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Lagos-Ibadan railway project set for commissioning Feb. 6
Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi during an interactive session with journalists in Abuja on Friday…. PHOTO: Amina Isah
Aminat Isah
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo will on Wednesday February 6, perform the official commissioning of the first phase of the Lagos-Ibadan railway project, ROYAL NEWS has gathered.
The Minister of Transportation, Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, disclosed thisson Friday at the regular monthly inspection of the railway project.
He noted that, “there is huge improvement and some of you have attributed it to my constant harassment on the site. I am impressed and from what I see, the Vice President is still going to ride on the train on the 6th except he has other arrangements. Once the Vice Presidents flags it off, we will start using it and it will be free. The free ride will be for two months,”
The Lagos-Abeokuta, which is the first phase to be flagged off for passenger use, according to the minister would reduce the time of travel from the regular one hour travel to a forty-five minutes travel after adding the stop over times.
“The Vice president is coming to flag off the passenger use of the first phase from Lagos to Abeokuta which will reduce passenger travel time from one hour to 45 minutes and the reason why it is 45 minutes is because people might stop in different locations”, he added.
On whether there are litigations on Iju to Abeokuta axis, he noted that there is none but in the case of any, it would be inside the yard of NRC and said “there is one building that we are yet to pay compensation but it is not in court and we are still negotiating the compensation,”
We the issue of coaches to carry passengers, the minister said although there are only two coaches on the corridor presently, he has directed that more coaches be brought from Itakpe-Warri as the passenger traffic on that corridor is not as high as what is expect on Lagos-Abeokuta.
He further revealed that the completion of the Abeokuta-Ibadan axis which is still under construction would be faster as civil work which is considered a problem have gone far.
“The only problem they have is that they have to blast rocks and that they are doing now to make sure that before the end of June, it will be ready. What will be the problem will not be the tracks but the stations and the communication systems. It will be difficult if it is a two way traffic but we are avoiding that till we install the communication systems.
He further revealed that the Federal Government has gone with the negotiation for the Ibadan to Kano corridor, and said “The Vice presidential candidate of the PDP, Peter Obi will say it was negotiated by the past government but we have told Nigerians that we are negotiating and we are asking them to give us a loan from Ibadan to Kano and they have said they are not ready to fund double track but single track. If we succeed with the negotiation, then before May to June, we should again begin to construct from Ibadan to Kano.
“We are meeting with the South Africans on the 4th to conclude agreement and I will meet with their Minister and MD” the minister said.
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