The Presidency on Monday pushed back against what it described as false narratives that President Bola Tinubu has neglected the North West, saying the administration has made significant investments in infrastructure, health and transportation across the region, including a $2 billion standard gauge rail project linking Kano to Maradi in Niger Republic that, it said, is now 60 per cent complete.
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 North West states.
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, the progress of work that has been done there.”
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 scepticism 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.
“Someone posted about a completed road on social media and said, ‘I didn’t know such a project exists.’ 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, who provided an account of ongoing and planned rail projects.
The official said the North West is emerging as the geographic centrepiece of a broader national rail integration programme 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, modernise and position the sector for long-term sustainability, and 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 was operational, the Lagos-Ibadan segment was in service, and the Kaduna-Kano segment was 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 kilometres of new standard gauge rail stretching from Kano through Katsina to Jibia before crossing 40 kilometres into Niger Republic, is the single largest ongoing rail investment in the North West.
Zirra revealed that the completion was at 60 per cent, with the earthworks, the most labour-intensive phase, substantially underway.
He said once the earthworks were accomplished, mechanised laying would accelerate progress significantly.
A branch line from Kano to Dutse, covering approximately 100 kilometres, is also under construction as part of the same package, he said.
“The total length of this package is about 400 kilometres, and work is progressing. By the end of the year, Kano to Katsina is expected to be completed,” Zirra said.
Zirra noted that Kano state is of strategic importance to the entire rail programme because upon completion, the city will serve as a multi-modal hub where four separate rail lines converge. They include the Lagos-Kano main line, the Kano-Maradi international line, the Kano-Katsina branch and the Kano-Dutse line.
He said Kano station, when finished, would be the largest in the country by design and function.
He explained, “One movement of a fully loaded train will take approximately 30 trucks off the road.
“If we are able to do that consistently, the impact on road maintenance, logistics costs and the cost of goods will be enormous.
“The multiplier effect of a functional rail corridor is felt in every other sector.”
He said a high-speed rail programme, privately funded at an estimated ₦200 billion, is also in the proposal pipeline and will cover Lagos-Kano, and a separate Lagos-Port Harcourt route.
Monday’s briefing comes days after the Renewed Hope Ambassadors unveiled its website and digital repository containing key milestones of the Tinubu administration.
Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodinma, who chairs the RHA, promised that the website would serve as a verified information hub to deepen public understanding of the administration’s reform programme and actively counter the spread of misinformation.
Uzodinma said the RHA’s centrepiece is the official website, www.rhambassadors.org, which he described as an aggregator platform designed to consolidate policy explainers, reform updates and verified government information into a single accessible hub.
The PUNCH