By Idu Jude
The Minister of Transportation Rt Honourable Chibuike Amaechi, has said that his mandate as a Minister of Transportation, is driven from the Meduim-Term National Development Plan (MTDNP 2021-2025), which its high level goal is to ‘Build an Effective, Efficient, Intermodal, Safe, Reliable, Affordable and Sustainable Transportation System, capable of contributing positively to the growth of the Nigerian Economy.
He said that the Ministerial mandate resigned for 2019-2023 are collective responsibility to ensure that the sector contributes its quota to National Development”.
Amaechi, while acknowledging the fact that a lot still needs to be done to meet the vision of the current administration, the Ministry was able to make remarkable achievements in the following critical areas: establishment of Wagon Assembly Plant in Kajola, Ogun State.Establishment of University of Transportation, Daura (construction ongoing, Commissioning of Warri-Itakpe railway lines and Commencement of the commercial test run of the Lagos-Ibadan rail lines.
Other include to achieve an appreciable work on the Deep Blue project to combat insecurity challenges in the Gulf of Guinea, as well groundbreaking ceremony of Kano-Maradi rail line.
The Minister, while speaking Oron, Akwa Ibom State, at a three-day Ministerial Retreat organized by the Ministry for its management staff and top functionaries reiterated the need to achieve the current administration’s commitment to fill the infrastructural deficit in the country.
Going down memory lane, the Minister notes “it suffices to recall that at the last Retreat various resolutions were arrived at with different Committees constituted to propel the actualisation of those resolutions with a view to ascertaining the level of implementation”.
Also speaking, the Honourable Minister of State for Transportation, Sen. Gbemisola Saraki who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Dr. Magdalene Ajani, enjoined the participants to leverage on the platform of the “retreat to brainstorm, design and develop new strategies and initiatives and collectively align with the vision of President Muhammad Buhari to change the course of the transportation sector to become more productive, competitive in line with the current global trend.”
She further charged participants “to engender realistic strategies to enable our vision for a safe, efficient, affordable and seamless transportation become a reality.”
Earlier in her address, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Transportation, Dr. Magdalene Ajani, said that the retreat is a veritable platform for top management of the Ministry and its agencies to cross-fertilize ideas on how to galvanise the Transportation sector to meet the set goals and objectives of the Ministry.
According to her, transportation has proven to be one of the critical factors of economic development and prosperity and Nigeria can leverage on that based on its geographical position, its large domestic market and industrial capacity to become the transportation hub for Africa.
Nigeria abandons Vision 20:2020 for Agenda 2050
She equally assured that the Ministry and its Agencies will continue to provide the necessary support towards achieving all the deliverables assigned to the Minister and the Ministry and even surpass the targets set for it by the current administration as it relates to the Nigeria Agenda 2050 plan currently being developed to replace the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) and Vision 20:2020.
