Segun James
Ahead of the planned commissioning of the Lagos Red Line Rail System, scheduled for Thursday, Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu yesterday took an inspection tour of the facilities to ascertain its readiness.
THISDAY however, gathered that only the infrastructures would be inaugurated while the system would commence operation at a later date.
The governor, in the company of his Deputy, Dr. Kadri Obafemi Hamzat, some cabinet members, and newsmen took off from Ikeja Station to Iju Station before making a return journey to Ikeja. Both journeys took 16 minutes.
Addressing journalists later, Sanwo-Olu said the 37km rail track was ready for inauguration, even as he expressed displeasure over the attitude of some residents who have refused to vacate the rail area despite repeated warnings and threats.
He added that people should know that the tracks are not a place of residence or commercial activities, saying the trips for the Red Line would be on an hourly basis.
Sanwo-Olu said: “This one is our final inspection at the Ikeja train station and we just finished another test train ride on the Red Line, using one of the trains. And we have had a journey till Iju and back.
“So we still have a few cleanings to do inside the train because they still have wrappers around it, so probably all of that, to continue to test the air conditioning which is working because they all came from different climatic weathers.
“Other than that, it is the challenge around pedestrians on the track and the kind of wrong things we saw on those tracks, so you have seen that we will continue to do the enforcement.
“We will continue to do physical barricades on those lines, working with the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC), but the message here is really for our citizens living virtually on the track that, a track is not a place of residence or commercial activities, we should continue to tell people to stay off it and we will continue to enforce it, and continue to ensure that we clear the tracks because we do not want to record any fatality,
“Once the intra train starts, it is not every two hours or three hours, it’s going to be fairly regular, 10 minutes, 15 minutes and we don’t want them to be comfortable that they have to stay on the track. It’s not a place for people to stay.
“That is the major challenge, we have reduced it considerably in the last two months and we will not stop.
“Other than that, I think the stations are ready, the trains are ready, ” Sanwo-Olu stated.
