By King Richard.
The wife of Nigeria’s President, Hajia Aisha Buhari, has given reasons why she decided to travel to Abuja on Thursday by train rather than following the routine flight back.
Pictures of the First Lady sitting in one of the cabins of the Kaduna to Abuja rail line, were all over the media on Friday morning, including some major national dailies, to the amazement of several Nigerians.
The wife of the President told Aliyu Abdullahi, the, Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Office of the First Lady, that she did it to encourage patronage for the railway service system in the country.
Abdullahi added that the First Lady intended to interact with ordinary Nigerians while on the journey, explaining that she also planned to show Nigerians that travelling by rail is safe and effective, adding it also showed that she is proud of the achievement’s of her husband’s administration.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has said he needs $36bn to connect the entire nation by rail.
Amaechi said this on NTA’s ‘Good Morning Nigeria’programme on Friday.
According to him, railway is capital intensive and this has made it difficult for private firms to invest in the sector.
The River state former governor said the reason the Nigerian government had been borrowing funds from overseas was because only the government was able to come up with the needed collateral to take such loans.
When asked why the Kaduna-Abuja railway had not been linked to Lokoja, Amaechi responded, “If we had money, I would want to be the minister that initiated and completed the linking of Nigeria. All I need is $36bn. With $36bn, all of them will be linked”
“The project from Itakpe to Abuja is $3.09bn. If we have that, we will start it tomorrow morning.”
Amaechi said President Muhammadu Buhari had done exceedingly well in the area of infrastructure.
