The presidency on Monday pushed back against what it described as false narratives that President Bola Tinubu has neglected the Northwest, stating that the administration has made significant investments in infrastructure, health, and transportation across the region.
The rebuttal was made on Monday at a pre-tour media briefing in Abuja, convened by the Renewed Hope Ambassadors ahead of a nationwide project showcase tour that will begin in Kaduna and other northwest states.
The presidency listed projects ongoing in the region, including a $2 billion standard-gauge rail project linking Kano to Maradi in the Niger Republic, which, it said, is now 60 percent complete.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Special Duties, Tunde Rahman, who also serves as the RHA’s Director of Media and Publicity, said the visit was designed specifically to counter the perception that the President had not kept faith with the region.
Rahman said, “A lot of people are saying that the president has not kept his promise with the North. This is not correct.
“You will see for yourselves the projects put in place by Mr. President. He started in the North in the area of works; road networks, health facilities that have been built; and transportation, like the rail system from Kano down to Maradi.”
Rahman noted that the tour was being mounted under the auspices of the Renewed Hope Ambassadors, which he described as the principal vehicle for the president’s re-election campaign.
He explained, “We are not reinventing the wheel. We are putting together all the achievements of Mr. President and presenting them to the whole of Nigeria so that Nigerians can see that a lot has been done in the last three years.”
Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, who spoke earlier at the briefing, said the tour was conceived as a direct response to an information gap that had allowed skepticism about the administration’s performance to flourish.
He said, “If we don’t blow our trumpet, no one will blow it for us.
“We are carrying the media along so they can see for themselves the many projects being done across the country, projects that have a direct impact on our people.
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“Someone posted about a completed road on social media and said, ‘I didn’t know such a project existed.’ That is why we are doing this.”
The briefing also featured a technical presentation on the state of the railway sector by the Director of Rail Transport Service at the Federal Ministry of Transportation, Mr. Finbarr Zirra.
The official said the Northwest was emerging as the geographic centerpiece of a broader national rail integration program under Tinubu.
Zirra traced the origins of Nigeria’s railway crisis to the colonial era, noting that the network built by the British was never designed for internal development.
“The plan at that time did not intend to integrate us or make our resources available for national development,” he said, adding, “Towards the 1970s, the railway sector degenerated to a point where government investment declined and was essentially replaced by road infrastructure.”
He said a 25-year Railway Master Plan, adopted in 2002, set out to rehabilitate, modernize, and position the sector for long-term sustainability, adding that within the last three to four years, the current administration had achieved substantial progress along those lines.
On the Lagos-Kano standard gauge corridor, which he described as the backbone of the national rail network under construction, Zirra said the Abuja-Kaduna segment had been operational, the Lagos-Ibadan segment also in service, with the Kaduna-Kano segment now at advanced completion.
“The part to Kano has been completed,” he confirmed, adding that the link from Kaduna to Abuja was expected to be operational by the end of the year.
The Kano-Katsina-Maradi extension, approximately 400 kilometers of new standard gauge rail stretching from Kano through Katsina to Jibia before crossing 40 kilometers into the Niger Republic, is the single largest ongoing rail investment in the Northwest.
Zirra revealed that the completion was at 60 percent, with the earthworks, the most labor-intensive phase, substantially underway.
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