The Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Babatunde Fashola (SAN) on Monday debunked insinuations in some quarters that the completion of the Mausoleum of the first president of Nigeria, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, by the President Muhammadu Buhari government was to get political favour from the Igbo.
Fashola stated this during an inspection visit to the Mausoleum in Onitsha, Anambra State.
He said the Buhari administration decided to work on the Zik’s Place as a mark of honour to the late sage after successive administrations had abandoned the project.
He said, “This is the fourth time I have visited this project since 2016. Why didn’t you accuse us then that we were playing politics with it?
“Now that we have completed the project, you are saying it’s politics.
“Well, if that is politics, it’s development politics and I think I like that type of politics.”
The minister thanked the staff members of his ministry for working assiduously to ensure the completion of the project.
While saying he could not say in particular what it cost the Federal Government to complete the Mausoleum, Fashola said what remained was the furnishing of the complex.
Speaking, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, expressed gratitude to President Muhammadu Buhari for the honour done to Zik and the Igbo by completing the Zik resting place.
He said, “This is the beginning of the great things coming to the Igbo from the Buhari government.
“What successive governments couldn’t do in two decades, the APC government of President Buhari has done in three years,” Ngige stated.
The Zik Mausoleum, otherwise known as the Zik Place, was started in 1997.
Fashola also inspected a road project on the Onitsha/Enugu Expressway at Umunya in Oyi LGA of the state and the Federal Secretariat project in Awka, the state capital.