Yemisi Izuora/Ijeoma Agudosi
Nigeria LNG Limited said it has signed an agreement guaranteeing funding estimated at four and a half billion naira (N4.5bn) towards the development of a new model secondary school on Bonny Island, Rivers State.
The agreement, co-signed with the Rivers State Government and Tianjin Energy Resources Limited, provides the guiding framework for building infrastructure necessary to deliver quality education at the school.
By the tripartite agreement, NLNG’s funding will be phased, based on construction milestones of building and equipping the new school.
Bonny Island is home to NLNG’s six train operations which has a nameplate capacity to produce twenty-two million tonnes per annum (22mtpa) of liquefied natural gas that is shipped to buyers in markets across the world.
The company’s support is part of its wider corporate social responsibility in Bonny where, among other initiatives NLNG invests in capacity building programmes, provides health-care services and has built roads.
NLNG also supplies uninterrupted power to inhabitants and businesses through a rural electrification project such that Bonny is now often described as the only place in Nigeria enjoying around-the-clock power supply.
Across Nigeria, the company has long distinguished itself for promoting the Nigeria Prize for Literature and the Nigeria Prize for Science and making cooking gas available and affordable to the mass of Nigerians.
More recently it has spearheaded a university support programme (USP) targeted at helping six universities— University of Port Harcourt, University of Ilorin, University of Ibadan, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and the University of Maiduguri— to renovate/build engineering faculties and provide equipment at the cost of two billion naira (N2bn) intended at raising the bar of engineering studies at these institutions.
“NLNG has always taken enormous pride in our many programmes that have furthered the development of Bonny, our other host communities and the wider Nigeria because of the potential of these initiatives to contribute to the well-being of Nigerians. In this instance, it is the funding of infrastructure for an exemplar secondary school that will deliver quality education to the people of Bonny and we are standing with the Rivers State Government and Tianjin Resources to make this a reality,” said Kudo Eresia-Eke, Nigeria LNG’s General Manager, External Relations at the signing ceremony of the tripartite legal agreement in Port Harcourt.