$200m World Bank loan is for execution of Lagos light rail project – Lai Mohammed

Nigeria’s minister of information, culture and tourism, Lai Mohammed, said on Thursday that the $200 million World Bank loan recently approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) for Lagos State was to enable the state government complete the long delayed Lagos light rail (blue line) project running on the Lagos-Badagry corridor.

Former Governor Babatunde Fashola, the current minister of power, works and housing, in 2008, initiated the rail line, but work started in 2009, projected to be completed in 2011. But the project suffered delays as the government kept shifting the completion dates from 2011 to 2012, to 2014, until it left office in 2015, blaming the failure to deliver the project on paucity of funds.

But speaking during a courtesy call on Governor Akinwunmi Ambode at the Lagos House, Ikeja, on Thursday, Mohammed said the loan would help Lagos complete the project.

“Only recently we passed in the Federal Executive Council, a $200 million loan application for Lagos State to complete the blue line rail. This is a project that had been stalled for political reasons and Governor Ambode is pushing it,” the minister said.

It would be recalled that at a meeting with the business community in Lagos last week, Ambode pledged to complete the first phase of the rail – from Mile 2 to CMS, by December this year.

Meanwhile, Ambode has said he would partner the Federal Government to transform the National Museum in Lagos to a modern-day cultural edifice.

While receiving the information minister, Ambode said considering the strategic importance of culture and tourism to the identity of people, there was no better time for Lagos and the Federal Government to collaborate in driving the essence of culture with the view to improving on the situation on ground and thereby improve on the economy and develop the nation.

He observed that Onikan, where the museum is located, is a melting pot of the cultural heritage of Lagos and Nigeria by extension; hence, serious efforts must be put in place to start to recreate the monument to adequately situate the history of the country.

“Just the same way we have collaborated with the police, we will collaborate with you and ensure that whatever we can do to create a facelift to the infrastructure of the Federal Government in Lagos, we will do it because it will eventually be to the benefit of Lagosians and eventually aid the economic growth of Lagos,” the governor said.