₦airaland Forum

• Non-competitive bidding responsible, says expert

• ‘Contracts awarded before preliminary designs’

• NRC is in better position to speak on subject, insists transport ministry

• We’re not part of contract signing, NRC says

• Kano-Maradi project signed despite AfDB funding advisory

An investigation has shown that the average cost per kilometer (km) of the newly contracted Kano-Maradi rail line exceeds similar projects under the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), as estimated by the African Union (AU) by, at least, 100 per cent.

The Federal Government, recently, announced that it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Mota-Engil Group for the construction of the 283.75 Kano-Maradi standard-gauge rail at a contract cost of $1.959 billion.

A press release by the Federal Ministry of Transportation said the line would traverse Jigawa and Katsina to get to Maradi in the Niger Republic, raising eyebrows from different parts of the country.

A breakdown of the contract sum shows that it will cost the Federal Government approximately $6.91 million (or N2.6 billion) per km to deliver the project expected to be ready in the next three years.

Findings have shown that it is much cheaper to deliver similar projects in other parts of Africa. More importantly, the quotation for a similar distance under Africa’s rail connectivity programme being discussed at the continental level is less than half of what Nigeria will spend to execute a bilateral project but which the country has chosen to shoulder alone.

In an AU document titled ‘Towards the African Integrated High-Speed Railway Network (AIHSRN) Development’ exclusively obtained by The Guardian, the Union puts the estimates of the new railway line needs of the continent at 12, 000km, which are expected to be completed at a cost outlay of $36 billion.

“Under PIDA, 11 ARTIN corridors have been determined to require modernisation of existing railway lines and construction of new, modern rail lines as soon as possible as traffic demand is expected to exceed 10 million tons annually by 2040. In this regard, it is estimated that about 12,000 km of new railway lines would be built under the PIDA programme at a cost of about US$ 36 billion,” the strategy document revealed.

At the estimated cost, the quote per km of rail track is $3 million, which is 57 per cent less than what the Nigerian Government, which has been part of the AU rail programme conceptualisation, will pay the Portuguese-owned Mota-Engil Group for the Nigeria-Niger rail contract.

The PIDA framework is part of the development of the African Regional Transport Infrastructure Network (ARTIN), which consists of the nine Trans-African Highways and 40 key corridors. There have been multilateral treaties and endorsements leading to the drafting of the implementation roadmap.

The First Conference of African Ministers responsible for the Railway Transport System was held in 2006 in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, leading to the adoption of the Brazzaville Declaration and Plan of Action on African Railways.

This was followed up with the Railway Professional Conference on Interconnection, Interoperability and Complementarity of African Railway Networks held in Johannesburg in 2007 where the strategies for harmonizing standards for infrastructure, equipment and operational procedures for African railways were considered and adopted.

The regional infrastructure integration itself is a fallout of elaborate discussions on regional integration to facilitate trade and labour mobility, part of which was harmonised in a series of documents such as the Abuja Treaty, a roadmap on growing, self-sustained, competitive and regionally-integrated continent.

PIDA specifies critical rail infrastructure, which is consistent with the overall cost estimation. There is the Dakar-N’djamena-Djibouti Corridor Trans-African Highway whose rail component is estimated to cover 5,139 km and estimated at $14.050 billion or at $2.7 million per kilometer, much lower than any new rail project being executed in Nigeria.

The Djibouti–Libreville Corridor rail, stretching across a distance of 2,366 km will cost $2.2 million, which is just 31 per cent of what a cash flow-challenged Nigeria will incur on each stretch of km of the Kano-Maradi line.

The 2,891 km Cotonou-Niamey-Ouagadougou-Abidjan Railway is a hybrid project with 1,234km marked for construction and the remaining 1,657km for rehabilitation). The combined project cost estimate is $5.002 billion, making the cost per km $1.7 million.

In a telephone conversation at the weekend, with Director of Press at the Transportation Ministry, Eric Ojikwe directed our correspondent to engage the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) on the technical issues that could have made Nigeria’s rail projects costlier than those of other African countries.

But the Corporation’s spokesperson, Mr. Mahmood Yakubu, insisted NRC knows little or nothing about details of the contracts. “They cannot refer you to me knowing well that my office does not take part in the signing; nobody is privy to what they are doing at the ministry,” he noted.

But a transport consultant and railways specialist, Roland Ataugba, told The Guardian that there is no technical justification on why Nigeria’s rail projects could have been delivered at a higher cost than any similar projects in any parts of the world besides uncompetitive bidding and political factors.

Rolland, who is vast in Nigeria’s rail project history, said: “The contracts were not competitively procured. They were mostly outcomes of political agreements between the presidents of Nigeria and China. The absence of competition in tendering does not incentivise keenness in pricing.”

Ataugba also noted that the projects are contracted before preliminary designs are carried out, implying that the contractor “prices on a big guess and would factor in all kinds of risks.

“Indeed, we are now notorious for appointing the contractor before consultants. So, we lose out on the benefit of competent advice before committing to a contract.

“We also almost always choose the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) form of contract and lately EPC and financing (EPC+F) which have tended to be more expensive than traditional forms of engineering contracts,” he argued.

IT is not only the cost of the recent project that is seemingly overvalued. While there is no official data on the distance between Abuja and Warri, which is to be linked with a rail in a 30-year project, the existing Itakpe-Warri (that is being extended to Abuja) is 320 kilometer. If Itapke to Abuja is 262 Km by Google Map estimation, the new entire line, when completed, could be roughly estimated at 582km

China Railway Construction Corporation International (CRCCI), which is involved in rail projects across the world, has signed an MoU with the Federal Government to deliver the project at $3.9 billion. There is nothing in the statement by the Ministry of Transportation to show whether the entire stretch would be re-constructed or if it is the newly-completely Itakpe-Warri that would only be upgraded. Whichever the detail of the contract is, it will cost $6.7 million per km of the project that will be 85 per cent financed by CRCCI and its sister company, Exim Bank of China.

“In the agreement, it is 15 per cent Nigeria and 10 per cent CRCCI. Then, we will borrow the remaining 75 per cent from the Chinese Exim Bank through a special purpose vehicle (SPV). Part of the agreement is that CRCCI will provide us with a performance bond before we give a sovereign guarantee for them to be able to borrow the remaining 75 per cent,” the Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, said.

IN terms of per km cost, Lagos-Ibadan is the most expensive project delivered under the ongoing rail reform programme. According to official statements, the project, which covers a 156km stretch connecting the two biggest cities in the Southwest, cost $1.53 billion to execute, making it costlier than the Kano-Maradi in terms of cost per km. The rail project was completed at $9.8 million per km.

In AU AIHSRN, the estimated cost of rehabilitating existing 17, 200km rail tracks that crisscross the continent is pegged at $7 billion or $406,987 per km. The regional pricing benchmark is only 4.2 per cent of what Nigeria sunk in the debt-funded Lagos-Ibadan rail, which many experts agreed was equally rehabilitated.

Other ongoing or completed projects funded by national governments across Africa are equally more expensive than the AU estimates but the majority of them are far less than Nigeria’s generously executed programme.

For one, Ethiopia’s flagship rail project in the wake of the renewed interest in the infrastructure in the continent, Ethiopia-Djibouti Railway Line Modernisation cost $3.52 billion. The project, which was completed in 2016, is not half the cost of Lagos-Ibadan in terms of per mile estimation.

But cost efficiency is not the only lesson Nigeria could learn from Ethiopia. Unlike Nigeria’s ‘big brother’ posture in the Kano-Maradi project, the Ethiopia-Djibouti project was financed by the two benefiting countries. The Ethiopian government took responsibility for $3.4 billion of the total investment while the Djibouti Government contributed $878 million.

The funding model of Ethiopia and Djibouti reflects the recommendations in the Trans-African rail programme, which envisages that each country takes its infrastructure to its border while its neighbour continues from there, making the connectivity less burdensome for member countries of the regional bloc.

Modernisation of Ethiopia-Djibouti Railway Line Modernisation involved replacing the meter-gauge section with a 1,435mm gauge line, and electrification at 25kV designed to accommodate trains travelling at 120km/hour. The new line was constructed in compliance with Chinese electrified railway standards, say Ethiopian local media.

All included in the cost outlay were 21 stations and equipped with ticketing and refreshment facilities. A total of 61 bridges, 37 frame bridges and 453 culverts were part of the project that was majorly handled by CRCCI and China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC). The Chinese are to manage operations on the line for five years while providing specialist training for local employees.

The timely delivery of the project covering a distance of 756km also caught attention. It was initiated in 2011 while trial service on the Ethiopian section commenced in October 2016, followed by that of Djibouti in January 2017.

PERHAPS, Ghana’s rail roadmap is a lesson for Nigeria’s programme, which many people have described as vague. The Ghanaian government has a comprehensive rail roadmap programmed in six phases. The blueprint contains specific projects, distance and cost estimates for yet-to-commence infrastructure.

Apart from phase one, which consists of western and eastern lines put at $4.2 million per km, the average cost (per km) of the Ghana rail project is $5.6 million, which is $1.3 million less than the cost of Nigeria’s Kano-Maradi line due to commence soon.

In its Rail Infrastructure in Africa Financing Policy Options, a document assessed by The Guardian on Wednesday, African Development Bank (AfDB) has cautioned that railway financing should prioritise projects that focus on identified markets that generate high volumes.

The recently signed Nigeria’s project may have disregarded this caution. With a landmass of 72 square meters, Maradi’s population, as estimated by the World Bank in 2012, is 267,249, a little above the population of Shagamu, Ogun State, as of 2006 when Nigeria conducted the last census.

This leaves many experts, including Dr. Chiwuike Uba, a consultant to the World Bank, wondering the commercial value of extending the line to the small town and how the project advances the economic agenda of the country.

Nigeria’s railway programme may have not also been aligned with AfDB’s sustainability policy options as encapsulated in the document referenced. The regional development finance institution recommends that African countries introduce a systematic approach to railway project identification and preparation; include railway financing as part of a broad sustainable transport policy; establish clear and stable commercial agreements for passenger services, set up railways infrastructure and maintenance funds and consider larger financial packages and long term involvement.

It also urges them to develop monetisation methodologies for social, economic and environmental benefits derived from railways, adapt finance solutions to different railway business models; explore alternative PPP approaches including separation of infrastructure and operations; promote capacity building and training centres to increase railways know-how at all levels of decision and operations, while improving regulation and monitoring bodies. They are also required to coordinate the acquisition of rolling stock and maintenance and alignment of operating procedures among African countries as well as set up a task force for African railways.

Commenting on Nigeria’s rail project burden, Uba said: “The cost of rail construction is highest in Nigeria compared to other African countries. For example, it costs about $6.5 million, $5.6 million, and $9.6 million per kilometer to build a standard gauge rail track in Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria, respectively. Note also that Maradi is not Niger’s main city. The government of Niger already has a bilateral treaty with the Republic of Benin for the construction of a railroad from Cotonou to Niamey (the main city in Niger).”

Commenting on the MoU of the Kano-Maradi rail project, Minister of Transportation, Amaechi said: “The contractor, Mota-Engil Group, a Multinational Engineering and Construction firm has also agreed to build a University as part of their CSR while working on the project.”

Uba, like other public analysts, said it was curious that a contractor would build a university as CSR.

https://m.guardian.ng/News/Nigerias-rail-costs-exceed-AUs-estimates-by-over-100%

Another scam under the nose of Buhari

Moferere:
Another scam under the nose of Buhari

!!!!!!......

Nigeria... A country that cheats itself..

The leaders steal like their lives depend on it, even down to noodle palliative, yet still the world poverty capital.

Trust the online urchins and minions to tell you Buhari is the next best thing after sliced bread despite seeing themselves being looted to their 3rd generation..

Despite the padding, one would think the country ought to have the best rail network in Africa, but would surprise you to know that some of its regions still have no rail access at such exorbitant amount while the country wallows in deep deep debt.

Trains are overrated.

Shit hole Buharist see it as some big achievement.

E dey pass like that
Mtcheww

More on TRAINS.....

Kudos to our darling Daddy for all the good works he and his Vice president have been doing all over our darling nation.

Slow and steady, Nigeria will be great in our lifetime.

I HATE TRAINS.
I HATE BRIDGES.
I HATE RICE.
I HATE TALLEST BUILDING EAST OF THE NIGER


Let me give the background to this piece. I was reading some comments on Twitter early in the week, when I ran into this one by one Dr Ben Gbenro: “Why are some people allergic to good news about Nigeria? You are angry about the test-run of Lagos-Ibadan rail, you are angry about the development in Onne Port, but will eagerly amplify any negative news even if it’s not true. Something is wrong with you and I am here to tell you.”

Of course, that comment generated responses, both positive and negative. But the one that caught my fancy specially was by Ayekooto, who declared: “We have got to a stage when GMB achievements can no longer be denied but hated. I hate trains. I hate bridges. I hate rice.”

Very profound. A lot of people can no longer deny the many achievements of President Muhammadu Buhari, particularly in the area of infrastructure, building a new Nigeria, and so, they have decided to hate it. Sad. Very sad.

Nobody can deny that there are very serious challenges in the country, particularly in the areas of security, the economy, and standard of living generally. But that is not all there is to Nigeria of today, and those challenges are being addressed very robustly. That hymn says “behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour.” We will surely see an end to the challenges, if we all work together, and eschew hate speeches.

Why then do some people choose to see and amplify only negative things? Why do they choose to remain willfully blind and deaf to positive things? And surrounded and confronted by salutary developments, they keep repeating; what has the Buhari administration achieved? Show us.

You tell them that just last weekend, there was a test run of the Lagos-Ibadan rail project, with brand new coaches that will begin commercial operation before the end of the year.That is happening in a country where we were told we couldn’t afford new coaches when our oil was selling at over 100 dollars per barrel. Now, at about 40 dollars per barrel, we are launching new coaches. Instead of giving credit to a prudent government, they just say; I hate trains.

Okay, if you hate trains, what of brand new airports in Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano, Enugu, and others in the works? There was a time we were said to parade the worst airports in the world. But not any longer. Buhari reversed it in his four years. What do they say about that? They look up, look down, scratch their heads, and say; I hate airports. I’ve never even boarded a plane in my life, and I don’t want to board. Will I ever enter a plane if I’d been killed by bandits?

Okay. You hate airports and planes. What of bridges being built over rivers in different parts of the country, most especially the Second River Niger Bridge, which the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) built with mouth for 16 years. You tell them that the bridge is almost 50% done, and should be completed in the first quarter of 2022. There’s also the Loko-Oweto Bridge, linking Benue and Nasarawa States. It was started by a previous administration, but almost completed now. Like a cornered rat, their eyes dart furtively from corner to corner, seeking a hole to enter. Finding none, they tell you deadpan: I hate bridges.

Okay. All those are physical structures. So they want stomach infrastructure. You then tell them of the rice revolution, which has freed us from being a net importer of the product in the world. You point out that if Buhari hadn’t put his money where his mouth was, and encouraged us to go back to the land, causing rice farmers to rise from six to 12 million, we would have been in serious trouble when COVID-19 struck. How would we have imported rice, with all international borders closed, and no foreign exchange to even place orders? They pat their tummies gingerly, belch after a hearty meal, and then declare: I hate rice.

A Cancer Centre has been built and commissioned by President Buhari at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH). An ultra-modern diagnostic center also built and commissioned in Kano. And just this week, another diagnostic centre built at a cost of $5.5 million, was commissioned at the Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia, in Abia State. What do they say of all these? “I hate hospitals. May I never need to use any diagnostic centre. It is not my portion.”

You join them to say amen, since you don’t have a hateful heart. And you remind them that the largest ever vessel in the country, Maerskline Stadelhorn, with a length of 300 meters and width of 48 meters, berthed few days ago at Onne Port, in Rivers State. That is the biggest ever container vessel to berth in any part of Nigeria. Onne people were delirious with joy, and praised the government to high heavens, because no vessel had come to their port for 12 years, till August last year, under Buhari. You tell the naysayers the positive economic implications, but they refuse to listen. They dive under water, shouting as they go: We hate container vessels.

You then take them to Yenagoa, in Bayelsa State. Just last week, the skyline of South-south and South-East was transformed, as President Buhari commissioned the tallest Federal Government structure in the region, the 17-story Nigerian Content Tower, Headquarters of Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB).

The architectural masterpiece occupies an area equivalent to four football fields, and has a 1,000 seater conference centre plus a 10 MW power plant. Started in late 2015, now completed, all under Buhari. Engineer Simbi Wabote, Executive Secretary of the agency paid tribute to the resolve, determination and encouragement of the President, that saw the structure to completion in record time. And Wabote, third E.S of NCDMB in its 10 years history, has written his name in gold. Just because he has a supportive President.

Minister of State for Petroleum, Chief Timipre Sylvia, under whose tenure as Bayelsa State Governor the land was allocated for the project, declared: “The commissioning of this building is symbolic in many ways. It shows that Mr President is keen to see infrastructural development in every part of the country...It shows that skyscrapers and other laudable infrastructure can be built in the Niger Delta.”

But they say Buhari hasn’t achieved anything. You show them the 17-story building, and as they gaze skyward, their caps and headgear fall off. You pick the cap and headgear, dust and hand them back. And you ask, brothers and sisters, how now? Rather than admit defeat, they pull the caps and headgear over their eyes, and grumbled: We hate skyscrapers. They make us dizzy.

At that point, you pity them.
You realize that they need prayers.
They hate everything good.
They hate anything uplifting.
They hate development.
They hate their country.
They even hate themselves.


To the enemies of the country,
Children of hate, Frustrations and perdition,
Lovers of bad news,
The anointing wey all of us @[color=#006600][/color] carry,
No be una Papa mate!
No Cap!

MAY BUHARI SUCCEED.

supereagle:
May PMB live long.

Amen and God bless you real good.
Happy New Year.

honor4me:
Ameen What a wonderful piece. A keen observant. We appreciate you as we appreciate the PMB and his team. Leave the children of hate alone. No prophet is ever liked in his time. They will come back to praise him and his good works when he has left the stage. For the present let’s just bear their cries and wailings

God bless you and God bless your parents for giving us a wise man like you.
You are one of the few sane people we have here.
Keep it up and Happy New Year!

The truth is when it comes to corruption and hyperinflation of project cost buhari regime is in no way different from others

AU doesn’t have equal propensity and ability to inflate and steal like Nigerian politicians

....and so far there are no rail lines to show for it. You will think its an entire rail network they have built.

Nigeria get sense before

Nigeria is just a den of thieves

This government is so corrupt, there are no words to describe it. Robbery

As usual.
As expected.
Always was,
Always is,
Shall always be.
Money gotta be shared.

Scam alert again

Very corrupt government

They will borrow money from China to build railway from Nigeria to Niger republic that has no economic importance to us.

They will still inflate the cost by 100%
Turn around to increase VAT, import duty, NEPA tarrif, fuel, call rates etc and still be lieing to us about everything.

I have never seen a government that hates its citizens as much as Nigerian government

....

Nigeria is too slow to be likeable, we shouldn't be talking about railways now, we ought have gone past these ancient trains. Nigeria is suppose to be using high speed electric trains but that doesn't look like it will happen anytime soon.


2023 many will still go and vote in rubbish again



Watch Nigerian youths react angrily to NIN registration, the guy in red said a lot we had to remove some of his revelations


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNh_fnb9Hdg

All that I know is that Amechi cashed out like mad. The biggest and coded cash out ever.
Useless government

Whether Inflated or not, i just hope we will get a standard rail line in the end!

Nigeria is property of Buhari let him destroy it the way he want

This anti corruption crusader is even worst than previous administration, even his ministry spends millions to acquire Biro's...sai Baba


I think even devils come to Nigeria for appretenship, the way we do things here despite having the highest number of religious houses of both fates it's appalling,

Despite the recession this, and cash crunch facing us, some "saints" decided it's a good idea to inflate a project based on "loans"

Well bloated.

who want read ds long episode just on train and to credit ds pointless and extravagant government....owna try ooo..

Is well

Any deal you see Rotimi Amaechi in, there's 1,000,000% chance that he's stealing from Nigeria in connivance with the dubious Chinese that will keep your own share any where you want it

gratiaeo:
Nigeria is property of Buhari let him destroy it the way he want

So building trains amounts to destruction Abeggi

Our corruption is at the highest peak. These old men who are to show us good morals are all idiots.

It surprise me, when people are surprise at the scam called buhari, if you want to know what buhari can do or act check out all his followers. I would have been surprised if buhari was confirmed a honest man but I know he can't be. Is in his nature.

post=98209748:
More on TRAINS.....

Kudos to our darling Daddy for all the good works he and his Vice president have been doing all over our darling nation.

Slow and steady, Nigeria will be great in our lifetime.

I HATE TRAINS.
I HATE BRIDGES.
I HATE RICE.
I HATE TALLEST BUILDING EAST OF THE NIGER


Let me give the background to this piece. I was reading some comments on Twitter early in the week, when I ran into this one by one Dr Ben Gbenro: “Why are some people allergic to good news about Nigeria? You are angry about the test-run of Lagos-Ibadan rail, you are angry about the development in Onne Port, but will eagerly amplify any negative news even if it’s not true. Something is wrong with you and I am here to tell you.”

Of course, that comment generated responses, both positive and negative. But the one that caught my fancy specially was by Ayekooto, who declared: “We have got to a stage when GMB achievements can no longer be denied but hated. I hate trains. I hate bridges. I hate rice.”

Very profound. A lot of people can no longer deny the many achievements of President Muhammadu Buhari, particularly in the area of infrastructure, building a new Nigeria, and so, they have decided to hate it. Sad. Very sad.

Nobody can deny that there are very serious challenges in the country, particularly in the areas of security, the economy, and standard of living generally. But that is not all there is to Nigeria of today, and those challenges are being addressed very robustly. That hymn says “behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour.” We will surely see an end to the challenges, if we all work together, and eschew hate speeches.

Why then do some people choose to see and amplify only negative things? Why do they choose to remain willfully blind and deaf to positive things? And surrounded and confronted by salutary developments, they keep repeating; what has the Buhari administration achieved? Show us.

You tell them that just last weekend, there was a test run of the Lagos-Ibadan rail project, with brand new coaches that will begin commercial operation before the end of the year.That is happening in a country where we were told we couldn’t afford new coaches when our oil was selling at over 100 dollars per barrel. Now, at about 40 dollars per barrel, we are launching new coaches. Instead of giving credit to a prudent government, they just say; I hate trains.

Okay, if you hate trains, what of brand new airports in Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano, Enugu, and others in the works? There was a time we were said to parade the worst airports in the world. But not any longer. Buhari reversed it in his four years. What do they say about that? They look up, look down, scratch their heads, and say; I hate airports. I’ve never even boarded a plane in my life, and I don’t want to board. Will I ever enter a plane if I’d been killed by bandits?

Okay. You hate airports and planes. What of bridges being built over rivers in different parts of the country, most especially the Second River Niger Bridge, which the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) built with mouth for 16 years. You tell them that the bridge is almost 50% done, and should be completed in the first quarter of 2022. There’s also the Loko-Oweto Bridge, linking Benue and Nasarawa States. It was started by a previous administration, but almost completed now. Like a cornered rat, their eyes dart furtively from corner to corner, seeking a hole to enter. Finding none, they tell you deadpan: I hate bridges.

Okay. All those are physical structures. So they want stomach infrastructure. You then tell them of the rice revolution, which has freed us from being a net importer of the product in the world. You point out that if Buhari hadn’t put his money where his mouth was, and encouraged us to go back to the land, causing rice farmers to rise from six to 12 million, we would have been in serious trouble when COVID-19 struck. How would we have imported rice, with all international borders closed, and no foreign exchange to even place orders? They pat their tummies gingerly, belch after a hearty meal, and then declare: I hate rice.

A Cancer Centre has been built and commissioned by President Buhari at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH). An ultra-modern diagnostic center also built and commissioned in Kano. And just this week, another diagnostic centre built at a cost of $5.5 million, was commissioned at the Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia, in Abia State. What do they say of all these? “I hate hospitals. May I never need to use any diagnostic centre. It is not my portion.”

You join them to say amen, since you don’t have a hateful heart. And you remind them that the largest ever vessel in the country, Maerskline Stadelhorn, with a length of 300 meters and width of 48 meters, berthed few days ago at Onne Port, in Rivers State. That is the biggest ever container vessel to berth in any part of Nigeria. Onne people were delirious with joy, and praised the government to high heavens, because no vessel had come to their port for 12 years, till August last year, under Buhari. You tell the naysayers the positive economic implications, but they refuse to listen. They dive under water, shouting as they go: We hate container vessels.

You then take them to Yenagoa, in Bayelsa State. Just last week, the skyline of South-south and South-East was transformed, as President Buhari commissioned the tallest Federal Government structure in the region, the 17-story Nigerian Content Tower, Headquarters of Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB).

The architectural masterpiece occupies an area equivalent to four football fields, and has a 1,000 seater conference centre plus a 10 MW power plant. Started in late 2015, now completed, all under Buhari. Engineer Simbi Wabote, Executive Secretary of the agency paid tribute to the resolve, determination and encouragement of the President, that saw the structure to completion in record time. And Wabote, third E.S of NCDMB in its 10 years history, has written his name in gold. Just because he has a supportive President.

Minister of State for Petroleum, Chief Timipre Sylvia, under whose tenure as Bayelsa State Governor the land was allocated for the project, declared: “The commissioning of this building is symbolic in many ways. It shows that Mr President is keen to see infrastructural development in every part of the country...It shows that skyscrapers and other laudable infrastructure can be built in the Niger Delta.”

But they say Buhari hasn’t achieved anything. You show them the 17-story building, and as they gaze skyward, their caps and headgear fall off. You pick the cap and headgear, dust and hand them back. And you ask, brothers and sisters, how now? Rather than admit defeat, they pull the caps and headgear over their eyes, and grumbled: We hate skyscrapers. They make us dizzy.

At that point, you pity them.
You realize that they need prayers.
They hate everything good.
They hate anything uplifting.
They hate development.
They hate their country.
They even hate themselves.


To the enemies of the country,
Children of hate, Frustrations and perdition,
Lovers of bad news,
The anointing wey all of us @[color=#006600][/color] carry,
No be una Papa mate!
No Cap!

MAY BUHARI SUCCEED.


Amen and God bless you real good.
Happy New Year.


God bless you and God bless your parents for giving us a wise man like you.
You are one of the few sane people we have here.
Keep it up and Happy New Year!

I don't know why the mod are overlooking this guy, with his blatant disregard to nairaland rules,derailing every thread with gibberish.

Corruption

For anyone going into office, remember to recover these stolen billions from this administration

I've seen one billion dollars projects in the US and UK, they are all life changing projects and a generation changer. Mind you, average hourly salary on the projects were $15. Naija will spend billions more and the trains will still break down or projects abandoned.

Nigeria is on a different planet in terms of project over estimation.

When we say that the lifeless vegetable have nothing to do with integrity, people will say we hate him. He is no different from other thieves in our politics. What else is corruption

Amaechi is just the richest politician in this APC criminal gang. The guy steady cash out de give orgasm 24/7

As usual money gat to be shared