Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi on Monday said APC government did not promise to fix Nigeria’s problem within a year and cautioned those lamenting the economic hardship to wait till the end of the tenure in 2019 for the desired change.
Amaechi also accused the National Assembly of stopping the Federal Government from fixing infrastructure problems and creating jobs for the masses by failing to approve it’s borrowing plan.
He said this just as the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed cautioned Nigerians against making statements that could cause religious disharmony warning that “no nation has ever survived religious war”.
The duo spoke in Ilorin, Kwara state capital during a north central town hall meeting for the people of Kogi, Niger and host state; Kwara by the federal government.
Amechi said though the federal government has heard the cries of Nigerians that things were difficult, they have to wait till the end of the four years mandate given to the administration before they could judge whether the government had performed or not.
“We did not promise you that those challenges will be solved in one year. If we promise you that those challenges would be solved in one year you would have given us one year but you gave us four years mandate so wait till the end of four years before you can conclude that we have not done well,” he said.
The Minister also said that over 20 per cent of the $30 billion that the Nigerian government plans to borrow would be used for construction of railways across the country, an official has said.
He urged Nigerians to appeal to the National Assembly to approve the federal government’s borrowing plan which the government has said would be used for infrastructure development.
The minister also spoke on some of the major projects of his ministry.
He said the Jos Inland Port is to be completed in June while contractors are back to site at Itakpe-Warri railway line.
He said his ministry has also received approval to purchase more locomotives for the Abuja-Kaduna rail service due to high patronage by users.
Copyright Ships & Ports Ltd. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit given to www.shipsandports.com.ng as the source.