The Pan-Yoruba socio-political organization, Afenifere, says while it appreciates the resuscitation of Lagos-Ibadan railway, it amounts to exaggeration for President Muhamadu Buhari to say without it, the people of the South-West would have been trekking.
Buhari, had while receiving a delegation from Kaduna State led by the Emir of Zazzau, Ahmed Bamalli, and the state’s Deputy Governor, Hadiza Balarabe, asaid the “people, especially those from the South-West, could have been trekking from Lagos to Ibadan” if not for the government’s intervention on road and rail.
But Afenifere in a statement by its national publicity secretary, Comrade Jare Ajayi, said though the resuscitation of Lagos-Ibadan railway was appreciated, “it is a height of an unpardonable exaggeration to say that without it people in the South West would have been trekking.”
According to the organisation, this is because the number of people using the rail transport is very small, so small compared with people using the road that not many felt the impact when it was not available.
He said, “In any case, assuming without conceding that the rail transport is so significant in the life of the people as painted by Mr. President, what about several other routes in the South West that have no rail system? So, why has the government not provided rail transport in all these areas so that people would not have to trek? And on the road that the President lamented its absence, whose responsibility is it to provide the road; is it not the government?”
Afenifere described Buhari’s gloating on infrastructure his administration provided for Nigeria as another indication that those in the corridors of power do not seem to be in touch with the present reality in the country.
On Buhari’s statement to leave a prosperous Nigeria, Afenifere said the state of the nation belies the President’s claim.
The organisation said the shrinking economy, comatose agricultural practices (due largely to terrorists’ activities and inchoate policies of government), low morale among security agencies and chaotic democratic dispensation in the land as some of the legacies of the Buhari’s administration.
