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Honourable Ministers, Experts, Participants and Distinguished guests, let me thank my colleague minsters for the brilliant and illuminating speeches they have given today.
It makes my job as Chairman and last speaker very easy because they have covered the field admirably and no useful purpose will be served repeating what they have said about the history of the project, I adopt their speeches as my own.
I only wish to add first a word of appreciation to the President, the Minister, the Government and the people of the Republic of Togo for hosting us.
Secondly, I wish to acknowledge the vision of the founding presidents of this committee who chose to go far as a team rather than going fast as individuals.
Going together therefore means working as partners, recognising and respecting each other’s sovereignty and Governmental processes as well as diversity of languages.
Therefore, while the personnel of Presidents and Ministers who launched this initiative have changed, the commitment to the project has not changed.
From a period between 2013 – 2016 when no meetings were held because of changes in Government and personnel, we have now put in place a system where meetings are held Quarterly.
This has enabled us to overcome the problems of signing treaties and loan agreements which dragged for a while but which happily have now been completed.
Feasibility, technical, financial and related contracts which seemed so far from conclusion have now been signed.
I am happy to welcome the new representative of Togo, Hon. Minister Zourehatou Kassah-Traore, who brings a gender diversity to our membership following replacement of Commissioner Antoinette Weeks, by Commissioner Pathe Gueye who has hit the ground running.
Let me conclude by conveying the best wishes of President Buhari, the Government and people of Nigeria and our Ambassador to Togo, His Excellency Sola Iji, to the people of Togo, and to inform the meeting that the Nigerian Government has approved the commencement of works on the section of the road linking us with Seme Border with Republic of Benin.
This will be done in a flexible way to improve service to commuters, while making it adaptable to the results of the feasibility and technical studies.
Thank you for listening.
Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN
Honourable Minister of Power, Works and Housing
