Nigerians want change in their pocket- Amaechi

Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, says Nigerians have become
impatient about this present administration's change agenda as
they desire to see change in their pockets and not just in
structures. Speaking at a forum organised by the News Agency of
Nigeria, NAN, in Abuja yesterday May 24th, Amaechi said the
present government met a bad structure in governance and is trying
to correct it. He says they will need at least $55.9 billion to develop
infrastructure in the transportation sector...

“We didn’t anticipate that things were this bad. We thought
you go to government and there would be money for you to
run government and others. Now you have the situation
where there is no money to run government. I hate to use the
word difficult; I hate to use the word impossible but we met
things close to difficult and impossibility. That is why
Nigerians are impatient; they want to see results and for
them, change is not about change in structure, it is about
change in their pocket. Because their pocket is getting dried
and they wanted us to put some more resources in their
pocket. What I usually say to people is that we beg you to give
us time; we will achieve our objective if you give us time and
we will both thank God for that opportunity. We need over
50.9 billion dollars in the next five years to develop
infrastructure and 50 billion dollars is not a joke. One of
the infrastructure we are trying to develop is the railway
infrastructure; the president has kindly agreed that he will
fund it because the contract was awarded by Obasanjo, the
former president; he awarded the contract for Lagos to
Kano. President Jonathan awarded the contract for Lagos to
Calabar, what the president has agreed to do is to fund it;
he said can we fund the ones we have already awarded; no
more awards until we have developed the ones we have
awarded. So we are focusing on the Lagos to Kano railway
and the Lagos to Calabar rail line. If you look at the
communities surrounding this rail line; Lagos to Kano will
start from Lagos to Ibadan; it will impact on so many sectors
of the economy including housing; people who ordinarily will
not be able to pay for house rent in Lagos can live in Ibadan,
can live in Ogun and come to work in Lagos.”he said