Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi said part of his priorities would be to revive and extend rail transportation to some cities a to boost economic activities.
Amaechi, former governor of oil-rich Rivers State, is one of the 24 handed full portfolio by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The minister, who was at the transport ministry on Thursday in company with Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika, spoke with the top oficials of the ministry.
He said, “Everybody is crying about rail transportation, which will be the easiest form of transportation, if we can do it. Also, we want to ensure that those in charge of rail transportation are capable of delivering that responsibility.
“If there are places where the construction has not been completed, we will ensure that they are completed and extend them to parts of the country, especially areas where there are economic activities like agricultural produce so that products are taken from the point of production to the point of sale.”
According to Amaechi, there is a huge competition among ministers to outperform one another. “We must not disappoint Nigerians, it is important to know that we realise that we have a mandate because there is huge competition among the ministries and the ministers; who will deliver first and also who will deliver on the mandate of the president and we don’t want to be the last,” he said.
The minister told the officials that he would not fully resume duties until Tuesday when he will be properly briefed by Permanent Secretary Sabiu Zakari, who is also new in the ministry.
“We would have commenced work tomorrow but I was told that the permanent secretary is new and he needs to understudy the ministry,”he said. “So, we will resume work on Tuesday to enable the permanent secretary understudy the ministry and hand over the right document to us.”
“There is nothing we know about the ministry, we will rely on you to teach us. You will teach us from Tuesday to make our work easy. The permanent secretary will take over and when we come on Tuesday, we will look at the budget and he will tell us what we need to know.
He further said, “You know most of us may not know but we will get indepth information of what the ministry needs, so that when we are making policies and key decisions, that we are abreast with what we are saying.” .
The former governor also told the ministry officials of his dislikes, saying specifically that he would not tolerate people offering him money or praise-singing him.
He said, “Please if you want to relate with me, please don’t ask me for money and please don’t give me. Also, people say I don’t fear but I fear jail; I don’t want to go to jail and so the first thing I do is to tell my relations and everyone around me not to steal and please don’t put me in a situation where I cannot defend you and don’t put me in a situation where I won’t be able to call a man who is a thief a thief because if he steals and I cannot call him a thief, it means that I have also stolen.
“We also believe that the era of impunity is over, we should not give room to corruption. If you are asked to pay, you pay. If aircraft licence expires and if some aircraft are in bad shape, they should not be allowed to fly because human lives will be lost.”
“I also don’t like praise singing. Let us just deliver on our work, don’t praise sing. I don’t like it. I have heard enough of it because I have held positions and in the process, I have heard enough people praising me but please let us just stop praise singing.”
Minister of State (Aviation), Hadi Sirika promised to discharge his duties in line with the spirit of the change agenda of the administration.
