FG Committed To AbidjanLagos Corridor Initiative
Federal government said it would continue to play a crucial role in the sustenance of the activities of the Abidjan-Lagos Corridor Organisation (ALCO) in facilitating free movement of goods and people among member countries.
The ALCO is an initiative of five coastal African countries of Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin Republic and Nigeria established in 2002 with the objectives of prevention, treatment, care and support on HIV/AIDS, as well as facilitation of trade and transport relations in line with the protocols of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
The minister of state for transportation, Prince Ademola Adegoroye, who stated this while receiving the secretarygeneral of ALCO, Idrissa Kone, in his office in Abuja, saluted the vision of the founding fathers of the organisation, stressing that its advantages cannot be overemphasized.
In a statement by the special assistant on media and publicity to the minister of state for transportation, Prince Ebenezer Adeniyan yesterday, the minister, lauded the efforts of President Muhammadu Buhari in promoting regional integration in Africa and said Nigeria must do everything possible to sustain and improve on the initiative.
The minister then promised that the federal government will fulfill its outstanding commitments to the organization, urging ALCO to also explore other sources of funding for its activities, especially regular collection of data.
Earlier, Kone said the organisation has recorded a lot of achievements along the corridor in the last 20 years of its existence, especially in the promotion of regional integration among the five member states.
Accompanied by the programme coordinator, Dr Abdel-Aziz Fagbemi, Kone urged the Nigerian government to work towards reducing the number of checkpoints and harassment of people by security agencies along the Nigerian border roads as this has constituted a major challenge to free movement of people and goods.
Apex-Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze has dismissed claims by Anambra State governor Chukwuma Soludo that the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi would not win the 2023 presidential election.
The president-general of the Igbo organisation, Ambassador George Obiozor, also dismissed the claim that the organisation had taken Soludo to two Igbo divinities and deities for punishment for attacking Obi and insinuating that he would not win the presidential election.
In his article titled: “History Beacons and I will not be silent (Part 1)” Soludo had stated emphatically that the Labour Party presidential candidate was merely on jamboree with his presidential ambition in 2023.
But the national publicity secretary of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Dr Chiedozie Ogbonnia revealed that following Soludo’s outbursts, the apex-Igbo body met on November 15, 2022, and, not only affirmed the earlier decision of the organisation that the country’s president in 2023 should come from the South East but, that Peter Obi has shown sufficient capacity to occupy Nigeria’s number one position.
“For the avoidance of doubt, Ohanaeze Ndigbo has never contemplated consultation with deities in seeking solutions for the Igbo dilemma. The Igbo are profoundly endowed in various ways least of which is a resort to deities”, the Ohanaeze scribe explained adding “It needs be added that on November 15, 2022, the National Executive Committee of Ohanaeze Ndigbo held a meeting presided over by Obiozor.”
“The issue of the place of the Igbo in 2023 was elaborately discussed”, he stated further.
Ogbonnia said that following the outcome of the meeting the Ohanaeze president-general, Ambassador George Obiozor made the following declarations: “Having traversed the length and breadth of the country on an advocacy mission for the emergence of a President of Nigeria from the South East zone in the 2023 general elections.
“We expected a positive outcome, but the two major political parties, APC and PDP rejected with impunity and impudence the practice and convention of the last twenty years of rotation and zoning of office of the President.
“However, the emergence of Mr. Peter Obi as of today has fulfilled all the expectations of Ndigbo to participate in the 2023 presidential elections which includes winning the primaries of the party and being nominated as the presidential candidate of the party.
“This is the advice given to all Igbo contestants in the 2023 presidential election which is appropriate by virtue of justice, equity and fairness.
“The whole country knows this to be the truth and the whole world knows this to be the fact, all of them are watching events in Nigeria either with trepidation or doubt.
“The situation in the country today offers Ndigbo the opportunity to relaunch themselves in all socio-political dimensions.
“Yet, we must keep asking the rest of Nigerians, ‘what do they really want to do with Ndigbo? The decision will be theirs and the response will be ours. In other words, the position of Ohanaeze Ndigbo and of course the Igbo with respect to 2023 is a constant.
“We rather used the opportunity to thank all the eminent Nigerians that have lent their support or thrown their weight behind the cause of justice, equity, unity, progress and corporate existence of Nigeria in the person of Mr. Peter Obi. For Ohanaeze Ndigbo, it is either one is with us or against us but never will Nigerians be distracted, since history beckons.
“For several years to come, it will be recorded as ‘once upon a time, Ndigbo were shortchanged in the political calculations of Nigeria and Mr. Peter Obi from Anambra State braved up to change the narratives and that he was able to fill the Nigerian expectations.’
“All the dynamics and intrigues associated with the above scenario will form the essential component of the Igbo history”, Obiozor stated further.
The Ohanaeze leader made it clear that the secretary general of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide is Ambassador Okey Emuchay and warned that “any claim to the contrary are mischief makers, impostors, charlatans, social climbers and those media navigators who leech on the invaluable footprints of Ohanaeze Ndigbo to issue press releases for narrow, perverse and illicit pecuniary interests. It is such unwholesome activities by some maladjusted, impish scaremongers that have been the bane of Igbo cohesion and progress.”