Frankly Speaking 2023: The all comers..'Taja Teran' affairs

Frankly Speaking Sanwo-Olu’s Railway infrastructures: development, bold moves to redefine Lagos

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By Tunde Abatan,tunde2013 [email protected] 08165660217
He may not be loud or noisy as some would want him to be, but Lagos Governor, Babajide Sanwoo-Olu is bold. Bold in not only his pronouncements but bold in his initiatives. His initiatives are such that, except the Lord tarries, will accord him a dignified place among those men of vision of yesterday who put reason and thought to paper to write and design a road map for arresting Lagos infrastructrual inadequacies .
They have done this by taking practical steps towards arresting and solving the near collapse of vital infrastructure like roads and rail system which other metropolis in the world have adopted to make life easy for residents.
Thus, when in 1979 shortly after he came to power,then Lagos Governor, Lateef Kayode Jakande-later dubbed ‘Baba Kekere,’ for his yeoman jobs at rebuilding Lagos, unfolded plans to build a metro rail in Lagos, Lagosians were ecstatic.
They were ecstatic that at long last, the traffic snarl that has retarded commuting in the nation’s most populous city will come to an end..
The award of contract sum of $774million to French consortium, Interinfra , to build the metroline from Yaba through Agege to Mile 2 axis elicited much hope.
Home owners whose houses were to be demolished gladly gave way and were compensated.
However, two years down the line, Muhammadu Buhari, whose government is now struggling to build a 126 kilometre rail between Ibadan and Lagos, put sand in Lagos “gari” and stopped the metro…(got the Gbolahan Mudashiru government to cancel what would’ve been a revolution in transportation) and thus the Lagos chaotic transport problems remain till date. When the Metro was initiated by late Jakande,the exchange rate of naira to dollar was N1- $1.8 United states’ dollars.
Now forty years after, it is N440 naira by Central Bank rate.
The hopelessness is such that nobody could predict that building a Metro in Lagos would be resuscitated by both former Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola and Babajide Sanwoolu,two young men then, who were probably in secondary school when the idea was conceived but got killed.
Today, Sanwoolu is spending twice the amount the federal government is using to build Lagos- Ibadan rail to construct two rail lines simultaneously in two different axis of Lagos. ….the Blue line which started in 2009 under Fashola but abandoned midway when the job was 65 percent completed by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode,(who must have drunk from Buharis limited foresight in 1984).
The line is expected to gulp $1.5billion and to ferry at least 450,000 passengers daily from Okokomaiko end to Marina when the project fully goes on stream by third quarter of 2022.
Sanwoolu is also tackling the Lagos transport from the Northern end by jump-starting Marina-Agbado Red line rail which is also estimated on completion to lift between 750,000 to 1million citizens daily from neighbouring Ogun to Lagos when completed by fourth quarter of 2022.
The two projects which funds were sourced through thr Central Bank of Nigeria, is being implemented by the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority, LAMATA towards delivering a world class facility under a public-private partnership arrangement.
In all, LAMATA had proposed six rail lines and one monorail in the State’s strategic transport master plan (STMP).
When completed, the seven lines are expected to redefine transportation in the country’s largest city.
Another unique feature of the Red Line, which would share tracks with the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) is its linkage to the Murtala Muhammed Airports. To demonstrate this, the on-going huge traffic diversion in Ikeja along is also to construct an overpass for pedestrians and also link the airport through the Lagos-Abeokuta expressway.
For a rail system that could take an average of 1.5 million commuters out of Lagos grid lock everyday, it is a bold step in a right direction by bold men who are determined to leave Lagos better than they met it.
Till date, Lagos, a city bursting at its seams with 20 million dwellers, is perhaps the only city with more than 10 million people in Africa without a metro system.
Except for the Bus Rapid System, BRT, with its dedicated lanes, transportation in Lagos is largely operated and ‘controlled ‘ by unorganised motor union touts who raked in billions of naira to the pockets of their sponsors who had digged into government and compromised transport system.
It does this by using its political leverage on the leaders who used them in turn to retain power…power at the cost of the larger citizenry amidst its chaos and disincentive to good governance.
Sanwoolu, perhaps by paying compensation to owners of hundreds of houses to give way and tenants and business owners impacted by both the Blue line and the Red line, has redefined governance and rail system.
Construction of four overpass bridges along the Red Line rail corridor are meant to remove interaction between vehicular traffic and rail operation and ultimately accidents that had characterised level crossings in recent past. The act of prompted payment of compensation project affected parties has put smiles on faces of everyone particularly property owners who can now acquire new property elsewhere and remain in the Centre of Excellence.
Sanwoolus bold and strategic move in Lagos could at best be complemented by neighbouring Ogun State, which though a border state, has done next to nothing in the last twenty years to provide infrastructure for the teeming workers.
Today, 60 percent of workers in Lagos live in Ogun and commute daily with little or no infrastructure to absorb and tap from its nearness to Lagos.
Successive governments in Ogun state in the past sixteen years have neglected this core area that could improve its revenue generating ability moreso in a country fastly moving towards fiscal federalism.
With the imminent take off of the Lagos- Ogun Development Joint Commission which Memorandum of Understanding ,MOU, was signed in May this year, one expects that Ogun state will tap into the window of opportunities such initiative will bring into its borders and state at large considering Lagos unending opportunities.
With its huge infrastructural investments, Lagos would confer on its neighbour limitless opportunities.
In spite of its closeness to Lagos, Ogun state and its burstling border communities, have become permanent urban eye sore giving the neglect brought by absence of economic plan to harness and transform its possibilities.
Instead of the derivables that should accrue to it, the reverse is the case with blighted areas like Akute, Agbado, Oke Aro, Lambe, Matogbun….all potential economic belt waiting to be tapped.
These areas are boundary communities of economic potentials waiting to be tapped by a thinking and visionary government.

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