By Albert Akota
Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi has announced that the Ministry is only waiting for the presidency to fix a date for the commissioning of the Lagos-Ibadan Railway.
Speaking after another routine inspection of the project at the weekend, the Minister insisted that though there still remains a few finishing touches to be made, the project can be completed in a few number of days.
The inspection which began in Lagos State and ended in Ibadan, Oyo State took the minister to all the train stations under construction.
“We are trying to get appointment from the office of the President for the date of commissioning. Once they give us date we will make the public know. There a lot of things involved in bringing the President to commission the project.
” If you look at the current level of work we cannot ask the President to commission this, but once we give CCECC definite time, I know they will speed up. There are some minor things they still need to put in place but it is taking them time to do that, some of those things should not take more than a day or two to put in place so am not so worried, he said.
He also urged the technical committee to resolve the cases of possible flooding of low areas and request of the Ajegunle community for an overpass, though he argued that the FG cannot be building overpasses everywhere.
“During the raining season we will observe where the construction has led to flooding as citizens that have given us land must enjoy the sacrifice they made and when it happens we will correct those mistakes”.
On the issue of the Apapa port and the blockage of the track, “I have asked the Permanent Secretary to discuss with the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), as tanker drivers have disrupted the movement of train into the port and we have to stop them now, or we stop the owner of that terminal” .
