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Tag: Hope Uzodinma

  • Why Ndigbo should re-elect Jonathan – Uzodinma

    Why Ndigbo should re-elect Jonathan – Uzodinma

    Chairman, Senate Committee on Aviation, Senator Hope Uzodinma, has appealed to Ndigbo to re-elect President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015 because he has made the ethnic group proud.

    According to the lawmaker, who addressed the 20th World Igbo Congress in Houston, Texas, USA, the president has shown an uncommon leadership that has revamped the nation’s economy and has deepened democracy through respect for the rule of law and adherence to the provisions of the constitution.

    Uzodinma’s aide, Mbadiwe Emelumba, made this disclosure in a press release at the weekend.

    He said Jonathan has done the nation proud and deserves the support of all Nigerians for re-election.

    The lawmaker who represents Imo West in the Senate said: “From prompt and popular actions to bolster free, fair and credible elections, maintenance of stable prices for petroleum products, fiscal and monetary interventions in the real sector and the burgeoning film industry, to the silent but persistent responses to the energy challenges confronting the nation, President  Jonathan has proved to everyone but die hard critics that, good luck notwithstanding, he is the right man for today,”  the Senator said.

    Appealing directly for Igbo votes for Jonathan in 2015, Uzodinma the Senator recalled that Jonathan had made the dream of an international airport in the South-East a reality through the Akanu Ibiam International Airport. He also noted that the Second Niger Bridge, which had remained in the realm of political rhetoric in the past has now been brought to fruition under the watch of Jonathan, adding that contract for the construction of the bridge bas been awarded and mobilisation paid.  According to him, the Imo Airport, neglected for too long, has finally been repositioned as Sam Mbakwe International Cargo Airport and would soon become operational.

    Uzodinma added that: “The transformation of the railway sub-sector is just one example of where the transformation train could take the Nigerian society.

    He said: “An energetic Salvage Operation with remodelled tracks and locomotives has debunked the lie that the Nigerian Railway is as good as dead.  The trains are back in operation on the Western Rail Lines, ferrying goods and passengers from Lagos to Kano”.

    He also said the Eastern rail line – Port-Harcourt to Maiduguri – is being revamped and that a new coastal railway line from Lagos into Benin to Onitsha, up to Aba, Calabar to Obudu has just been awarded to Chinese giants (CCECC) for construction.

    The senator added that “Jonathan is a detribalised Nigerian and the solution to the Nigerian problem. Let us rise to support his second term in office.”

    Reacting to the senator’s speech, other speakers at the event pledged total support for the re-election of Jonathan in 2015.

  • ‘Closure of Abuja airport not out of place’

    The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Aviation, Senator Hope Uzodinma, has maintained that the closure of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, expected to start on Saturday night is not out of place.

    Speaking with State House correspondents after meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan at the Presidential Villa, he said that closure of airports for maintenance is a normal practice across the globe.

    He said that potholes at the airport are already posing hazard to the use of the airport.

    He said: “This was done for obvious safety reasons. We have some potholes that are already seen as serious hazards. And don’t forget that it is the only runway that lands our President, all the VIPs, all the investors that come into this country.”

    “So, at the last time, there was a technical audit by FAAN in keeping with international regulations and they opened items on the country, component among them was the Abuja runway. So, we now had series of meetings with the minister of aviation and the airlines and agreed that from 12 o’clock on Saturday midnight to Sunday that Julius Berger will take enough time to repair the runway and commence navigation once again.”

    “So, it is just for pure maintenance programme based on safety reasons and it is welcome by all of us.”

    On alternative landing places, he said: “Well all over the world they know that we have one runway in Abuja. The next thing anybody can do is to look for the nearest airport close to Abuja either Kaduna or Minna and then choose whether it will make a better business sense to land there or not to fly at all.”

     

  • PDP committee affirms Umar as Taraba Ag. governor

    PDP committee affirms Umar as Taraba Ag. governor

    The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Fact-Finding Committee on the health condition of Governor Danbaba Suntai of Taraba has affirmed Alhaji Garba Umar as the Acting Governor of the state.

    Briefing Journalists after about a two-hour close door meeting, the committee Chairman, Sen. Hope Uzodima, stated that the impasse had been resolved with all stakeholders including Suntai’s wife, Hauwa.

    He said the acting governor should from time-to-time for consultation with Suntai on major political issues in the state, while he (Suntai) recuperates.

    The committee chairman further stressed that the issue was a purely PDP in-house problem which, as a family, could be sorted out amicably.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Suntai returned to the state on August 25, after 10 months of medical treatment abroad, following his involvement in a plane crash in October 2012.

    Uzodima’s committee, which was received at the Jalingo airport by the acting governor and many top government functionaries, visited Suntai briefly in his official residence.

    NAN also reports that two parallel organs of governments were being run in the state before Tuesday’s resolution as three commissioners had complied with the purported dissolution of the State Executive Council.

    The three commissioners had handed over their offices to the permanent secretaries of the ministries while four commissioners did not comply.

     

  • PDP committee visits ailing Taraba governor

    PDP committee visits ailing Taraba governor

    Members of the Peoples Democratic Party Fact-finding Committee on the Taraba State Political Situation paid solidarity visit to Governor Danbaba Suntai in New York, United States, on Saturday.

    The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the committee, led by its Chairman, Sen. Hope Uzodinma, visited the governor at a rehabilitation centre, where he is receiving treatment, following the injury he suffered in last year’s air mishap.

    Uzodinma was accompanied by the Special Adviser to the PDP National Chairman on INEC and Inter-party Affairs, Alhaji Shitu Mohammed, the Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters, Alhaji Ahmed Gulak, Sen. Abubakar Gada and the Consul-General of Nigeria in New York, Amb. Habib Habu.

    “We are impressed with what we have seen and we thank God for that. We will take back home what we have seen and we will inform the leadership of the party.

    “We are impressed; we are also happy that the governor is recovering. We will still go back home and relate what we have seen.

    “We will also visit Taraba State. We will meet all stakeholders in Taraba State, we will also inform them of what we have seen and our party as a family will make sure that the party continues to grow from strength to strength,’’ he told NAN in an interview.

    Uzodinma commended President Goodluck Jonathan and the party’s National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur for setting up the fact-finding committee.

    The consul-general also said the governor was recovering fast.