Fashola will succeed as minister – Tinubu

as Ambode flags off Ikorodu BRT scheme with 434 buses

Former governor of Lagos State and national leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has expressed confidence in the capacity of his successor, Babatunde Fashola, who was named on Wednesday as Minister of Power, Works and Housing, saying he (Fashola) would succeed in his new task.

Tinubu spoke at Majidun, near Ikorodu, where Governor Akinwunmi Ambode commissioned 343 mass transit buses to flag off the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) operations on the newly delivered 13.3km Mile 12-Ikorodu road.

The road construction, which began in October 2012 and completed in November 2014, was built at the cost of N30 billion with the support of French Development Agency.

It was handled by the Construction Civil Engineering Company of China (CCECC) and supervised by the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA).

Tinubu described the completion of the road and the BRT scheme as a product of deep thinking, long-term planning, policy consistency, continuity in governance and the dedication of those who have had the opportunity of governing Lagos.

“You could see when the announcement was made (ministerial appointment), Lagos State took the front seat in Fashola. And we believe that he will succeed and many of them. Nigeria is now in good hands. The government is focused.

“We will continue to develop this country to compete with the superpower nations. When we started the urban renewal, they thought that we were lost and we had no vision. But they do not know that about the planning period that is required to modernise any decay in government,” Tinubu said.

Governor Ambode on his part said the BRT system, which was initiated as part of the strategies to modernise the public transport system, had to a large extent lived up to expectation since the launch of the first BRT system in March 2008 along the Mile 12- CMS corridor.

He noted that the scheme, since its launch over seven years ago, had moved over 250 million passengers, adding that the extension was an improvement on the shortcomings noticed on the Mile 12-CMS corridor. “This upgraded system, known as the BRT classic with the BRT lanes running in the median will provide better service in all ramifications,” he said.

He reassured of his administration’s commitment to efficient transportation system in Lagos. “This government is committed to improving on the road transport network, the water transportation system, the public transport infrastructure and most importantly attract the needed investment to fund our Strategic Transport Master Plan (STMP), which is already being implemented,” he said.

Also speaking Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun, commended the leadership in Lagos for its acidity and steadfastness in keeping faith the developmental agenda started by Tinubu in 1999.

Aregbesola said as governor of Lagos, which is almost half of Sub-Saharan Africa, the enormity of the job of governing the state was indeed gargantuan, because a governor of Lagos can comfortably lay claim to being president of more than 20 African countries.