The Minister of Transportation, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, has inspected some facilities at the Kaduna Inland Dry Port, the first Dry Port in Nigeria, promising that the rail line would be complete before the year ends.

Amaechi, speaking during the inspection tour on Tuesday morning, remarked that “the current administration, with this project is doing everything possible to create jobs.” He promised that the rail line will start running before the end of this year.

“Once we get our rail system operating and moving lots of our freight traffic then we will experience economic boost,” the Minister said.

In his remarks, Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, noted that the project was inherited from the Goodluck Jonathan administration and the Muhammadu Buhari government is doing everything possible to make it work. “We inherited this project from the previous administration and we thought it was a worthwhile project worthy of support, and this is why we did everything we could to make sure it works,” he said.

The Governor lamented that 85 per cent of the population of Kaduna State youth are unemployed and appealed to the contractors to make the best use of the facility. He assured that the Kaduna State Government will be a partner and will direct all the companies the state government is attracting to the state to use the facilities.

El-Rufai lamented that Nigeria is the only country in the world that lift less than 25 per cent of its total freight traffic through the rail system. “It’s a disgrace,” the Governor said.

He commended Amaechi, saying: “He has put his energy as a minister into the project and I’m sure we will be where we should be, which is at least 22 per cent of the freight traffic should be on the rail system soon, and once that happens, Kaduna Junction, which used to be the centre of rail transportation in Nigeria, will come alive.”

Also speaking, Secretary, Nigeria Shippers Council, Mr Alhassan Bello, said: “We have come on a supervision tour to ensure that everything is working in the right order. We don’t want to repeat the mistake we did at the sea port.”

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