Opinion
By Layi Deinde
President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the naming of the Railway Complex in Agbor, the operational hub of Itakpe-Warri Rail Line after former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.
The news was broken by no other one but the Lion of the Niger Delta Hon Minister of Transport.
Is this an honour, a burden or a combination of both?
What is baba up to this time around?
As the last 2019 election was approaching he unleashed a masterstroke of an action least expected of him.
Contrary to general speculation, even the prophetic prism could not sight rays of the plot, late M. K. O. Abiola was awarded the highest honour in the land GCFR and he also declared the once-controversial June 12 democracy day.
Insinuations soon rented the landscape.
He wanted to curry the favour of the highly expressive Southwest.
Ask; what stops them from doing same in 2014 or 2015? In place of the honour was it not foreign currency they opted to dole out in a free for all?
Ask again; what stops Abiola’ s kinsman from doing same?
What reason can then be adduced for this?
2023 is far ahead, people might have a hard time trying to remember the gesture.
After all, he is not standing as candidate.
Could he be trying to make peace between Amaechi and the former president?
Time will tell.
But this very decision?
A project domiciled in the very geo-political zone of Goodluck Jonathan.
Left unattended to for almost 35 years.
Remodelled from just a cargo line to have passengers added to it, with 12 stations!
More of a burnt limb of a ram.
Hard to eat, difficult to do away with.
Putting the Former Presidents strategist in a tight fix.
Should he accept it or otherwise.
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He will be first reminded, how a Water project was completed and commissioned in Central Ogbia area, a place that includes his Otuoke.
Then the same Fulani man with NEPA bill certificate is again teaching a PhD holder Goodluck Jonathan and upcoming leaders how not to be preoccupied wielding power while the list of abandoned projects swells, as at a recent count, 56,000 in the nation.
The former president will be desperate for a comeback, for a possible restitution.
Head or tail the people can not lose focus of the long wait for the project to breath a fresh air.
They are not unconscious of an era Crude Oil was sold at a premium yet a project like the Rail line didn’t get attention.
That the person who failed to do a project in his region now having his name engraved to it is sweet and bitter, note the sequence, different from the bitter leaf experience.
Who are Buhari’s strategists sef?
Why such an honour loaded with burden?
