The Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma, some ministers from the South-East zone, including State For Mines and Steel Development, Dr Uchechukwu Ogah and the Ohanaeze Ndigbo President-General, Prof. George Obiozor, at the weekend, commended President Muhammadu Buhari for approving the release of funds for the completion of the Second Niger Bridge.
They also expressed joy over other Federal Government-sponsored infrastructural projects going on in the region.
Meanwhile, Governor of Anambra State, where the project is sited, Willie Obiano, was not around to join them during the inspection of the project site, Guardian reports.
Uzodimma said: “What looked like a dream is now a reality as the Second Niger Bridge has a lot of economic and human benefits to both South-East and Nigeria in general.
“At the completion and commissioning of the Second Niger Bridge, the name of Buhari will be immortalised. Whatever diplomacy cannot get for Ndigbo now, war will not get it for them.”
Dr. Sampson Uchechukwu Ogah, described the Second Niger Bridge as “one of the best things happening to the South-East.”
Also speaking, Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, thanked the President for his magnanimity to South Easterners, stressing: “The Second Niger Bridge is a promise made and promise kept.”
In the same vein, the Anambra State All Progressives Congress (APC) leader, Senator Andy Uba, thanked the President for the project, expressing happiness that “the Second Niger Bridge is a boost to the APC in the South East and Anambra State in particular.”
Minister of State for Education, Dr. Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, said: “The project is a show of great love by President Muhammadu Buhari to the South. The importance of the project is shown in its funding as the project is financed from the presidential initiative fund, which is outside the regular budget of the Federal Government.”
In his contribution, a former governor of Imo State, Chief Ikedi Ohakim, said they had come to see, adding that they believed in the reality of the project.
The Deputy Speaker, Imo State House of Assembly, Amara Iwuanyanwu, who spoke on behalf of the APC youths in South-East, said: “The youths have come, seen and believed and the only way they will express their gratitude will be to mobilize the youths to join APC by participating in the nationwide registration and revalidation of APC going on now.”
