By Damiete Braide
For residents of Lagos State, the Centre of Excellence, these are exciting times. They are excited that very soon their transportation challenges will significantly reduce.
And for China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), it is another promise kept as it completes the Lagos metro blue railway line. The project is an addition to the infrastructure base of the country executed by the company.
The Lagos metro blue railway line brings the total railway projects CCECC has completed in Nigeria in five years to about 730km. The completed segment of the blue line is 12km, spanning between Mile 2 and the Marina downtown.
Since the company delivered the 42km Abuja metro railway project that links the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport to the city’s central business district with the Kubwa satellite town, there has been no stopping the construction giant. After this, the Abuja-Kaduna railway of 186km followed, and later the Ajaokuta-Itakpe-Warri project of 332km and, in June last year, the Lagos-Ibadan project of 156km. Another 7km linkage came on after President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated it on June 10.
The Lagos blue line mega station buildings on Marina and Mile 2 are architectural wonders, with the elevated high bridge railway track over the Lagos lagoon, the National Theatre wetland neighbourhood and running parallel with the CMS long motor bridge.
Preparatory to the launch, the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA) lauded the quality of work by CCECC. Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who said the project is a promise kept by his administration, boasted that the totality of the Lagos metro line that is segmented into six will convey 500,000 persons daily when completed.
Given this figure and if this completed segment is one of the six equal parts, it will move about 31 million commuters in Lagos annually, with a daily average of about 84,000 passengers. When he spoke with the press, Kolawole Ojelabi, consultant, corporate communication, LAMATA, made this known.
Ojelabi said the completion of the infrastructure was in fulfillment of Sanwo-Olu’s promise, as he had pledged that the project would be completed in the last quarter of 2022 ahead of the commencement of passenger operations in the first quarter of 2023. He said the blue line project was one of the six rail lines and monorails prescribed for Lagos in the state’s strategic transport master plan (STMP) and its construction had been divided into phases for ease of implementation.
On completion, the entire railway system is projected to move more than 500,000 passengers daily. That also translates to over 182 million passengers a year. At the CCECC Lagos office, Mr. David Zhao, head of public affairs and legal matters, said, “The LRMT Blue Line is an EMU (electric motor unit) Scheme, with a total distance of about 27km from Marina to Okokomaiko and will be served by 11 stations. The alignment track is designed to have both elevated and at-ground levels.
“This plan was initiated by the Lagos State Government to meet the present economic and population demands. Its completion will greatly alleviate the traffic pressure and speed up the local economic development, further consolidating the position of Lagos as the economic, transportation and logistic centre of West Africa, and promoting the development of other parts of Nigeria.
“Its successful completion and operation will also provide beneficial references and guidance for the planning and construction of railway systems in other Nigerian cities. Meanwhile, it builds up another monument to witness the friendship between China and Nigeria.
“From the day the operation is flagged off, it will be a jolly, smooth, peaceful, hassle-free journey for travelers using the service.The train cars will be delivered brand new and clean, flashy, air-conditioned, roomy and spacious and the service would not fall short of the standards set by CCECC’s previous projects that are in operation.
“Metro railway services all over the world in the megacities have been major impetus to the economy and general growth of such involved cities. For Lagos to belong to such league of modern cities with advanced and modern transport infrastructure is something commendable.
“With some other derived benefits, the development of the railway system in countries today become quite encouraging and worth the efforts of the developers. For instance, the International Energy Agency (IEA) noted from the environmental protection perspective that ‘the rail sector can provide substantial benefits for the energy sector as well as for the environment. By diversifying energy sources and providing more efficient mobility, rail can lower transport energy use and reduce carbon dioxide and local pollutant emissions.’
“Further on this, a World Bank document on railways in developing countries published in 2022 explained that “as a green mode of transportation, railways have an important role to play in decarbonizing transport through shifting transport from more polluting modes of transport such as road and air. Railways can enable economic growth, which in turn generates increasing transport demand while keeping greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions low.
“However, in many parts of the world, railways have lost traffic and market share to air and road transport modes. As countries seek to reduce their GHG emissions, while still delivering on economic growth, many are rethinking the role of rail.
“On March 21 this year, the Chinese ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Cui Jianchun, had an audience with the Nigerian media at the Lagos International Airport after President Muhammadu Buhari commissioned the new terminal of the airport also built by CCECC. Ambassador Cui in the discussion explained how the projects executed by Chinese firms in Nigeria, especially CCECC, form part of the crux of the diplomatic framework and policies of China towards Nigeria.
While speaking with CCECC in Lagos on the blue railway line, the gains of the project in creating jobs and skills base for Nigerians featured prominently.The office explained: “At present, there are 40 Chinese employees and 800 local employees in the Lagos light rail blue line project, with the percentage of Nigerian employees exceeding 95. The project provides a lot of employment opportunities, among which the number of technical staff has reached 400 and the number of management staff reached 40, providing Nigeria with a large number of skilled and managerial talents.
”These are some tangible and lasting gains of a project like this. In the four major railway projects the company had executed in recent years, it has been the same story. For the Abuja metro and Abuja-Kaduna line, the job creation possibility was more than 20,000 local hands, many of whom later got groomed as experts, with some even taken to China for courses in the sector.”