The Lagos State Government has said that it will complete the ongoing Red Line rail project before the end of its first term in office.
Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the state governor, disclosed this on Tuesday while speaking with journalists after an inspection tour of the project and the vehicular overpass bridges at Yaba and Oyingbo train stations.
Obafemi Hamza, his deputy, Abimbola Akinajo, the managing director of the Lagos Area Metropolitan Transport Authority, and a few cabinet members accompanied Sanwo-Olu on the tour.
“We believe we are still on track. We believe it should be ready before the end of our first term depending on when we want to commission it. We will be doing a lot of testing, and signalisation because these road tracks will also be working with the Nigerian Railway Corporation, operating a train from Ebute-Meta in Lagos to Ibadan. We need to be able to harmonise a lot of signalisation between our rail infrastructure and the Nigerian Railway Corporation rail infrastructure, Sanwo-Olu said.
According to Sanwo-Olu, the project, which is at different stages of completion, has five vehicular overpass bridges, including Oyingbo, Yaba, Mushin to Onipanu, and Ikeja, adding that this will forestall train-vehicle accidents and reduce travel time for Lagosians.
Sanwo-Olu said vehicular bridges are being erected to prevent the interaction of vehicles, trains and passengers after the ugly incident that happened last week Wednesday where a Lagos State Government staff bus was crushed by a moving train at PWD, Ikeja area of Lagos.
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“All the vehicular overpass bridges are very important because of the unfortunate train and bus accident that we saw a few weeks ago at Shogunle. So all these bridges we are building, apart from the fact that they are full vehicular bridges, are also to stop trains, vehicles, and passengers needing to interact. The highest grade of ensuring that you completely remove any contact with rail is when you build a complete alternative mode of transportation for passengers, pedestrians, and vehicles,” he said.
Upon completion, the Red Line rail is expected to move 500,000 passengers daily. This translates to 3.5 million passengers weekly and 15 million passengers a month.
Sanwo-Olu said his administration is on track to bring the benefits of democracy to Lagosians regardless of their ethnicity or religious affiliation and called on all those who are still bittered about the outcome of the governorship election in the state to see the bigger picture and join him in meeting the aspiration of Lagosians.
“We want to tell the people who are still carrying politics of bitterness that they should see the bigger picture and join us in meeting the aspiration of Lagosians, which is to provide an economic opportunity for them to make this place peaceful and continue to provide that economic space for them to be able to earn a living and be a better citizen for themselves and their family,” he said.
Sanwo-Olu on Monday was declared winner of the Saturday’s governorship election in the state.
The governor who was the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) polled 762,134 votes to defeat Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, the candidate of the Labour Party, and Olajide Adediran, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who got 312,329 and 62,449 votes, respectively.
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