David-Chuddy Eleke in Awka
Anambra State Governor, Prof Chukwuma Soludo, has said the South-east geopolitical zone will be eternally grateful to President Muhammadu Buhari for the completion of the Second Niger Bridge.
While speaking during a live television programme at the weekend, Soludo expressed gratitude to the Buhari administration for keeping to its promise of completing the bridge.
“The people of the South-east have cried; we have agitated; we have complained and (did) all we can — over five key fundamental infrastructural provisions that will change the south-east,” Soludo said.
“One such infrastructure is the dredging project, which needs to be executed to enable the South-east to have access to the Atlantic Ocean in terms of access to the sea.
“Number two was the Second Niger Bridge, and three is the highway from Anambra to Lokoja abandoned by the federal government. Number four is the gas pipeline around the south-east and the last one is the rail line infrastructural project.”
While the other projects are yet to be executed, the governor said he believes the completion of the Second Niger Bridge is a step in the right direction.
“Those are the five major infrastructural projects we thought the federal government would have been able to help us kick start, but we are eternally grateful that one out of five has been completed.
“It was a promise made and a promise kept. It is a game changer and it will decongest traffic, and create a twin city between Asaba and Onitsha.”
On May 23, governors from the South-east geopolitical zone named the Second Niger Bridge after President Buhari.
Soludo also pushed for the release of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, to resolve the security issues in South-east.
He reiterated that he was ready to stand as a surety for Kanu if the federal government is ready to release him.
Kanu was re-arrested in Kenya and brought back to Nigeria in June 2021, after he jumped bail and fled abroad.
The governor said he wrote to President Buhari requesting Kanu’s release, noting that the continued detention of the IPOB leader is behind some of the security issues in the South-east.
Soludo said: “I copied the Attorney General in the letter I wrote to the President; but if the Buhari administration fails to release him, we will continue to pursue the issue with the incoming administration.
“Our interest, in this case, is simple: peace, security, and development. If it’s because of the court process, you can release him as part of the conditions, and hand him over to me. We will keep him. When you need him, we will release him and bring him to you. I will be the surety. I am prepared to do that.”
