PDP flays Buhari over Abuja Light Rail Project

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has condemned Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari for allegedly claiming credit for the newly commissioned Abuja Light Rail.

The 45.245km standard gauge rail line, which connects Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport to the Abuja metro station, is the first of its kind in West Africa.

“It is unfortunate that after three years in office, the President cannot boast of any development project conceptualised and executed by its administration in any part of the country,” the party’s spokesman Kola Ologbodiyan said in a statement on Thursday.

The project was flagged-off by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007 in an attempt to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Successive governments, however, failed to complete the project.

11 years after the project was launched, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved $1.3 billion in 2017 to CCECC for its completion

Transportation Secretary of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Kayode Opeifa disclosed that the project was financed through counterpart-funding with the China Export-Import (Exim) Bank on the basis of 60 per cent from the Chinese and 40 per cent from the FCT administration.

PDP claimed that “President Buhari’s showboating and rush to commission the rail project without giving credit to the PDP even when his administration contributed nothing to the project underscores his desperation to claim achievements made by other in a bid to cover incompetence and failure of his administration.”