Vice President Mohammed Namadi Sambo has urged members of the Nigerian Community in Sudan to be good ambassadors of their country.The vice president made this call on Monday when he met with the members of the Nigerian community in Khartoum.Sambo commended the cordial relationship existing between the Nigerian community and their host country and called on them to maintain the tempo and not to engage in any act or vice that would bring the nation to disrepute as they were seen as Nigerian ambassadors.
The vice president, who informed the meeting that he was in Khartoum to attend the launching of the Special Fund for Development of Africa by the Islamic Development Bank, thanked the ambassador for the singular honour to meet with the distinguished gathering and used the opportunity to inform members of the Nigerian community of the tremendous strides the government has made in the areas of politics, economy and security. He stated that for
the first, Nigerians went to the polls to vote for the candidate of their choice in a free and fair manner. “We have been elected sincerely by the majority of Nigerians and we have an obligation and in that regard Mr. President has developed a Transformation Agenda.”
The vice president stated that the concept of their administration was to transform the country positively to ensure security of lives and property of all Nigerians and the transformation of its economic position that will make it one of the 20 most developed countries in the world by the year 2020.
Arc Sambo further stated that their administration was addressing the issue of power supply in the country as the government was currently building ten new thermal power plants, which were at advance stage of completion, that would add 5000mw to the national grid; building over 1000km of new 330kv and 132 kv transmission lines of several associated sub-stations and hundreds and thousands of injection substations in all the cities. This would improve the capacity to be able to evacuate and distribute the power throughout the country
Moreover, the vice president said that they were also embarking on several hydropower plants projects which included the Zungeru and the Mambila power plants that would add 700mw and 2600mw respectively in which they had approached the IDB Group in Part financing.
On agriculture and transport, Arc Sambo, stated that their administration was also addressing the issues and had transformed their concept of making agriculture “not as a programme, but agriculture as a business,”. This would address the whole value chain of agriculture as government was providing the necessary infrastructure in terms of irrigation schemes and adequate transportation with the construction of thousand of kilometers of roads and a number of bridges, like the 2nd Niger Bridge that was at advanced stage as well as the dredging of river Niger which was near completion; and that government was also rehabilitating old and building new railway infrastructure that would connect cities and light trains that would add value to the mass transport services in the cities.
On education, Sambo stated that government was putting additional resources to ensure value from primary up to tertiary levels and that already approval has been given for the establishment of nine more new universities and that every state of Nigeria would have one university that would address the need of our nation.
In his remark, the Nigerian Ambassador to Sudan Haruna Ginsau said the occasion was unprecedented, been the first time in decades that Nigerians in Sudan and Sudanese-Nigerians are coming very close to their number two citizen. He thanked the vice president for sparing time out of his tight schedule to be with them for the moment.
The ambassador, who stated that between nine to ten million Sudanese were of Nigerian origin ,affirmed that the Nigerian citizens in Sudan had encouraging record of good behavior based on his comparison of many countries.
Ginsau traced back the relations between Nigerians and Sudanese, before the advent of colonialism, in which Sudan served as a transit route for Nigerian pilgrims on their way to Mecca to perform pilgrimage and since then the relationship between the two countries has been strengthening.
The vice president was accompanied by his wife Amina Namadi Sambo and Governor Idris Wada of Kogi State
