The Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, SAN, on Monday, said the Buhari administration decided to work on Zik’s home in honour of the late sage, not for political favour from Igbo people.

The Zik Mausoleum popularly known as the Zik place was kicked off in 1997 but was abandoned by successive governments.

Fashola, who spoke in Onitsha during an inspection tour of the mausoleum, said: “Now that we have completed the project, you are saying its politics. Well, if that is politics, its development politics and I think I like that kind of politics.”

“This is the fourth time I have visited this project since 2016. Why didn’t you accuse us then that we were playing politics with it.”

He said that though he could not give the cost of the project off heart, what remained was the furnishing of the complex.

The minister commended the staff members of his ministry for working assiduously towards completing the project.

In his speech, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, hailed president Buhari for the honour done to Zik and the Igbo by completing the Zik resting place.

He said that the completion of the mausoleum signifies the beginning of the great things Igbo people will benefit from Buhari administration.

Ngige added: “What successive governments couldn’t do in two decades; the APC government of President Buhari has done in three years.”

Fashola also took time out to inspect a road project on the Onitsha/Enugu Express Way at Umunya in Oyi LGA of the state as well as the Federal Secretariat project being constructed in Awka, the state capital.