President Muhammadu Buhari omitting the Coastal Rail line project from Lagos to Calabar in the 2016 budget was NEVER an omission, but a deliberate act to punish the region that he hates to a fault.
Buhari did the same in Lagos in 1984, when he canceled the Jakande’s Lagos Metro Line project (Train), and Nigeria forfeited a whopping $60 million, which was part of the loan that had been paid by the Alhaji Lateef Jakande administration.
This is the reason African biggest commercial City is still struggling with mere traffic problem.
The planned 1,402 km Coastal rail line from Lagos to Calabar was kick-started by the last government, with the signing of $11.97 billion contract between the Federal Government of Nigeria and China in November 2014.
The project is planned to run through 10 states of the South/East and the South/South’s Niger Delta, terminating at Calabar, the Cross River State capital.
It is projected that this rail link will boast the regions economy to the tune of $87billion in the first 2 years and quadruple this figure in 10 years.
The Presidency accusing the National Assembly of expunging the project from the Budget is ridiculous, as one cannot remove what never existed.
The height of wickedness are the Politicians and media outlets that struggling on how to justify the Presidency’s deliberate act of killing one of the most important projects in the history of Nigeria because of political difference and hatred of host communities.
Let the lies and blame games stop, as I want the president to come clean and explain to Nigerians why he wanted to kill the 1,402 km Coastal rail line from Lagos to Calabar.
