AMILOADED MEDIA HUB NEWS UPDATE
Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, yesterday, said eight years he spent as minister under the Buhari-led administration, was targeted at improving living conditions of Nigerians, and drastic reduction of multidimensional poverty.
The minister made the disclosure when he presented his scorecard in Abuja.
Fashola, while scoring himself high on project delivery, noted that his strides in the ministry were hugely influenced by the ideologies of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
According to him, “This government is formed by a political party. That is what the constitution says and contrary to what people say in public that they are all the same, I disagree. We profess a progressive ideology and it means something for those who will interrogate it.
“One of the concomitant effects is actually like government spending, as we have saved in this ministry. So, that’s a difference and I want us to focus on that. The definition I have formed as a progressive is one that is aimed at improving the human condition and some of the things we will speak to here, I will ask you to bear in mind. Things like does it improve the human condition?
“The other thing is that we’re dealing with challenges, one of which, of course, those who like numbers, and those who like hyperbole will say ‘Oh,’ yes, thousands and millions of Nigerians are living in multidimensional poverty. But, they don’t even define for you what multidimensional poverty is. They fail to see actions at local, state and Federal Government levels that are targeted at resolving these issues. I will speak to some of those issues and I will ask you to test and see whether or not this responds to multidimensional poverty,” he added.
Fashola said that upon his appointment in 2019, part of his targets were to improve human lives by venturing into construction of long-neglected capital projects, inherited from previous administrations, including several new mega projects.
“Some of those things that seem to have defied solutions were the things that Buhari inherited and that’s where I chose to start. The Second Niger bridge that has been in the purview for at least three decades and has become a political slogan. And when you look at that, the river crosses about two kilometres, taking 18 hours as against 22 minutes.
“The Lagos-Ibadan expressway that has outgrown its capacity, many more institutions, outlets have developed around and beyond what was originally conceived and the need to expand it and give it more current capacity. Before the bonny bridge, a major asset because that is where gas resources are most prolific, but there’s no road to it. That project was awarded three times and failed. It is now nearing completion.
“The Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano Road is made up of three sections namely Abuja-Kaduna (completed in 1996), Kaduna-Zaria (completed in 1991) and Zaria – Kano (completed in 1991). Over the years, only minor repairs were carried out until reconstruction work commenced in 2018 with funding sustained through one of the initiatives of the Buhari administration, the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund, PIDF.”
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