The federal government is set to begin the construction of a rail line from the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja to Itakpe, Kogi State with a branch line to Baro, Niger State.
Mu’azu Sambo, minister of transportation, who made this known on Monday in Abuja at a joint press briefing with the minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, reiterated that the federal government’s railway modernization programme plans to link every state capital by rail.
“As we speak, we are preparing to go back to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to execute that corridor on an Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Finance (EPCF) basis. It is one of the most important railway lines in this country because it is a central line. It is a very critical line and we are mindful of that,” the minister said.
The minister who presented the scorecard of President Muhammadu Buhari in the Ministry of Transportation in 2015, also informed that efforts are ongoing to amend relevant laws to break the operational monopoly of the federal government and bring in the private sector, the state and local government in transport operation.
He said the federal government will concentrate on policy and regulatory matters.
Sambo also said the government is concluding work on a National Transport Policy and other subsidiary policies for the sector to include; Maritime, Road Transport and Nonmotorized Transport Policies, among others to boost operations in the sector.
The minister further boasted that the Buhari-led Administration has made giant strides in bridging the infrastructural deficit in the transportation sector which includes the railway modernization programme, the deep sea ports development programme, the inland dry port initiative, job creation, introduction of policies, among others.
According to him, the programmes, projects, initiatives and interventions carried out within the period in focus created massive direct skilled and unskilled jobs and millions of indirect jobs in the various subsectors supervised by the Ministry of Transportation.
He noted the Buhari-led administration commissioned the Lekki deep sea port, Nigeria’s largest seaport with the capacity to handle four million tons of cargo per annum with an annual container throughput of 2.5millionTEUs, and will soon commence operation.
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Sambo, also informed that the Buhari administration has also considered and approved the development of the Badagry deep sea port which upon completion to generate 250,000 direct jobs, among other economic benefits.
The minister further informed us that several ports are underway. He said the Funtua inland dry Port is the next inline to be so declared within the month of November, while other inland dry ports at various levels of completion are located in IsialaNgwa, Aba, Erunmu, Ibadan, Heipang, Jos and Maiduguri.
Dala Inland Port in Kano State is about 70% completed and has been linked to the rail lines.
According to him, since President Buhari commissioned the Deep Blue Project in June 2021, Nigeria has not recorded a single incident of piracy in its maritime domain.
In the railway sector, the Minister said Nigeria will soon stop manufacturing of railway wagons, explaining that work is ongoing at the Kajola, Ogun State Railway Wagon Assembly Plant.
Earlier, the minister of information and culture knocked the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for saying that President Buhari’s administration and the All Progressives Congress (APC) have nothing to campaign within the run-up to the 2023 general elections
According to him, “It’s a cruel irony that the party that presided over the affairs of this great country in a time of plenty but could not complete a single modern rail line is the one accusing an Administration that has completed at least three standard gauge rail lines of lacking in achievements.
Indeed, the Buhari Administration is spoilt for choice in celebrating its achievements.”
He listed some of the achievements to include the completion of the Abuja-Kaduna, Lagos-Ibadan and Itakpe-Warri Standard Gauge Rail-lines; and the commissioning of brand new airport terminals in Abuja, Lagos and Port Harcourt.
“We have completed housing projects in 35 states, we have constructed or are constructing road projects in every state, we have the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme that has almost weaned us from dependence on imported rice and other crops, we met 15 standard rice mills and now we have over 50. We have our unprecedented National Social Investment Programme under which 9.8 million school children are fed one meal daily, under which 1 million youth have been empowered and another 500,000 are undergoing training under the N-Power and 1,632,480 households have been enrolled in the Conditional Cash Transfer Programme.
“We are proud of the Integrated National Security and Waterways Protection Infrastructure (also known as Deep Blue Asset), aimed at managing, controlling and protecting Nigerian waterways towards the advancement of coastal prosperity,” Mohammed further said.
