Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has suspended all events at the International Conference Centre (ICC), Abuja, over poor maintenance of the facility.
Wike announced the suspension when he inspected the centre in Abuja on Monday.
He stated that the centre is just a mere conference centre and there was nothing international about the centre. He also added that the suspension was to enable Julius Berger to carry out holistic rehabilitation of the centre.
In his words, “When we came here for the ECOWAS inauguration sometime last week, with Bola Tinubu, no right-thinking human being would see the state of this facility and be happy.
“In fact, during the inauguration, Tinubu drew my attention to the rot. Even the lighting system was so poor. This is unacceptable. There is no way we can accept this as an International Conference Centre.
“You cannot call it a conference centre but not international, because there is no standard compared to any international conference centre,” he said.
He added that the FCT Administration would not continue to be embarrassed by the poor state of the centre.
“So, we are sorry to announce this; every booking made here is cancelled. We will start immediate rehabilitation of the centre to meet up with international standards,” Wike announced.
Wike revealed that Julius Berger had been given eight months to complete the total renovation of the centre, and that the goal is to transform the facility into a befitting International Conference Centre that Nigerians will be proud of.
