Donald Duke, the former Governor of Rivers state has expressed his dissatisfaction towards the construction of rail projects by Chinese nationals when there are capable Nigerians.
According to his statement on October 1, Nigeria’s Independence Day anniversary, as long as we continue to outsource our development, we will never gain the confidence to develop our nation.
It is no news that multiple projects across the country are currently being handled by Chinese Nationals. A few of them include the Lagos-Kano rail, Lagos to Calabar rail, Port Harcourt to Maiduguri Rail Project worth close to $30 billion collectively.
The funds to also undertake those projects were also borrowed from China, a fact to which there has been so much controversy on the likely inability to repay resulting in a modern-day colonization
The former governor disclosed that we need to take more risks by investing in our skills and not only infrastructure.
It is not clear if a Request for Proposal was sent out for the construction of those high-level rail projects before outsourcing to Chinese nationals when there may be capable Nigerians to do the work runs contrary to the Executive Order 5 which states that capable Nigerians will be considered forst before other nationals in terms of employed labour.
The former presidential candidate elaborated what Nigeria suffers in terms of leadership in this interesting interview
