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Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
Former President Dr Goodluck Jonathan has described the naming of the Warri-Itakpe rail station after him by the Buhari administration as commendable and a good gesture.
Jonathan, who was at the State House in Abuja to brief the president as ECOWAS Special Envoy to Mali, said that completing the railway programme, one of the legacy projects of previous administrations, is the way to go.
Responding to President Buhari’s naming of the Warri-Itakpe rail line after him, Jonathan said: ‘Let me use this opportunity to commend Mr President publicly. I have already sent a letter to him appreciating the good gesture. Completing the railway programme is good. It shows that the president is doing on with the project legacies of previous administrations, and that is the way to go.
‘So, I sent a letter to him, I’ve commended him verbally too. I appreciate it, I thank Mr President, the Minister of Transportation and others that made it possible.’
Asked to describe his relationship with President Buhari, Jonathan said: ‘Very ok.’
‘You have been seeing me coming to see the president and you have been seeing us having friendly conversation, so our relationship is okay.’
President Buhari had on Saturday approved the naming of the Railway Complex in Agbor – the operational hub of Itakpe Warri rail line – as the “Goodluck Jonathan Railway Station and Complex” after the former president.
The railway complex in Agbor is the centre of operation which connects the Itakpe-Warri rail line. It is joined by Benin to Onitsha rail, among other segments of the country.
The rail line is part of the Lagos-Calabar coastal railway project, which cuts across most states in the south-east and south-south.
The project implemented by the China Civil Engineering Construction Company (CCECC) was initiated during Jonathan’s administration.
In 2016, Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi signed a fresh mandate to commence construction on the project.
Buhari defeated Jonathan during the 2015 presidential election, setting a new record as the first candidate to defeat a sitting president in Nigeria.
Jonathan was president between 2010 and 2015.
Meanwhile, President Buhari will consult with key leaders of ECOWAS countries in order to find a solution to the crisis rocking Republic of Mali.
According to a statement by Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, Buhari made the pledge Tuesday while receiving reports from ECOWAS Special Envoy to Mali, Jonathan.
The former president was at State House, Abuja, in the company of the President of ECOWAS Commission, Mr Jean-Claude Kassi Brou.
‘We will ask the President of Niger, who is the Chairman of ECOWAS to brief us as a group, and we will then know the way forward,’ President Buhari said.
He thanked former President Jonathan for his comprehensive brief on the situation in Mali, ‘which you had been abreast with since when you were the sitting Nigerian President.’
The former President had informed President Buhari on his activities as Special Envoy to restore amity in Mali, a country rocked by protests against President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who has spent two of the five years the second term in office.
A resistance group, M5, is insisting that the country’s Constitutional Court must be dissolved and that the president resign before peace can return to the country.
The crisis had erupted after the court nullified the results of thirty-one parliamentary seats in the polls held recently, awarding victory to some other contenders, which the resistance group said was at the instigation of President Keita.
Riots on July 10 had led to the killing of some protesters by security agents, causing the crisis to spiral out of control, hence the intervention by ECOWAS.
‘ECOWAS can’t preside over the removal of an elected President. Not even the African Union (AU), or the United Nations (UN) can do it. Leaders must be elected and leave under constitutional processes, otherwise we would have Banana republics all over the place,’ Dr Jonathan said.
The former president thanked President Buhari for providing a presidential jet for the mission, ‘thus making our trips convenient and comfortable.’
