Full text of remarks by the Hon Minister of State, Labour and Employment, Chief Festus Keyamo SAN, at the South South Stakeholders meeting with the Federal Government in Port Harcourt on Tuesday.
The Federal Executive Council has approved the Coastal Rail line from Lagos to Calabar. The loan for the coastal Rail line from Lagos to Calabar is actually being processed now. The other Rail line from Bonny to Maiduguri which is the Eastern flank has also been approved.
That rail line begins from Bonny to Owerri, Makurdi and all the way to Maiduguri and the loans are being processed right now with the Chinese. Congratulations to Governor Okowa because the rails incidentally will begin from Warri and it will either go east west or west west but it will certainly begin from Warri.
As for the ports, Governor Okowa mentioned the issue of the deep sea port and as we speak here, I can show you a message from the MD of RCCI, the contract has been awarded already for the Warri port. It is the deep sea port that they want to establish in Warri.
For you to have a deep seaport you need at least 14 meters depth of water but the old Warrior Port is about 8meters deep and it will cost about $100million dollars to dregde so what we want to do is that we have been mandated to work with traditional rulers like Olu of Warri and others to try and get a location that is at least close to 14 meters deep and that is where I will beg my brother the Hon Minister of Petroleum, because the channel to go in is also barricaded by the NNPC pipelines and some of them are obsolete so we are thinking of sinking or relocating the pipes for the ships to come in because the pipes are already under the water.
In a few days time, myself and the Chinese people will leave for Warri to make some of those investigations. Pessu was actually pencilled down for the port but its 8meters deep and am sure Governor Okowa knows about this.
We are all part of the same region, am Urhobo like most of you here and when they tell you that the federal government should not take loan, tell them that they are taking loans to build railways in other parts of the country, so let us take loan to build our own too so don’t oppose it, we should build our own too with the Chinese loan as well.
My elder brother Professor G.G. Darah let me add to your demands because being here today also part of you too making demand from the Federal Government, you didnt mention the Warri airport which is also very important.
Shoreline that was managing the Warri Airport couldn’t pay up all its bills to FAAN so the Federal Government had to take over the Warri airport, and some of pursued it here and credit must be given to the Minister of Petroleum and myself because we pursued it all the way. A proposal has been written to the Federal Government for the Ministry of Petroleum to take over the Warri Airport and the President has approved that.
They are working on it now and in the next few weeks the Warri Airport will become functional again. So on a last note, i want to say that most of the demands if not all the demands of Governor Okowa as a child of the region who was born and bred in the region, I also support those demands because it is only a bastard who is not born of a father from the Niger Delta that will not support those demands.
Its not because we are here today, we will come back home tomorrow and any Niger Delta son that does not support resource control and fiscal federalism is a bastard of the region, so we support it, but I must caution that it must be a collective effort, do not think that it is the fault from this government, it has always been there, our son was President, a southerner was President as a Yoruba man. Luckily for us, the Deputy Senate President is the Chairman of the Constitutional Review Committee, let us take our demands there, let’s go and fight our case there. Nobody should fall for the narrative that it is President Muhammadu Buhari that caused the problem why they have not amended the constitution. Let’s take all our demands there and let us go and fight it there.
