Coronabirus:
Before boarder closure most of the foreign rice, mineral oil we consume are from Niger Republic. Donkeys, and other domestic animals are being imported to balance meat demand in the nation. Dawanau food stuff market in Kano is the largest in Africa and foodstuffs like seasame, groundnut, soyabeans, millet are exported in large quantity from Kano to Niger, Libya, Morocco and many other African countries.
Nigerian food business provide citizens with more than $70b annually far more than oil, oil is more important for foreign exchange to government and foreign business.
The problem with us in Nigeria is we hate to see others develop, we're so selfish indeed!

$70billion, yet you have scarcity of dollars.
Learn how to lie

My brother the question is how do we end up with these animals call northerners

LOSKYXANDER:
And they have not completed a single rail from Lagos to Onitsha.....how did I end up in this country?

BigSarah:
How much does trading between Nigeria and Niger republic add to the country?... This one is a useless project considering the country finance

hundreds of trailers of cows,goats and grains down to south from the north some of them are from niger republic

flyingpig:
Oh in that case, Fulani's across Niger republic should just trek with their sticks to the border point and book a train ride from Maradi down to Kano state, file for Local government identification letter by speaking Fulfude as pre-requisite. Then in 2023 presidential elections Kano will produce 7million votes.

You are damn right.

fergie001:
PREVIOUS THREAD: https://www.nairaland.com/6138471/fg-approves-1.9-billion-rail#94230724



Garba Shehu

Why border point? Railway are to connect growth centres. If international regional centres are to be connected it should not be Niger It should be a growth centre within Africa or West African subregion.
This is a professional position from Regional Planning point of view.

Mayeldah:
I only pity the yorubas that keeps supporting this terrorist Federal Government. Who doesn't know that Buhari is from Niger and he is doing all he can to rip Nigeria off once he leaves office. The last time we heard Niger is exporting refined petroleum to Nigeria, Now Buhari is building rail to connect Niger. Who owns those refineries in Niger? Are they not fulani politicians killing Nigerian refineries so that the ones they stole our monies to build in Niger will be the sole importer of fuel to Nigeria?

by the time Buhari is finished, APC will be gone, Nigeria will be sold to the Fulanis. The yorubas might be the biggest losers!

Keep quiet !!!
You're talking as if Buari got zero vote in South East and South South. Some of your people voted for Buari. So we are in it together.

This project is very unnecessary. I think the govt shojld ensure that all the states inter connected with rail lines before thinking of building rail lines to Niger.
Sometimes i wonder who gave our President this kind of advice. God please whi did this to us. Come to our rescue.

BigSarah:
How much does trading between Nigeria and Niger republic add to the country?... This one is a useless project considering the country finance

Very useless

Niger is now Nigeria capital what do this government take Nigerians for Apc finished Nigeria

God punish bad leaders.
That money would have built a state-of-the-art hospital in every geo-political zone or mega factories to market the resources of those areas. I wonder what financial boost Nigeria-Niger bilateral trades has ever contributed to the Nation's economy.

What a pathetic country called Nigeria. So far Northern Nigeria, particularly NW and NE are part of this country, we will continue to sink down the abyss.

Eastern Nigeria all the way to the middle belt and NE has no rail connection at the moment. When these idiats were asked why it was so, they claimed there were no funds But here they are building a railway to Niger rep, the world's poorest country with large numbers of destitute migrants!! This can be likened to USA building a railway to Mexico which is not possible instead America is building a fence to protect its country and economy.

God will punish all these bastards!!!

Coronabirus:
[s]All Northern boarders are closed for almost a year and PMB asked all northerners who import through land boarder to come through water and now u're saying southern boarder is closed. The main reason Lagos revenue is increasing is because of land boarder closure. Ungrateful people, when Lagos railway was under construction we didn't complain, we appreciate it but now he's building for us u're angry. Everything good in the North u complain, very selfish set of creature, extremely selfish who always think negative about everything.[/s]

oga!

pls use your human brain! dont always depend on your cow brain!

if this rail is from kano to yobe no one will complain!
if it is from kano to zamfara no one will complain!
if it is from kano to sokoto! no one will complain!

BUT WE ARE TALKING OF CONSTRUCTING A RAIL LINE FROM KANO TO THE BORDER OF ANOTHER MAN'S COUNTRY AND YOU ARE CALLING IT YOUR PROJECT! PLS TELL ME ARE U FROM NIGER??

OR YOU ARE SAYING THE OTHER NORTHERN STATES DOESN'T HAVE THE NEED TO BE INTERCONNECTED BY RAIL??

WHAT IS THE ECONOMIC BENEFIT OF CONNECTING KANO AND NIGER BY RAIL?? OR ARE YOU NOT YET TIRED OF THE INFLUX OF TERRORISTS AND BANDITS FROM THESE NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES TO THE NORTHERN REGION??


PLS USE YOUR HUMAN BRAIN SOME TIMES!

These people are not confused but are deliberately doing the wrong thing to favor some people. A country that has not been able to link it states with railway line is building railway to a desert country that does not import anything to Nigeria

UNA DON FINISH INTERSTATE RAILROAD BEFORE DAT NIGER REPUBLIC OWN?NAWA!

So what's the difference?
To border of naija and niger, u say?
I can't see any difference.
Just ask , even aboki cannot see any difference

This is no doubt political. Very soon our population would rise to 300million with over 100 million Chadians and migrants from Niger republic. I hv since lost faith in this unholy contraption, there cant be progress with this Mohammedans, best thing is for us to path ways allowing them to worship well or better than those in Saudi Arabia.

obiekunie2:


oga!

pls use your human brain! dont always depend on your cow brain!

if this rail is from kano to yobe no one will complain!
if it is from kano to zamfara no one will complain!
if it is from kano to sokoto! no one will complain!

BUT WE ARE TALKING OF CONSTRUCTING A RAIL LINE FROM KANO TO THE BORDER OF ANOTHER MAN'S COUNTRY AND YOU ARE CALLING IT YOUR PROJECT! PLS TELL ME ARE U FROM NIGER??

OR YOU ARE SAYING THE OTHER NORTHERN STATES DOESN'T HAVE THE NEED TO BE INTERCONNECTED BY RAIL??

WHAT IS THE ECONOMIC BENEFIT OF CONNECTING KANO AND NIGER BY RAIL?? OR ARE YOU NOT YET TIRED OF THE INFLUX OF TERRORISTS AND BANDITS FROM THESE NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES TO THE NORTHERN REGION??


PLS USE YOUR HUMAN BRAIN SOME TIMES!

Even the Lagos-Kano rail is connected to seaport and the port is connected to the whole world not only one country. This one will connect kano-jigawa-katsina states before linking to Niger Republic. More deadly arms were intercepted at Lagos port pouring to Naija than the ones from land boarder, I could remember many trucks were intercepted. If u want to know the economic benefit of it try to know more about North and it's important to National food security in connection with Niger Republic.

History555:



$70billion, yet you have scarcity of dollars.
Learn how to lie

Get me right bro, I'm telling u the figure worth in dollar not in naira. Foodstuff business is mainly for local markets which is dealt in naira while oil and other export is transacted in dollar.

BigSarah:

So northern Nigeria doesn't feed this country? Like they always claim rather we import from other African countries using their borders?...

If u really read well u could see that I wrote foreign rice and mineral oil (before boarder closure), donkeys are also imported while foodstuff is exported from Dawanau market to many African countries.

BigSarah:
How much does trading between Nigeria and Niger republic add to the country?... This one is a useless project considering the country finance

It is a useful project for Abacha’s collaborator, Barawo Bubu, to loot our country just as Abacha did.
No more no less.


www.nairaland.com/attachments/3659707_11_jpegf7f163af78812e58c4d3c47b4e396ae6

Petroleum Trust Fraud
By Ray Ekpu

It is not known to this column how close Brigadier Sani Abacha was to Major General Muhammadu Buhari by December 1983. It was Abacha who announced at the end of a few minutes of martial music on new year’s eve that the government of President Shehu Shagari had been thrown into the dust bin of history. Buhari became the fulcrum of that history as Nigeria’s head of state. On August 27, 1985, there was another game, the Revolving Doors’ game. Buhari was out, thrown out, while Ibrahim Babangida, was in, thrown into the pinnacle of political power in Nigeria. Babangida clamped Buhari into the dungeon for some months where he cooled his feet, while his colleagues were bestriding the Nigerian political and military firmament like they owned the world. Babangida left or was forced to leave the throne after eight years of dangerous foot work. He called Chief Ernest Shonekan, a successful private sector entrepreneur, to come and take the baton of leadership.

He took it and as he was trying to hold it in his hand firmly, Abacha who had been eyeing the coveted prize greedily grabbed it in 1994. He immediately increased the price of petroleum products. The public rolled out a series of protests. As an appeasement measure, he set up the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) as an intervention development agency to bring succor to the people especially in the rural areas. He made Buhari the executive chairman of the Fund which he ran for five years (1994-1999).

Why did Abacha appoint Buhari the Executive Chairman of PTF? Was it as an atonement for the sin of standing by while he was overthrown by the Babangida Boys? Or was he just sympathetic seeing that the man had been left in the cold by Babangida since his ouster on August 27, 1985? Or was Abacha simply looking for a fabled disciplinarian who didn’t love money too much or the dirty part of it? Buhari needed that rehabilitation, physical, financial and reputational. He was eager to come in from the biting cold and be seen as a man who, despite the overthrow and detention, had kept his dignity and integrity such that Abacha who was Babangida’s man, could trust him with the big-wallet job.

The Petroleum Trust Fund was to intervene in such areas as roads and waterways, supply of educational materials, rehabilitation of educational infrastructure, food supply, health, water supply, etc. Buhari set up a capricious management structure and appointed Afri-Project Consortium (APC) led by a 42 year old man, Salihijo Ahmad. This Consortium was the sole manager of the PTF projects. Ahmad had admitted to Newswatch in an interview published by the magazine in its April 19, 1999 issue that it was APC that wrote the proposal which defined the mandate of the PTF. It suggested the criteria, procedure for selection and appointment of contractors, consultants and suppliers. It also worked out the monitoring mechanism adopted by the PTF. The APC had some 620 consulting firms reporting to it. It was the sole management consultants to the PTF. Most Nigerians had no idea how the PTF was run. It was when President Olusegun Obasanjo took over in 1999 and set up an interim management committee (IMC) headed by Dr Haroun Adamu to wind down the PTF that the worms crawled out of the can. That Interim Management Committee appointed three technical consultants to investigate various aspects of the PTF management. Their findings conducted independently were damning. When I read President Buhari’s remarks a few weeks ago in which he crowed about the achievements of the PTF under his leadership, I decided to do a facts-check since I knew that Newswatch had done a cover story titled “How Buhari ran PTF” which was published in its March 13, 2000 issue. This story was the product of a thorough investigation into the mammoth fraud as discovered by the technical consultants hired by the IMC. Details of the IMC report are distilled for you here. The findings: N144.51 billion had been given to PTF by the Federal Government during its lifetime; A residential estate was to be built at Wuse, Abuja, for N703 million but the technical consultants hired by IMC put the realistic valuation at about N328 million; Between July 1994 and July 1999, about N25 billion was either stolen or improperly expended; Extension of PTF headquarters was to gulp N650 million; Expired HIV/Aids drugs and kits worth N28 billion was supplied to several hospitals nationwide. This was confirmed by the Nigerian Guild of Medical Directors whose Secretary, Mr. Rowland Ogbonna, asked the Federal Government to withdraw the drugs immediately from all hospitals in the country. Many projects were abandoned while the completion rate of other projects was put at 30%; the sum of N500 million that the PTF deposited in a bank disappeared as soon as the IMC was announced. The bank agreed to pay the money after President Obasanjo read the Riot Act to the bank officials. On taking over, IMC discovered that there were no contract documents, drawings or specifications relating to projects. The APC could and did award contracts and vary the pricing without any reference to the PTF. Mr. Ahmad had asked the IMC officials to come and collect some documents in connection with all the transactions. On the day of the appointment he collapsed and died. The other members of the APC team claimed that they were not in a position to supply the documents.

There were more sordid revelations. The Afenifere did an analysis of the siting of the projects. The consumption of petroleum products by the South was 70% while that of the North was 30%. However, the distribution of the PTF projects was a reversal of the consumption pattern: 70% to the north and 30% to the south. All southern states had 4,440.43 kilometres of roads rehabilitated (24%) while states in the north had 13,870.47 kilometres rehabilitated (76%). Teaching Hospitals’ rehabilitation: South 38%, North 62%; Specialist hospitals: South 29%, North 71%; Food supply: South 17%, North 83%; National Health and Educational Rehabilitation Programme (NHERP): South 0% and North 100%; Vocational Programme: South 3%, North 97%; Primary School rehabilitation: South 12%, North 88%. Haroun Adamu acknowledged the gross imbalances in the sharing of the projects but regretted that his committee could not do much to remedy the situation since by the IMC mandate they could not embark on new projects.

From the findings there was massive fraud in PTF, fraudulently masquerading as achievements. The institution was a government intervention agency but run without the regulatory checks and balances that undergird the implementation of government projects. The Afri-Projects Consortium was just on its own, a loose canon with no authority to check it. Buhari was the Executive Chairman but he was absent-minded and had capriciously surrendered the operational powers of the PTF to APC without diligent supervision. The boys looted the place dry and there was no evidence that Buhari had an inkling of the huge corruption under his feet. Sometime before the IMC takeover, a newsmagazine, TheWeek, had interviewed him about the swirling corruption allegations. He said allegations of corruption against him were false. “My integrity is intact.” His friends said so too and even insinuated that Dr. Adamu was going after Buhari because the former dictator had detained him in 1994. Adamu told Newswatch: “I am not here to probe Buhari, No, that is not our mandate. Whatever happened when he was head of state is long forgotten. He is my friend.”

Buhari’s personal integrity was not soiled by the Petroleum Trust Fraud but he displayed supreme incompetence as a manager. As an Executive Chairman the buck stopped at his desk and no matter how you want to slice it he takes vicarious responsibility for the humongous fraud that took place in that institution. Secondly, the grossly lopsided distribution of the PTF projects between North and South is an awful testimonial for a man of his national standing to whom the nation through the coup makers had given the highest position in the land. His lopsided appointments today constitute a déjà vu.

When I read what he said about Abacha I was sorry for him. He said to a delegation, Buhari Support Group led by Comptroller General of Customs, Hameed Ali. “I don’t care about the opinion you have on Abacha but I agreed to work with him and we constructed roads from Abuja to Port Harcourt, Benin, Onitsha and so on. We also touched education and health. One of the former Heads of State was bragging that he spent $16 billion on power in Nigeria. Where is the power?” The emerging confrontation between the two former dictators, former friends and former allies and now fierce foes, Obasanjo and Buhari, will receive the attention of this column in due course. For now, I think President Buhari’s open veneration of the kleptocratic and autocratic Abacha is a cause for nausea. At the 10th anniversary of Abacha’s death Buhari had given the fantastically corrupt Abacha a clean bill of integrity. Even at that time, Nigeria was running all over the world trying to retrieve the billions Abacha had scattered in several banks in several countries and several continents. The horrifying stories of the elimination of prominent politicians and businessmen by Abacha constitute a notorious portion of our national narrative. No matter how hard Buhari tries, no matter what he thinks of the despicable, despotic Abacha, no matter why he thinks the man was a saint he will never succeed in winning Nigerians to his side. He will only wake up with fleas since he chooses to be in bed with dogs.

https://guardian.ng/opinion/petroleum-trust-fraud/

BigSarah:

So northern Nigeria doesn't feed this country? Like they always claim rather we import from other African countries using their borders?...

As if they feed the country for free, assuming it was true sef.

flyingpig:
Oh in that case, Fulani's across Niger republic should just trek with their sticks to the border point and book a train ride from Maradi down to Kano state, file for Local government identification letter by speaking Fulfude as pre-requisite. Then in 2023 presidential elections Kano will produce 7million votes.

Na so o.
You know what is going on in the Fulani Republic of Naijeriya, FRN.

anonimi:
www.nairaland.com/attachments/10060234_operasnapshot20190807145115www_legit_ng_png336689d8c0ee038dcc69b84c197c8e36

www.nairaland.com/attachments/10067868_ebdsqdjxoaiz1k9_jpege520702236a9628eed5d5ec17b762e19

anonimi:
www.nairaland.com/attachments/6559819_img20180116131338_jpeg5eb7dd60f62d45b4c01a8e0a67f66174

It is so shocking that some people will read the below comments and still click like. So you don't know that even if trade doesn't exist at all, it could be created due to the existence of train. Niger is landlocked and if the entire stretch of the Lagos to Kano is completed, it makes sense for them to direct shipment via our ports then continue the movement using the railway and we earn money from shipment and duty.

BigSarah:
How much does trading between Nigeria and Niger republic add to the country?... This one is a useless project considering the country finance

This guys are thinking ahead. Economically, Niger will benefit while they contribute their part at strengthening the security of Northern Nigeria over Nigeria as a whole. The north can easily move soldiers, weapons etc in case of any threat from Southern Nigeria. You see, Buhari is ready to abandon oil in the south to bring in crude oil from Niger and refine in Kaduna. The essence of the rail is way beyond what we can imagine. They are prepared.

And Apapa road done spoil finish chaii

GMB is demostrating the worst leadership style in the history of this country. Imagine Lagos Badagry Expressway abadoned, he is not thinking about linking Lagos to Accrain the west coast where more economic activities are taking place but is busy throwing our monies after Fulani interest with minimum economic advantage. What is wrong in completing Lagos -PH-Onitsha-Calabar rail line before pursuing less economically attractive routes.

GMB you won't be president forever.

Coronabirus:
Before boarder closure most of the foreign rice, mineral oil we consume are from Niger Republic. Donkeys, and other domestic animals are being imported to balance meat demand in the nation. Dawanau food stuff market in Kano is the largest in Africa and foodstuffs like seasame, groundnut, soyabeans, millet are exported in large quantity from Kano to Niger, Libya, Morocco and many other African countries.
Nigerian food business provide citizens with more than $70b annually far more than oil, oil is more important for foreign exchange to government and foreign business.
The problem with us in Nigeria is we hate to see others develop, we're so selfish indeed!

which kind analysis be this. where is this coming from

BigSarah:
How much does trading between Nigeria and Niger republic add to the country?... This one is a useless project considering the country finance

Nigerians are constantly taken for a ride. We need to see the cost and benefit analysis of undertaking this type of project that is worth over a billion dollar. What is the rate of return and Payout period? What public policy does it serve? Considering our foreign debt and lean resources, we should allocate our resources judiciously and optimally. Transportation of goods without our country is a bigger problem and benefit than this white elephant project

Fix our roads first and construct rails linking major industrial cities in Nigeria. If Democracy is the government by the people and for the people, then the government should start listening to the people rather than do what is in their mind.

We say no to the project. If they start it, it won't be completed in Jesus name.

Shameless government. When have you finished with naija rails? Una Wan bring more of una bandits for 2023 abi

And this is of more priority than fixing at least one refinery?
Which raw materials from Niger are we building them for, cow hide abi fura de nunu?