Poor infrastructure caused by bad attitude – Rep

Member House of Representatives, Gwale Federal Constituency Garba Ibrahim Muhammad has tied bad attitude of Africans to the sorry state of infrastructure on the continent. Garba who is an engineer spoke with pressmen shortly after he was honoured by the French government in Abuja Thursday night. He was awarded medal in the Order of the […]

Member House of Representatives, Gwale Federal Constituency Garba Ibrahim Muhammad has tied bad attitude of Africans to the sorry state of infrastructure on the continent.
Garba who is an engineer spoke with pressmen shortly after he was honoured by the French government in Abuja Thursday night.
He was awarded medal in the Order of the Academic Palms (reward for educational achievements) by the Ambassador of France to Nigeria HE Denys Gauer at a ceremony in the Embassy of France in Abuja.
The event was attended by House Leader Femi Gbajabiamila, Sen Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Sen Kabiru Gaya and others.
Garba told journalists, “I don’t believe in transfer of technology. You acquire technology. The issue of our infrastructure, it isn’t that we don’t have manpower to keep our infrastructure going.
“The issue is our attitude. Our attitude…this has to do with our society. This has to do with corruption on the African continent.
“Rather than for an engineer to manufacture items in this country…we have all the capacity, they prefer importing because of what they get!
“For instance, during the past term of General Buhari…that time he was a military man, as Head of Sate, Peugeot Automobile where I started, we were producing 240 vehicles a day! Two shifts – from 6:00 in the morning till 11:30 in the night. I was a young engineer then.
“That was 1985/86. But immediately SAP [Structural Adjustment Programme] was introduced, everything went off, our economy was devastated because of the parity between the dollar and naira.
“Peugeot Automobile Nigeria today is just a ghost town. We used to assemble 240 vehicles a day, today, more or less, it assembles nothing!
“That time, we achieved local content. We had 35 percent local content. All this supplied by industries from Kano, Ibadan, Lagos, Kaduna and other places in Nigeria. Today, all the industries are dead.
“Why? We have to ask ourselves – are we progressing or regressing. Certainly we’re regressing,” the legislator lamented.
He suggested, “Not only Nigeria but black Africa, we have that problem. We advise our leaders to come together, we have a mini marshal plan. How do we sort ourselves out?
“Otherwise, we’ll be liability to the rest of the world. We have to manufacture.
“The cost of importation is high and we have a lot of youths roaming the streets. We have to use technology to create employment and generate wealth,” he concluded.
The Ambassador of France to Nigeria Gauer who presented the framed certificate to Garba said the legislator has awarded scholarships to teachers and students of French language.
Kwankwaso said he is proud of the French school he opened in his home town.