Ayodele Olalere
Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo Olu on Saturday expressed the readiness of the state government to commission the Red Rail Line.
The commissioning of the Red Line has been fixed for February 29 with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu expected to commission the project.
The Red Line which was started by the Sanwo-Olu’s administration is a 27 km line running from Oyingbo to Alagbado in Ogun State.
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Governor Sanwo-Olu who made final inspection of the project on Saturday ahead of the President’s visit rode in the train accompanied by the Deputy Governor, Obafemi Hamzat and some cabinet members from the Ikeja station to Iju station to test run the train.
“This one is our final inspection at the Ikeja train station and we just finished another test train ride on the Redline, using one of the trains. We still have a few cleanings to do inside the train themselves because they still have wrappers around it.
“We will continue to test the air conditioning which is working, because they all came from different climatic weathers,’ Governor Sanwo-Olu said after the inspection.
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He, however, warned traders along the rail track to vacate the tracks, warning that the government would enforce a ban on trading on rail tracks.
“The major challenge is around pedestrians on the track and the kind of wrong things we saw on those tracks. We will continue to do the enforcement and physical barricades on those lines, working with Nigeria Railway Corporation NRC. 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,” he warned.
He added: “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 and 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. Other than that, I think the stations are ready, the trains are ready, I am sure we all Nigerians are ready.”
