The Buhari Media Organisation, BMO has stated that the present administration’s rail project will hasten economic and urban development in the country.
The group, through its Chairman, Niyi Akinsiju spoke in Abuja on Tuesday said the President Muhammadu Buhari’s Port Harcourt-Maiduguri rail line and other railway projects in the country will not only quicken economic revival but will also create thousands of direct and indirect jobs in towns and villages along the rail routes.
He said: “The 2044-kilometre Port Harcourt – Maiduguri rail line is one example of a project that will inject vibrancy into local economies across several regions of the country, from the South to the North East.
“We know that there has been some controversy over the rehabilitation of the existing narrow gauge line that has since been laid to rest by Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi, but it seems like not many Nigerians know that the project will touch 13 States, that’s over one-third of the country’s 36 States.
“This is the legacy the Buhari administration would bequeath to many Nigerians who have no idea of a proper railway network, or an intermodal transport system.”
Akinsiju further buttressed that It is clear, the economic multiplier effect would be massive, considering the over 20,000 direct and 50,000 indirect jobs that it is estimated to generate; aside from economic activities that will be boosted at every station on the Eastern Corridor up to the North East region.
“This is the same situation that the country is gradually witnessing with the recently commissioned and much shorter Itakpe-Warri project which crisscrosses three states but will ultimately terminate in Abuja.
“The same can be said of the now operational Lagos-Ibadan phase of the Lagos-Kano rail line and we make bold to say that the Kano-Maradi project, Lagos-Calabar line, will also boost the economy of villages and towns along the rail routes.
“The commercial variation introduced by the Buhari administration to what was initially conceived as a freight project almost 40 years ago paved way for 12 railway stations in towns mainly in Edo and Delta States and of course, the local economy is receiving a daily boost,” he stated.
He pointed the decision to include some of the nation’s ports in the nationwide railway modernisation programme will turn out to be a game-changer.
“What is happening under President Muhammadu Buhari is an integrated transport system in which virtually all the rail projects either terminates at a Port or is linked to one.
“It is the first time Nigeria would be having a truly intermodal transport which was not even contemplated by previous administrations that made earlier inputs into the national railway modernisation programme.
“We can just imagine how in a few years Nigerians would be able to seamlessly transport goods by rail from the Apapa Port in Lagos to any town along the Lagos-Kano route, or from the Bonny Deep-sea Port to anywhere in North-East, Nigeria.”
The group is convinced that President Buhari would ensure that the 36-month timeline for the delivery of ongoing railway projects is met so that many of them would be operational before the end of his tenure in office.