FG touching lives through expanded infrastructure, says Fashola

The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has reiterated Federal Government’s commitment to improving the lives of Nigerians through increased investments in infrastructure.

Fashola made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abuja.

The Minister said that the success recorded by the Federal Government in infrastructure development was not only improving the working environment of Nigerians, but also `an investment in our people’.

He said that the ministry had also recorded success in renovating 24 federal secretariats across the country targeted towards improving the working conditions of public servants.

“One of the reasons our party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) is called progressives is because there is a commitment to the progressive ideals.

“We could be any other thing but we deliberately choose to be progressives and the common element that binds progressives is the resolve to improve the human condition and that’s what drives us.

“Go and ask the people who used to work here (Federal Secretariat, Abuja) in 2015 and who now work here now which is a better working environment; that is an investment in our people.

“It is in 24 federal secretariats and it is verifiable, so go and ask members of the public service which is the better environment now and go and ask members of the public who now have to come and do business with them.

“And if all of this is turning out better clearly the progressives ideals of improving the human conditions are being met,’’ the minister said.

He further said that the expansion in infrastructure was increasing the value of peoples’ property and lifting Nigerians out of poverty.

“If your property was worth N10 yesterday and it is now worth N30 today because the road has been built, have you not benefited? The property values are going up at least 30 per cent and in some cases 40 per cent.

“In the homes where the head of the family used to wait for handouts before now and where they can now go to a construction site every morning to go and work, the president has reached you.

“If you were a supplier of sand, cement, bitumen, go and look at the volume you were doing in 2015 against the national budget and go and look at volumes you are doing now.

“If those volumes have increased we have reached you because the movement from poverty to prosperity is a continuing journey.

“There is a road we went to study the economic impact, it used to take about one hour 20 minutes to travel that road and it has now reduced to about 60 minutes.

“If time is money and the president has reduced your journey time, he has made you economically better, you are on that step to prosperity.

“And that ladder of prosperity is relative, all of us will be on different steps of that ladder; we can’t all be on the same step.

“In 2015 it used to take about four to seven days to travel between Ilorin and Jebba; it is now one and half hours.

“Those who used to sleep on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, Benin-Ore-Shagamu and all those Enugu-Port Harcourt expressway, don’t sleep there anymore.

“If your journey time has reduced, we have reached you and we will keep remaining in contact with you, it is an ongoing experience,’’ Fashola said.(NAN)