting the issues of insecurity,” he said. (NAN)

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