Former Governor of Rivers state and Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has claimed that train stations were build in the strongholds of chieftains of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) during the construction of the Warri-Itakpe rail line project.
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Rotimi Amaechi made this claim during the kick-off of the presidential campaign of President Muhammadu Buhari as the Director General of Buhari’s Campaign organisation.
Amaechi made a presentation at the event which took place at the Banquet Hall of the presidential villa titled ‘What we are building’.
In the presentation Amaechi said President Buhari had directed that old and abandoned projects be completed.
Excerpts from the presentation read;
“The truth is that the country is compelled to make a choice between good and bad.
When I was appointed the Minister for Transportation, the president warned me not to start new contracts, but to complete old ones.
We met Itakpe-Warri rail line which had been in existence for 34 years uncompleted; it would have been the first standard gauge line in Africa if it was completed.
Based on the president’s instruction, I did a memo; I thought we will borrow money from China; but the president refused. He said we should use our internal funds to execute the project.
People saw me on social media on train service from Warri to Itakpe. I got to Warri 8pm because I was going from one station to the other — almost all the villages and most prominent members of PDP made sure that train stations were in their villages.
So, I am compelled to do those stations in villages of members of PDP it is okay; it is the instruction of the president that you must go and finish the old work.”
According to the former governor, tradition in government had been that once a new government was elected, the old things were abandoned and new contracts were awarded.
He stated further that the Ministry of Transportation will soon commence commercial train service from Itakpe to Warri.
Reacting to PDP’s argument that it started the projects, Amaechi said that President Buhari made it clear on commissioning the Abuja-Kaduna rail project that the project was started by the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
“We completed it; but two things are remarkable — we borrowed $500m to start that project at the time oil was selling at $114 per barrel. We should not have borrowed; you mean this country could not have afforded $500m?
I will show that we can. When I wrote a memo to the president and to the cabinet requesting that he should allow me borrow $500m from China to buy locomotives and coaches for Lagos-Ibadan, the cabinet under the directive of the president refused.
He (the president) said $500m; we can get from here and we are funding it from here; so we did and completed Kaduna to Abuja quickly.” He concluded