President Muhammadu Buhari has continued
his foreign trips in a bid to repair Nigeria’s reputation which was
severely damaged by the administration of former President Goodluck
Jonathan, the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola,
said on Monday.
Fashola, in an article titled, “PMB’s
foreign trips — My takeaway,” also stated that Buhari’s intervention in
the global oil and gas sector led to the recent stability in crude oil
prices.
The minister further stressed that
Nigeria currently has the support of the world’s seven most powerful
countries. He attributed this to the visit the President made during a
meeting of the G7 countries in Germany, last year.
On why he decided to make this public,
Fashola stated that he sought to ensure that every Nigerian who cared
about the country had some information about what the President was
doing.
He stated that barely two decades ago,
Nigeria was ostracised from global events because of bad governance,
adding that the country lost the respect accorded nations like ours.
Explaining what transpired during the
recent meeting with top government officials in China, the former Lagos
State governor stated that six collaborative agreements were signed.
He added, “This last mentioned agreement
was a legitimate coup by PMB, because the intelligence was that some
West African countries were going to sign before us. PMB seized the
moment. Of course, he had to apologise for our previous failures on our
agreement made to part-fund four airport projects in Lagos, Kano, Abuja
and Port Harcourt and the Abuja-Kaduna rail project.
“The Chinese had provided their agreed
part of 85 per cent but the remaining 15 per cent Nigeria did not honour
during the last administration. Some of the recent revelations about
financial scandals estimated at $2.1bn in the Office of the National
Security Adviser alone during the last administration suggest how
impactful such funds would have been in delivering these critical
infrastructures; but we all know what happened.
“This is why PMB is travelling. To
repair our reputation severely damaged by the last government, and to
assure our partners that Nigeria has changed. From there, to renegotiate
an existing funding agreement to complete critical transport
infrastructure.”
On the G7 meeting in Germany, the
minister noted that the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, as host, had
invited Buhari on his inauguration to be their guest, along with some
three or four other African countries.
The agenda of the meeting, he said, was
global security, economy and health in the aftermath of Ebola, which was
still raging in some African countries then.
Fashola stated that apart from the
personal aides of the President, other officials who accompanied Buhari
on the trip were Governor Shettima of Borno State, General Abdulrahman
Dambazau and himself.
He noted that participants at the
meeting highlighted the difficulty of time and the resources that it
would take to develop new antibiotics and the risk to global health.
The minister said, “If we all appreciate
how vulnerable we can be without effective antibiotics, especially our
children, and if we remember how low life expectancy was and how poor
global health was before the discovery of Penicillin after the World
War, we will appreciate the seriousness of the platform to which Nigeria
was invited. I was proud that our President was there.
“If the seven most powerful nations
stand with you, who can stand against you? I need not say more except
that I can attest that PMB has been following up on these matters, and
the progress on security is visible while results in the economic front
will manifest soon enough.”
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