Architects seminar opens in Abuja
A four-day seminar tagged Architects Colloquium 2014, organized by the Architects Registration Council of Nigeria (ARCON), was opened by Vice President Namadi Sambo in Abuja yesterday.
The seminar is a forum where architects from all over Nigeria give reports of their activities over the year and exchange ideas on how to improve the services they render.
The vice president represented by Minister of Works, Mr. Mike Onolememen told the architects that urbanization in Nigeria’s cities like Lagos, Kano and Abuja was alarming and this posed dearth of infrastructure challenge.
“For the road sector alone, we have estimated that in order to adequately support economic growth at current rates and meet vision 20:20:20, we need to be investing on road construction of at least 14,000km of new roads annually for the next seven years.
“We’ll also have to maintain and rehabilitate the existing network as matter of routine.
“This will require the average annual expenditure on roads to increase six-fold to nearly N900 billion,” Sambo suggested.
To significantly tackle Nigeria’s infrastructure deficit, Sambo called for declaration of emergency in the infrastructure sector, establishment of Infrastructure Development Fund (IDF) and passage of appropriate legislations. An Abuja based lawyer Felix Ashimole has sued the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) before a Federal High Court in Abuja over alleged removal of his name from the list of lawyers transacting business at the commission.
Under the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA), lawyers, accountants and chartered secretaries are empowered to register and file annual returns for companies, business names and trusts.
In the originating summons, which was brought by his counsel Obi Nwakor, Ashimole is demanding the sum of N100 million as damages over the losses he has suffered as a result of his being blocked from transacting business in the CAC since 2006.
The CAC and the Registrar General of the commission Bello Mahmoud are joined as defendants in the suit.
Ashimole averred that he had filed and paid for several applications from his clients which were not attended to by the commission, leading to their loss of confidence in his service and his loss of revenue.
According to the lawyer, his trouble followed his continued demand for improved service at the CAC and his activism for transparency at the commission as the secretary of the ‘Jurisdictional Practitioners Forum Abuja.’