Lula inaugura trecho da transposição do São Francisco e critica falta de coragem de antecessores

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stood in Paraíba on Wednesday to open the first section of the Apodi Branch, a water diversion channel that now connects the Caiçara Dam in Paraíba to the Angicos Dam across the border in Rio Grande do Norte. The inauguration marked another step forward on the São Francisco River transposition project, one of the defining infrastructure initiatives of his presidency. But Lula's remarks that day were less about celebrating progress than about settling a historical account—one that stretched back nearly two centuries.

The president had nearly missed the event. On Monday he fell ill with labyrinthitis, a condition affecting the inner ear that left him dizzy and disoriented. He canceled his schedule to rest, but by Tuesday he was back at work, determined to keep his northeastern commitments. The trip itself was a statement: this project mattered enough to push through physical setback.

During his remarks, Lula reflected on the long shadow cast by inaction. He had learned that Emperor Dom Pedro II, back in 1846—179 years earlier—had conceived of transposing the São Francisco. The emperor never acted on it. Why? Lula posed the question to his audience, then answered it himself: not because God was unwilling, but because those in power lacked the courage to try. "You only do certain things if you have courage," he said. "You only care for the poor if you govern with your heart and not just your head." He spoke of what poverty actually meant in the Northeast: children waking without milk to drink, mothers giving their children cachaça to dull the pain of hunger. These were not abstractions. They were the reason the work had to be done.

The history of the transposition idea was longer and more tangled than even the emperor's vision. Documents from the 1970s—and possibly earlier, during the colonial period—contained references to the concept. But it was Dom Pedro II who first sketched out actual plans during his reign. Senate archives held evidence of these designs. None of them moved forward. The idea remained a dream, generation after generation, while the Northeast remained parched.

Lula's government had begun the actual work in 2007. The Apodi Branch section being inaugurated had started construction in 2021 and would not be finished until October 2026, at a cost of 1.45 billion reais. When complete, it would deliver water to 750,000 people spread across 54 municipalities in both states. But that was just one piece. The full transposition project, when finished, would serve 12 million Brazilians across 390 municipalities in the Northeast.

On this same Wednesday, Lula had also signed the order to double the pumping capacity along the entire northern axis of the system. The infrastructure was growing, piece by piece, year by year. The work was unglamorous—pipes, dams, engineering specifications, budget allocations. It was also essential. In a region where water scarcity had shaped poverty for centuries, where children went hungry and mothers improvised desperate measures, the arrival of reliable water supply was not a luxury. It was a prerequisite for everything else: health, education, economic possibility.

Lula's criticism of his predecessors was pointed but not vindictive. He was making a different argument: that governing requires not just intelligence but will, not just plans but the willingness to stake political capital on something that takes years to complete, that benefits people with little power to reward you for it. The transposition would not be finished in his lifetime. It would outlast his presidency. That was precisely the point. Some things, he seemed to be saying, you do not because they will make you popular, but because they are right.