Ayodele Olalere
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Wednesday, declared zero tolerance for trading along the rail lines in the state, saying the government would no longer allow traders to continue displaying their wares along the tracks.
The governor read the riot act while on an inspection tour of the ongoing Red Line Project. The tour started at the Lateef Jakande train station, Agbado axis of Ogun State through Iju-Ishaga terminal, Babatunde Fashola terminal, Agege, the Ikeja iconic terminal, Ikeja, Yaba terminal, Yaba, and ended at the Ebute-Metta train station where the governor inspected the brand new coaches for the Red Line.
According to him, the traders have damaged the wires used by the state to barricade the tracks, adding that state will begin moves to clear the tracks of all trading activities in preparation for the commissioning of the Red Line.
He further said all the terminals have been completed, adding the newly built Ikeja and Yaba bridges will be opened in October for vehicular movements to ease traffic.
” There are illegal activities that have been conducted on the rail track which shouldn’t be. We have told some people that are working and selling on the rail corridor that there will be zero tolerance. We have given notices and appealed to them and we need to clean up all the entire rail corridors so that it can be free for rail passengers movement when the rail starts,” he said..
He added: ” We are going to be very hard on enforcement to ensure that we can prevent intruders from the rail corridors. This rail line is not like the blue line that is elevated, so we have a lot of work to do to ensure people are not in any way on the rail track.
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Significantly, we have walled off most of the rail track using wire mesh but we may probably have to go back to the proper concrete wall because they have started breaking the wire mesh and opening up so we have taken a decision that there will be 500 meters to a kilometre distance to the train platform. We need to build a concrete wall to be able to secure passengers and citizens on that rail corridor.”
He expressed satisfaction with the level of work done on the project, adding ‘we believe we are still on track to see how we can finish before the end of this year.’
He further said CCTV cameras will also be installed on the tracks.
On the Blue Rail Line, he said the contract for the construction of the Phase 2 of the project from Mile 2 to Okokomaiko has been awarded and the contractor has moved to site.
