The Niger Delta Development Commissio, (NDDC) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the United States Consulate and a United States-based firm, Atlanta Global Resources Inc., AGRI, to build a railway network that will connect the nine states of the Niger Delta region.
The ceremony, which was a part of the one-day Public Private Partnerships Summit organized by the Commission in Lagos on Tuesday, will provide locomotives, construct railway lines and operate same in the oil producing states of Rivers, Ondo, Edo, Delta, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Imo and Abia.
The MOU was signed by the managing director/CEO of the NDDC, Dr. Samuel Ogbuku, on behalf of the Commission, Mr. Chamberlain Eke, on behalf of the United States Consulate, and Mr. Tony Akpele, on behalf of AGRI.
Work on the preliminary stages of the project, perhaps the biggest in the history of the Commission, is expected to start immediately.
He stated that the MOU represented a big harvest for the NDDC from the PPP Summit.
In his goodwill message at the summit, former NDDC Managing Director, Chief Timi Alaibe, expressed delight at the PPP initiative taken by the new leadership of the Commission.
Also speaking during the summit, the former Governor of Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomole, commended the NDDC for admitting that it had suffered from goal displacement.
He said: “The NDDC Management and the Board have shown courage by putting the Summit together. The NDDC has our prayers and support. What is missing is not the ideas, but the courage.”
