By Lukman Olabiyi
Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu yesterday conducted final test running of the Red Line rail along Ikeja-Iju route, ahead of the Thursday official inauguration of the project.
The 37 kilometre Red Line Rail Project will be officially flagged-off by President Bola Tinubu on February 29, according to the governor.
Sanwo-Olu assured residents that everything has been put in place for the inauguration of the project on the fixed date.
Recall that Sanwo-Olu had performed the groundbreaking ceremony of the Red Line rail on the April 15, 2021.
The governor, arrived the Ikeja Train Station of the Red Line Rail Project for the test run of the operation to Iju Station, accompanied by the deputy governor, Dr. Femi Hamzat, Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, Commissioner for Transportation, Oluwaseun Osiyemi, Managing Director, Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA), Engr. Abimbola Akinajo, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Transportation, Wale Musa, among other senior government officials.
Speaking with newsmen after the tour, 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 all the way till Iju and back. We still have a few cleanings to do inside the train themselves because they still have wrappers around the seats.
“We will continue to test the air conditioning which is working, because they all came from different climatic conditions.
“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 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.
“Because 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, I am sure we all Nigerians are ready.”