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Amaechi calls for unity among South-East, South-South

rotimi amaechi ameachi

…lists projects in the regions, challenges, progress

Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, has called on the people of the South- East and South-South to love themselves and work together in unity to foster growth in the two regions. Amaechi made the call during an interactive session with the South-East, South- South Professionals of Nigeria (SESSPN) in Lagos, at the weekend. SESSPN had invited the Minister to address concerns of the people of the South-East and South-South regions in security, power, economic and social integration and representation in government. He said: “We fight a lot amongourselves. IntheSouth- South and South-East we fight among ourselves.

I’m saying this so that we can separate emotion from reality. Today it is not about President Muhammad Buhari, itisaboutus. This administration is doing a lot, but because it’s President Buhari, wepretendnottoseeit.

“We complain about lopsided appointments. Apart from the area of security, have you checked other areas side by side? The President will appoint someone from the South-East and people from the same region will fight against the appointment, if you are the President, how will you feel? “When we took office, the President asked us to complete all projects left by previ-ous administrations before starting new ones. We did that and it was across all regions.

We completed Port Harcourt Airport, we are working on Enugu Airport; Enugu Onitsha road, work is going on, no matter how slow. The second Niger Bridge in Onitsha, 48 per cent completed and we have assured the country that by 2022 it would be completed. Those who are from Onitsha or from Anambra, have you gone to the site and work is not on-going? When we came it was zero. Most of you don’t see it because it’s not beside the Niger Bridge, so you don’t see it unless you visit the site.

“Onitsha is a River port, 3.5 metre draft. The only thing that can go there is barge. Port Harcourt and Warri seaports will be the highest. And people still criticise a president that is doing this much for this zone.

How do we survive by ethnicity? Amaechi further spoke on rail projects and why work had not been done in the South-East. He said: “I hate tribalism. I’ve said this before, for me, I’m Nigerian, and what informs my decision of choosing which rail line to construct at any point in time is the economics of rail; and currently the economics shows that Lagos to Kano has the capacity to move 30 million tonnes of cargo per year.

I do the same analysis for Port Harcourt to Maiduguri, 11 million tonnes. We are currentlydoing theanalysisfor Lagos to Calabar to know how many tonnes of cargo can be moved there per year. So we started with the Lagos to Kano rail. President Obasanjo approved it, President Jonathan started construction on it by doing Abuja to Kaduna and President Buhari told us to complete all previous projects. “Now, we are applying for $11 billion loan to construct Lagos to Calabar rail.

There was no design for Port Harcourt- Maiduguri. We knew that the first thing to do was to commence a feasibility study, after that we did the design. It’s now they’ll start to do the site drawing. In that three months that they are doing that, you’ll start shouting again, why are they not constructing? You forget that Ibadan to Kano, they are just finishing the design now, that’s why they’ve not started construction.

“Back to Port Harcourt- Maiduguri, the first thing was the instruction from the President that all rails in Nigeria must be standard gauge. So we did a standard gauge design. We went to Bonny to do studies and we did that study up to Maiduguri.

I did a feasibility study that brought it between $14 billion to $11 billion. When we finished, we got approval from the President, but I realised that we may not get the money in this government. I changed my course, and I said, while we are looking for money for the standard gauge for Port Harcourt-Maiduguri, let me ask for money to reconstruct the narrow-gauge at $3.1 billion. And the President after much argument, accepted. After sometime, he agreed that we can proceed with the narrow-gauge while seeking for money to construct the standard gauge.

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