Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) has demande the immediate reversal of the naming of Agbo Railway station after former President Goodluck Jonathan, describing the action as meaningless and belittling to the person and status of the former president.
The pan-Niger Delta socio-cultural organisation said it was worst that after the supposed honour, the government went ahead to name several other stations after other Nigerians.
It stressed that though it was understandable that all the various railway stations were named after other prominent and deserving Nigerians.
It, however, maintained that if the gesture was truly an honour done to Jonathan, then there would have been no reason naming several other stations after numerous other persons.
In a statement made available to journalists, by Mr. Ken Robinson, PANDEF’s National Publicity Secretary, the group stated that the action was improper, incongruous and completely unacceptable that one of the several railway stations in the country would be named after Jonathan, more so, when no other former Head of State or President was named after a railway station.
PANDEF demanded the immediate reversal of the naming of the Agbor railway station after the former president, stressing that instead, a befitting national infrastructure should be named after him.
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The statement reads in part, “Former President Jonathan deserves to be celebrated by this country, and nothing should be deemed too much, in doing so. We call on the former president to reject the dishonorable gesture.
“The reality is that many of our young people only known what a railway station looks like from what they see in books, magazines and on television, because such infrastructures are completely absent in their areas.
“The Lagos-Calabar coastal rail line that was earlier touted by the administration, instead of the Coastal Road that was conceptualised by the Jonathan administration, seems to have been aborted like several other critical projects for the Niger Delta region.
“It is in the face of such circumstances that they are naming a mere railway station after the former president from the region. Of what significance is it?”
PANDEF maintained that if President Muhammadu Buhari sincerely wanted to honour former President Jonathan in terms of naming an infrastructure after him, it would be something befitting.
The organisation wondered why the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa, Rivers State, would not be named after the former president. The first democratically elected President of Nigeria from the South-South geopolitical zone.
