Politics
THE Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, appears to be putting the scandals, shame and turpitude of the past eight years behind, moving towards a new future of strategic visioning.
The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, worth $15 billion between the Commission and Atlantic Global Resources of Atlanta, Georgia, USA, reportedly an international infrastructure financing firm, in Lagos last week raised the hope that better days may well be ahead. The MoU is for the construction of a railway network that will cover all the nine states of the Niger Delta – Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo and Rivers states.
Definitely, the implementation of such an ambitious project will bring much economic development and social integration for which railways are famous all over the world. It will attract a lot of investments and reduce youth unemployment and restiveness in the nation’s oil-producing region. The completion of the project will have a liberating effect on the region because it will no longer be just a place to exploit and abandon.
We hope this deal will not end up like the much vaunted East-West (Lagos to Calabar) railway network touted under the Muhammadu Buhari regime which never went beyond the verbal announcement. All we saw was the completion of the Abuja-Kaduna rail, the continuation of the Lagos to Kano rail line started by the Olusegun Obasanjo government, and the illegal construction of the rail line from Kano through Daura to Maradi in Niger Republic with borrowed funds to be repaid by Nigerians.
However, for this project to succeed, there must be attitudinal change by the elite, politicians, traditional rulers and youths of the region towards the need to develop the area. Too much selfishness, greed, violence, criminality and nonconformity are responsible for the over 13,000 projects abandoned in the region, according to former Minister of the Niger Delta, Senator Godswill Akpabio.
Communities throughout the right of way of the rail network must commit fully to co-ownership of this project and guarantee safety of the contractors and their workforce. Not only that, they must also play their role in securing the tracks and stations. They must end their unwholesome practice of holding contractors to ransom and extorting money from them, sometimes at gunpoint. Unless these stop, the Niger Delta will never be able to develop.
It is unfortunate that the Federal Government spent the last eight years chasing shadows in the Niger Delta. Had this idea come at the beginning of the regime in 2015, we would be talking about finishing touches and full commencement of service. With this initiative coming less than a month to the end of this government, we hope the next administration will accord it the needed priority.
This is a welcome idea. (vanguard)
A.
Tags: NDDC Olusegun Obasanjo
