Lagos, Sept. 28, 2023- Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the Governor of Lagos State, says the Red Line rail system will become operational by the end of this year.
Sanwo-Olu gave the assurance on Thursday after an inspection of the project stretching across rail stations in Agbado, Iju, Agege, Ikeja, Yaba to Ebute Metta.
The rail will travel from Agbado in Ogun State and termite at Oyingbo in Ebute Metta.
Sanwo-Olu gave details of the inspection on his X (formerly Twitter) handle: “Today, we undertook a comprehensive inspection of the Red Line infrastructure, traversing the major stations of the rail project.
“The construction of the Red Line project, which was conceived and started by our administration, is being undertaken by Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA). The rail project starts from Agbado and terminates in Oyingbo.
“We kicked off the inspection tour with a visit to Agbado where we took stock of the development of the rail terminal being built hundreds of metres away from the Lateef Jakande Station owned by the Nigerian Railways Corporation (NRC).
“In all the stops we made, we could see the state of the stations and their platforms.
“Though the red line infrastructure is at the finishing stage, we noticed that there is still some work that needs to be done, especially around cleaning up of all illegal activities that are being conducted on the rail corridor, which should not have happened.
“We are also taking a final approach around all pedestrian bridges to be completed along the route.
“I am indeed impressed with the level of work by all contractors working on the Red Line project. I believe we are on track to finish the project by the end of this year.
“We will push the contractors to work tirelessly to see that they finish on time. We will be strict on enforcement in taking out intruders from the rail corridor.
“We have given evacuation notice to all traders found on that axis. We will wall off the entire corridor to make it free for passengers’ movement when the operation starts.
“We are aware that people cannot wait for its completion and the day they will start using it. But we cannot take safety measures for granted. Everything must be put in place before we can launch it”.