President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday in Abuja credited the People’s Republic of China for its “genuine efforts to improve our infrastructural development.”
Presidential spokesman, Malam Garba Shehu, in a statement, said the president expressed his appreciation to China while receiving the Chairman of China Railway Construction Corporation Limited (CRCC), Mr. Fenjian Chen in the State House.
He said the president told his guest that Nigeria’s infrastructure had depreciated and deteriorated over the years, affecting standard of living, and leading to loss of lives through avoidable accidents, thanking China for the expertise it had brought to the country.
“We are very grateful to China for the effort to rebuild our infrastructure, and for bringing technical expertise to the country. We will give the required support and cooperation, so that our old, out of date, and collapsed infrastructure might be turned around,” the president, according to the statement, said.
According to the statement, the president promised to personally pay attention to many projects being undertaken in the country, for the good of Nigerian people adding that Chen, who led a high-powered Chinese team to meet with the president, described CRCC as an international company, operating currently in 124 countries of the world with 18,000 local employees in Nigeria alone.
It also said Chen noted that part of the projects that CRCC was undertaking include rail way, dry port, free trade zone, and building of highways adding that about 40,000 more jobs were to be created from these.
“The sum of $250 million dollars will be invested on a dry port in Ibadan, Oyo State, and it will decongest the ports in Lagos, and speed up clearance of goods by the Customs Service,” it quoted Chen to have said.
The statement also said Chen commended Buhari for the war against corruption and insecurity, expressing confidence that Nigeria will soon become a much better country.
