Ghana to build 560km of rail at the same price Nigeria is building 160kmGhana to build 560km of rail at the same price Nigeria is building 160km

Ghana to build 560km of rail at the same price Nigeria is building 160km

Ghana to build 560km of rail at the same price Nigeria is building 160km!

The present borrowing is only the other side of the same coin!
Borrowing to loot and share!

Take the Lagos-Ibadan railway line: For Approx 160km Nigeria is paying the same Chinese company $2billion dollars, the same amount that Ghana is paying for a distance of 560km, more than three times! Theirs is complete with two workshops for building coaches, which is absent in the Nigerian variety, the track would be electrified thus using electric trains, while in Nigeria it is age-old locomotives (just like preference for unsustainable archaic open grazing as against modern day ranching).

Also the reworked airports are five times the cost of similar projects in other countries.

And this trend didn’t start today. The Aluminium smelting plant at Ikot Abasi was built under the very nose of the Wolrd Bank-IFC financiers for 5x the cost of similar project in other parts of the world from same creditors.

What makes the present time so depressing and most disappointing is the “wolf in the sheep skin” phenomenon! This regime came on the mantra of zero tolerance for corruption and a “Mister Integrity” as the leader all of which has turned out to be same old story and even worse. We have the grass cutting COS, the $25billion scam of pipeline exposed by Kachikwu, Okoi Obono-Obla exposed $60billion NNPC money in the US which they want to steal and keep for themselves rather than bring it out in the open, just a few as seen on the news media not mention the myriads unseen! What of internal corrupt issues? The crass nepotism in high places, the reneged campaign promises on restructuring, the glaring marginalization of the “5%” etc, etc, etc.

As shown by the World bank, allowing for inflation, currency devaluation and variations in other economic indices, Nigeria of 2021 has the same GDP as Nigeria of 1980! Meaning we have either remained in same place in the last forty-one years or have retrogressed back to where we were forty-one years ago if at all we had made any progress during that period.

Well, does anyone remember that primary school poem: “Little by little said a thoughtful boy. Moment by moment I shall employ ….”?

May the wheel of progress for Nigeria continue to move forward no matter how little. So that some day, soon enough, we shall exit this evil darkness and see the good refreshing light of a new dawn! Amen.