By Remi Adebayo, Abuja.
\nunderground technology and smart city systemThe Minister of Transport, Hon. Rotimi Amechi has promised to support the\u00a0Tunnelling Association of Nigeria, TAN, in its bid to promote\u00a0underground technology and the smart city system.
\nAlthough the Minister observed that major Nigerian cities are not\u00a0expanding as expected, he said the country could embrace the tunnel\u00a0technology in preparing for future growth and expansion.
\nHon. Amechi, while receiving members of the association in his office,\u00a0accepted the invitation to attend the first Nigerian International\u00a0Tunnelling Conference coming up later this month in Lagos.
\nLeader of the delegation, Engr. Imo Ekpo, a member of TAN Board of\u00a0Trustees, noted that global surface congestion has made the\u00a0development of the underground space inevitable.
\nHe notified the Minister that Nigeria is the fifth country in Africa\u00a0to be enlisted by the International Tunnelling and Underground Space\u00a0Association, ITA, whose president will attend the conference holding\u00a0between 29 and 30 March in Lagos.
\n“We’ve gained the confidence of the International Tunnelling
\nAssociation and they’re working with us. The president of the world\u00a0body will be at this conference. We believe the involvement of the\u00a0government will cement the international partnership. We see this\u00a0ministry as one of the key stakeholders. in this important sector,\u201d he\u00a0told the minister.
\nEkpo said the visit was part of the association’s plans to enlist
\nrelevant stakeholders; “particularly government Ministries and\u00a0Agencies involved in roads, railway, power, water and even\u00a0environment, on the enormous prospects of the underground space.”
\nHe said the initial objective of the association is to sensitise the\u00a0government and the private players in these sectors to leverage on the\u00a0option of underground space for national development. He disclosed\u00a0that TAN would assist in building capacity, now that the international\u00a0body has indicated readiness for its training programme which is\u00a0targeted at encouraging tertiary institutions and students to embrace
\ntunnel technology.
\n“Our plan is to demystify tunnelling in our first ten years; that’s\u00a0what we have set for ourselves and we have to start somewhere.\u00a0Tunnelling is an inevitable end which we cannot run away from, so we\u00a0have to take the first step.
\n“The Diaspora Nigerians are already meeting on this but we need the\u00a0support of government to show that we’re interested as a nation to\u00a0embrace this new engineering trend,\u201d he explained.
\nEarlier, Director, Road Transport and Mass Transit Administration in\u00a0the Ministry, Dr. Anthonia Ekpa, said TAN came to seek working\u00a0relationship with the Ministry of Transportation in the areas of road,\u00a0railway and inland waterways and to create awareness for the emerging
\nindustry.
\n“They association is already working with the Nigerian Society of\u00a0Engineers which has set up a Study Group on the promotion of the use\u00a0of underground space while seeking the buy-in of the Nigerian\u00a0Institute of Town Planners and the Nigerian Institute of Architects,”\u00a0Akpa disclosed.
\nShe stressed that Tunnelling Association of Nigeria was looking for\u00a0collaboration with the Transport Ministry to stimulate local content\u00a0in the new industry and introduce ways of bypassing traffic in\u00a0Nigeria’s rapidly urbanizing cities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Remi Adebayo, Abuja. underground technology and smart city systemThe Minister of Transport, Hon. Rotimi Amechi has promised to support the\u00a0Tunnelling Association of Nigeria, TAN, in its bid to promote\u00a0underground technology and the smart city system. Although the Minister observed that major Nigerian cities are not\u00a0expanding as expected, he said the country could embrace the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}