Ten years after the Lagos State government set out in 2009 to build a light rail system as an urgent necessity to move its burgeoning population, the Blue Line rail, which initial cost was put at $1.2 billion, seems to bear no hope.
It was planned as 27km line, with 13 stations from Okokomaiko to Marina. The phase 1 and 2 of this rail line would cover a distance of 12km which will include a 4km (2.5-mile) viaduct and have five stations.
The Blue Line rail was conceived to address mobility challenges, stimulate economic growth and job creation while improving the environment and air quality of the city. It was to carry 400,000 passengers with capacity increased to 700,000 passengers daily at completion.
One decade after, these anticipated gains from the rail project have continued to elude the estimated 22 million residents of the state and its economy, as precious man-hour and billions of naira are daily and annually lost in gridlock.
Funding for the rail system, according to officials, has been more from Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). But a document seen by BusinessDay also shows that a chunk of the development loans obtained from the World Bank between 2011 and 2016, to the tune of about $593.3 million, also went into the light rail. But it remains at the construction stage since 2009 when the civil works began, as the elevated section crossing the lagoon from Iganmu to Marina continues to crawl, although the rail track and stations from Orile to Mile 2, being the first phase, had been completed.
According to a source, about N75 billion was invested in the light rail as at 2015 when Babatunde Fashola, a former governor and initiator of the project, left office, while under Akinwunmi Ambode, his successor in office, N19 billion was injected. By 2019 when Ambode left office, the contractor handling the project, CCECC, was said to be owed about N45 billion, forcing it to move its personnel and equipment from the site.
When compared with the Addis Ababa light rail in Ethiopia, the Lagos light rail speaks to how Nigeria and its sub-nationals continue to lag behind peers.
The light rail system in Addis Ababa, a 17km (11 mi) line, which runs from the city centre to industrial areas in the south of the city, opened in September 2015 after it was inaugurated by Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, and began service on November 9, 2015 for the second line (west-east).
The total length of both lines is 31.6 kilometres (19.6 mi), with 39 stations. The railway was contracted to the China Railway Group Limited and the Ethiopian Railways Corporation and began construction of the double track electrified light rail transit project in December 2011, after securing funds from the Export-Import Bank of China.
The Blue Line rail, some analysts say, signifies wasted economic opportunities.
Timothy Olawale, director-general, Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA), said the fact that the light rail has not translated to a reality after a decade defines the daily losses in gridlock being experienced on the Badagry axis.
“It is unfortunate that the situation that the light rail system was conceived to salvage has become worse today compared to 10 years ago,” said Olawale.
The implication of this, he said, is that neither the economy nor the mass of the population that the project targeted to relief from their daily struggle to escape grinding gridlock on the Badagry axis are deriving any benefit from it. He noted that the repeated failures to meet the project deadlines, shifted severally from 2012 to 2014, to 2016 and 2019, ultimately exert enormous cost on the state government which borrowed the loans, as well as the society which ought to benefit from it.
Olawale said anytime there is a long delay in project execution, it usually leaves the borrower in a messy situation. The other issue is that the loans taken have to be repaid when they are due, whether or not the project has delivered its expected benefits to the people, he said.
In 2018, the state government through its supervisory agency, Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA), signed an agreement with Alstom of France to complete the entire rail project.
As part of phase 1, Alstom would ensure the electrification of a portion of the line as well as substations. After phase 1, Alstom and the Lagos State government would jointly work on phase 2 of the project by structuring financing from Export Credit Agencies (ECA) to provide metro trains, CBTC-based signalling, the operation and control centre, passenger information services and the ticketing system in the stations, with the target to flag off operations in 2022.
However, a source in LAMATA, when contacted, turned down request to give an update on the agreement.
“I have no information to give on that agreement. We only supervise the rail project, we don’t fund it,” said the LAMATA source.
A former commissioner for transportation in Lagos, Ekundayo Mobereola, in an interview with BusinessDay in 2016 said that state government had to contend with the challenge of funding the project, and this largely contributed to its delay.
According to Mobereola, who until his appointment as commissioner in 2015 was the managing director/CEO of LAMATA, the blue rail is part of the inter-modal transportation system under the Lagos Strategic Public Transportation Master Plan designed to cater to the population of the megacity for next 30 years.
He explained that rail project needed a strong financial backing from private sector and upon completion would guarantee returns on investment and ensure sustainable solution to the Lagos transportation challenge.
Alderman Alan Yarrow, the mayor of London at the time, who visited the project site at the National Theatre, had commended Lagos State government for initiating it, but pointed out the need to put in place a legal framework to back infrastructural development in Lagos and to protect investors’ interest.
“We are aware of the frustration of the average commuters in Lagos, wasting several man-hours to move from one part of the state to the other,” Yarow had said. “You have a good strategic plan, there is obviously going to be bumps on the way. But the reality is that you need to start thinking progressively on how to fund it and you should start now, rather than later. It is all about the structure, protection of the investor, the rule of law and making sure that you have the right contracts in place. I have spent 43 years in the investment banking. I have very often seen stations like this but this is a long way from being finished. It is a very exciting story to have this in Lagos but it has to be funded because it will do Lagos a lot of good. If we and UK can help, giving the right financing package, we will do so.”
Abiodun Dabiri, immediate past managing director of LAMATA, said during the signing of agreement with Alstom that the Blue Line project was of strategic importance for the city of Lagos as it would allow people to travel safe and fast across longer distances.
“The integration with existing transport systems like our bus or boat lines, and future metro lines will largely contribute to our global transport plan for Lagos to reduce traffic congestion and make Lagos a smart city,” Dabiri said.
The need for the light rail system became compelling to move the growing population of Lagos which depends almost 100 percent on road. As at 2010, a little over 7 million passenger trips were made daily in Lagos and most happened during the peak hours of 7am and 10pm.
Hence, the development of the Lagos State Strategic Transport Master Plan (STMP) which identified six rail lines: Red line, Agbado to Marina through Iddo; Blue line, Marina to Okokomaiko; Yellow line, Sango to National Theatre; Purple line, Redemption Camp to Ojo; Green line, Marina to Lekki FTZ, and Orange line, Agbowa (Ikorodu) to Ikeja, and monorail planned between Marina and Victoria Island/Ikoyi axis.
The Blue Line was chosen as a pilot project after a survey showed that more passenger trips are done along this corridor on a daily basis.
JOSHUA BASSEY
