Amaechi- "China’s $1.5bn loan ready"

Rotimi Amaechi, the minister of transportation, has urged the national assembly to approve the federal government’s borrowing plan so as to begin the construction of rail projects in the country.

The minister said the China Exim Bank was ready to loan $1.5bn to Nigeria for the Lagos-Ibadan rail line but approval was needed before the agreement can be signed.

Amaechi made this known on Tuesday in Abuja when he appeared before the senate committee on land transport.

The minister also said the foundation of the Lagos-Ibadan segment of the Lagos-Kano rail line will be ready before the end of the first quarter of 2017.

Police arrest 27-year-old woman with 16 children

The Police in Plateau has intercepted a 27-year-old woman for allegedly being in possession of 16 children at Gada Biyu Motor Park in Jos.

The command’s spokesman, ASP Terna Tyopev, said on Wednesday that the woman was arrested on Tuesday night.

According to him, the woman, identified as Rifkatu Bello, was conveying the children from Bauchi to Anambra.

Wole Soyinka-"If we don’t tame religion, it’ll kill Nigeria"

Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has warned that religion will kill the country if it is not tamed.


Soyinka stated this in Abuja on Thursday at the presentation of a book, Religion and the Making of Nigeria, written by Prof. Olufemi Vaughan.

He said President Muhammadu Buhari had said if Nigeria did not kill corruption, corruption would kill the country.

Condemning killings in the name of religion, the Nobel laureate stated, “I would like to transfer that cry from the moral zone to the terrain of religion. If we do not tame religion in this nation, religion would kill us.

“I do not say kill religion, though, I wouldn’t mind a bit if that mission could be undertaken surgically, painlessly perhaps, under anaesthesia, effectively sprayed all over the nation or perhaps during an induced pouch of religious ecstasy.

Dabiri Erewa-Those who keep looted funds are also criminals

The Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, has called for the unconditional return of Nigeria’s looted funds.

According to her, those who keep such funds are as guilty as those who looted them.


She said this on Thursday at a media event organised by the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption and her office, the News Agency of Nigeria reported.

Dabiri-Erewa decried the uncooperative attitude of the countries where the stolen funds were being stashed.

New solar project to boost Nigeria’s electricity generation capacity

Scatec Solar has signed a Joint Development Agreement (JDA) with Africa50, an African Infrastructure Fund sponsored by the African Development Bank and more than 20 African States and Norfund (the Norwegian Investment Fund for Development Countries), securing investment into the 100 MW (DC) Nova Scotia Power plant located in Dutse in the Northern Nigerian state of Jigawa. The project has the potential to significantly contribute to the plan of the authorities of the State of Jigawa to attract USD 2 billion of investments into Jigawa and implement Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s plans to provide jobs and economic opportunities especially for the nation’s youth.

AMAECHI; PMB will Reflate Nigeria's Economy

Amaechi says Buhari is eager to reflate Nigeria’s economy Speaking in Abuja on Friday, December 23, through Yetunde Sonaike, the director of press and public relations department in the ministry of transportation, Amaechi said that President Buhari is eager toreflate the economy and deliverto the people the gains of his administration, NAN reports.Amaechi went on to list his achievements saying that his ministry was able to complete the Abuja–Kaduna Railway modernisation project, and provided safety measures at thenation’s airports through

rehabilitation of the existing infrastructure within the airports.He said that there were also on-going rehabilitation of infrastructure at the seaports and the railway as well as instilling financial discipline in the ministry and its agencies among others.On the focus of the government ahead of 2017, Amaechi said his ministry will shift attention to the rehabilitation of the old railway lines of Itakpe-Ajaokuta-Warri and also ensuring that the construction works on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Rail line was completed within the specified time. According to him, the government is determined to ensure that works on Lagos-KanoRail line commence in earnest to facilitate the movement of goods and passengers unhindered.“The construction work on the Lagos-Ibadan segment of the Coastal Rail line will commence in January 2017,”Amaechi said.Recall that the federal government finally completed Abuja-Kaduna railway project about four months ago.It was commissioned by President Muhammadu Buhari, Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi and Kaduna state governor Nasir El-Rufai.The project was started by the Goodluck Jonathan led government and completed by Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.