The excitement with which residents of Lagos are expecting the commencement of work on the planned Lagos Light Rail and the Mass Transit Rail projects of the Lagos State government is palpable. Adeyemi Aberuagba, who works with a bank on Lagos Island and lives at Abule Egba, cannot wait for the mass transit rail project to begin. He spoke very highly of the project and the great benefits it would bring to residents of the state. “This is the answer to the transportation trauma in Lagos, it would go a long way in reducing the stress one goes through to get to the office in the morning and get back home in the evening. I tell you, if Fashola can get this project through, the problem of Lagos will be solved by 60 per cent,” he said. Similarly, Abidemi Tella, a trader at Balogun Market, Lagos Island, who lives at Ajangbadi, is full of hope that the light rail, being handled by Lagos Metropolitan Transport Authority, LAMATA, would solve the heavy traffic huddles she goes through everyday to get to her business abode.
The rail project which is designed to have two corridors, the Red Line, Okokomaiko-Marina axis, and the Blue Line running between Iddo in Lagos State to Ijoko in Ogun State will make use of existing facilities of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, NRC. This became possible following the signing of a memorandum of understanding, MoU, between LAMATA and NRC in 2006. It is estimated that the Red Line connecting the Marina with the airport along a 37-kilometre, km, line with 13 stations would carry 1.3 million daily riders while the Blue Line which would run east-west along 27 km and connect to the Red Line downtown at Iddo would carry more than 500,000 daily riders.
It could, however, be more than this when compared with the projection of the Bus Rapid Transit, BRT, a road transportation scheme introduced by the Babatunde Fashola administration to tackle transportation problem in Lagos, which was initially projected to carry 6,000 passengers per day but now carries over 200,000 passengers daily.
Within the Lagos metropolis, the advent of the mass transit rail system will so improve transportation system that commercial mini buses will no longer be attractive to commuters who would now prefer to ride on the light rail that will be, faster, more comfortable and even cheaper. Needless to say that the commercial motorbikes, popularly called okada riders, which have been a menace and a source of great concern to the government, will also no longer be attractive as traffic gridlock which paved the way for for it as a means of transportation in the state would have disappeared.
Apart from the capacity to generate employment directly and indirectly which the governor attested to when he said the project “will engage at least four thousand Nigerians during the construction process”, the light rail mass transit would boost commerce and industry as commercial activities will improve drastically with ready, effective and convenient transportation available for traders across the state. The rail will also hasten development as the interior locations touched by the rail track will be opened up. This is more so for the Blue Line corridor involving Lagos and Ogun which would be jointly financed by the federal, Lagos and Ogun states governments in the ratio of 45 per cent; 40 per c cent, 15 per cent respectively.
For the working class people of Lagos State, stress occasioned by long hours in traffic will be a thing of the past. Human resources managers believe that when sanity returns to Lagos roads, loss of man-hour in traffic will be a thing of the past, productivity will increase and a rising gross domestic product, GDP, will be of immense benefit to the overall economy of the state which will subsequently rub off on the country. The project is expected to be completed by August 2012.
At the formal announcement of the construction of the intra-city line in December 2003 by Bola Tinubu, former governor of Lagos State, it was stated that the initial proposal of $135 million for the light rail project was part of the greater Lagos Urban Transportation Project to be funded by the World Bank and implemented by LAMATA. At present, the estimated cost of the entire project is put at $1.13 billion, N170 billion. The design of the project which will be largely funded by the Lagos State government has been concluded and the contractors, China Civil Engineering Construction Company, CCECC, is set to commence work on the Okokomaiko-Marina corridor but are yet to get the green light from the federal government.
“We are ready to go. It is the same contractor. All we are waiting for is the permission from federal government now. We have an MOU with them. We just need them to fasten a few things. For us we can address that corridor as well. It is a 24-month project from commencement to construction. We are hoping to commence construction hopefully before the end of the first quarter,” the governor said hoping that the state will soon obtain the permission of the federal government to also use part of the railway corridor to start the Red Line that will link Iddo to Agbado and Ijoko in Ogun State.
With about 136 different construction equipment already on ground and another 40 under shipment, Shi Stone, an official of CCECC, said the company is ready to commence work and had furnished Fashola with the list and categories of local staff needed to work with the Chinese company. Dayo Mobereola, managing director, LAMATA, said the state government would fund the infrastructure of the rail project and guide interested private firms to operate the lines as done with the BRT scheme. This project is expected to be one of the largest public-private partnership, PPP, in the country and work is almost completed on the concessionaires that would provide the rolling stocks and operate the lines for 25 years.
In spite of the huge potential and the vast merit of the project, past experience has shown that such laudable projects have never been allowed to take off as they were mostly hampered by unstable economic and political environment. Another major challenge is the Nigerian Railway Act of 1954 which places rail transportation on the exclusive list making the federal government the only authority on rail transportation in the country. Using the Lagos- Ibadan rail project as an example, transporters recall that it is a project that would have reduced pressure on the express road by cutting down the number of heavy duty trucks that transport goods to different parts of the country and drastically reduce carnage on the roads. Although, there were some allegations of sabotage, a so a sort of conspiracy against the project as it was discovered that a cabal behind the haulage business in the country believes it would have a negative impact on their business.
The eagerness with which Lagos residents are looking forward to the completion of the project is not surprising. Lagos has an estimated population of over 15 million people. The project is part of the grand plan to tackle traffic congestion and ease movement of people and goods across the state. The institutional framework for the Lagos Rail Mass Transit, scheme, which is a viable complement to road and water transportation, embarked upon by Fashola administration was set up by Tinubu. Fashola is committed to completely overhauling the state’s transport infrastructure to eradicate the existing chaotic transport situation in line with the mega city vision and in anticipation of the United Nations projected population of 25 million for the state by the year 2020.
Efforts of the Lagos State government to explore the rail alternative to augment road transportation to boost commerce and reduce man-hour lost in traffic congestion dates back to the early 1980s. The administration of Lateef Jakande, the then executive governor of Lagos conceived the idea of the metro line scheme, when the then even and odd number regulation could not solve Lagos traffic problem, to transport millions of commuters and tonnes of goods per day. It also made considerable effort to revamp water transportation which has now been done and modernised.
Like the Lagos-Ibadan rail project, the Lagos metro never got off the ground because the military junta that truncated the Second Republic saw it as an ambitious proj project that could not be realised and discarded it. The total cost of the project was N660 million but when it was terminated the consortium contracted for it saw it as a breach of contract and took Lagos to court but it was resolved at a loss of over $78 million to Lagos at the International Court of Arbitration.
Now, the Light Rail project conceived as part of a comprehensive programme to address Lagos transportation problem has dragged on for over six years now because the law forbids states or any other body other than the NRC to construct or run rail transportation. Section 29 of the said Act says “it shall be unlawful for any person, without the consent of the corporation to construct or operate railway for the public carriage of passengers or goods within Nigeria.” To pave the way for the success of the rail project, Lagos sought the permission of the NRC and an agreement was reached during the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo.
The MoU positioned LAMATA to assist the NRC and Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE, in promoting the upgrade of the corridor to accommodate an urban mass transit to be known as the first phase of the Light Rail Mass Transit alongside NRC rail operations within the corridor. It is, however, disheartening that five years after the MoU was signed, and several millions of dollars already committed, with preliminary and comprehensive designs ready, the project is yet to take off. Mobereola said “We have been talking with them (NRC) for the past four years. We want them to move their own track, which is in the middle of the corridor now, to the left, so that we can then build two new two new tracks onto the right.”
The foot-dragging on the rail project is seen as unnecessary by observers. “This is something that will benefit not only Lagos, but the country as a whole. Lagos is the commercial nucleus of the nation; federal government should no longer delay in this project. They, both NRC and the federal government should do everything possible to encourage the Lagos State government to fast track the implementation of this project rather than being the clog in the wheel of development,” an observer said.
On assumption of office in 2007, President Umaru Yar’Adua, in his first visit to Lagos, met with the Fashola and Gbenga Daniel of Ogun State and stated that only a rail project could solve the traffic problems of Lagos. He had also pledged the assistance of the federal government for the actualisation of the project. But it is disappointing that three years after, the President is yet to set the necessary instrument in motion to ensure the actutualisation of the project to improve the situation and boost the economy of the state and the country by extension.
On the obnoxious Railway Act, it is pertinent to note that there is need for the repeal or review of the law to pave way for the liberalisation of the sector. With the reality on ground, one should think that the National Assembly would wake up to their responsibility and treat the Railways Reform Bill which has been lying on the floor of Assembly for long now. The bill which was said to have passed through second reading and it is expected it should be given the urgency it requires to give credence to the effort of state governments to venture i into the rail transportation. The general observation is that once the Railways Reform Bill is passed into law, which should not take a long time, inter party politics, should not be allowed to hinder the take off of the project.
The Fashola administration had earlier introduced the BRT, Lagos Taxi and ferry services to ameliorate the transportation burden of the people. The BRT scheme took-off with 170 buses in its fleet and conveyed 147,390 passengers daily, 4.4 million monthly and 13.26 million in the first quarter of operation. The scheme was later boosted with additional 50 buses when it was realised they were inadequate for the state’s teeming population, bringing the fleet to 220, and increasing passenger volume. In the first six months of operation, an estimated 190,740 passengers were transported daily, 5.72 million passengers monthly, and 17.16 million within this period. The BRT scheme currently has a fleet of about 300 buses and conveys an average of 220,000 passengers daily.
The introduction of modern taxis in Lagos State under the PPP scheme has equally made commuting across the state a comfortable and pleasurable experience but the pressure on the road still continues.
The state licensed five companies to operate ferry services under a PPP scheme. One of this is Metro Ferry Marine Services Limited, which operates on the Ikorodu-Ebute-Ero-CMS-Victoria Island-Lekki axis. The ferry service from Ikorodu to Lagos Island takes between 18 to 40 minutes, depending on the type of ferry. For instance, it takes 18 minutes to sail from Ikorodu to CMS, a journey of 34 miles, using the speedboat, while the same trip lasts 40 minutes in the bigger ferry. While the problem of traffic gridlock has it reduced to an extent, it is believed that it will be substantially addressed with the rail project.
There is no doubt that the Lagos rail project when fully operational will be the crowning of all efforts to place the state on super highway for economic development which will gradually flow to other parts of the country because as the governor puts it while appraising the level of preparedness of the state and the CCECC recently, “it is a winner for Lagos and for Nigeria”.
Aberuagba: Expectant
Fashola: We are ready to go
Stone:
Mobereola:
Fashola: Committed to overhauling Lagos transport system |
