By BASHIR ADEFAKA
There can be no better and easier method to prove that the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration has actually moved Nigeria away from its ugly past than the one employed by Digital and Social Media Aide to the President, Lauretta Onochie, it has been said.
Brand New train engines and coaches, initiated and achieved under Buhari administration 2020.
This was evident in a video recorded in 2014 posted late Sunday by Onochie, which must have shown to her the necessity to leverage on it in effort to prove that her boss has done wonderfully well.
In the video, Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Public Affairs at the time, Dr. Doyin Okupe, responded to a journalist’s question and he told her why Nigeria could not have brand new train engines and coaches, despite its steady economic boom.
Picking from that conversations of Presidency of the past to, therefore, preach to the mind of the present, the Buhari’s Aide reiterated her boss’ popular message, “If we do not kill corruption…” corruption will kill Nigeria.
The razor-mouthed broadcast journalist, according to the video, had initiated a hard-to-dodged question which Okupe did not allow to end before he interjected.
She sad, “We see the pictures of the rails. They look like locomotives from 1950s, second-hand, third-hand, brought from China…”
Inside one of the brand new coaches by Buhari’s government.
Okupe interrupted the question but she didn’t mind as she made it to the end and said, “Why can’t we have brand new train?”
Hardly did he allow her to land whe he said, “We are not America. You cannot have brand new train (in Nigeria) because the economy does not support that,” that was an about six-year old government of the country speaking in 2014.
That interview was conducted in 2014 during the economic boom period of Jonathan-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Federal Government, when the oil was $107.95 per barrel.
Onochie was thereafter quick to compare that with 2020 when the oil is now $32.29 per barrel and not just one, not two, not five brand new train engines and several coaches have been procured but also, while a much more befitting new gauge rails system contracts have been initiated and construction at the finishing end by the Buhari’s administration amidst sharp drops in price of the oil, many more engines and coaches are already on ground to operate the Lagos-Ibadan, Warri-Agbor-Ajaokuta and the metropolitan rail system that would move masses to and from Ijoko to Iddo and Apapa on the Ogun-Lagos states corridor.
Lauretta Onochie, in a tabulated format, said: “Then: Massive oil revenue between $100 – $150 per barrel. Locomotives from 1950s. Second-hand trains imported and Nigeria is not America.
But “NOW: Sharp drop in revenue between $27 – $70. Modern Rail System. New Trains imported.”
She then concluded by insisting that, “Nigerians deserve the good life, like Americans” and added the charge, “Let’s Kill Corruption. Hold Yourself To Account. It’s our war. Join today,” she said, encouraging Nigerians to be fully involved in the struggle for better country ongoing.
