Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has urged the federal government to support its efforts to construct more rail lines in the state.
He said the Red Line would be completed before the end of the year.
The governor who stated this after inspecting the Red Line Rail project from Agbado to Ebute Metta Station read the Riot Act to street traders, warning that the government has zero tolerance for illegal trading on the rail tracks.
He said, “The journey started all the way at Agbado station inside Ogun State, from there, we proceeded to Iju Station, to Agege Station and Ikeja Station. We skipped Mushin Station because of time and logistics and we stopped at Yaba Station and we are in between Ebute Metta Station NRC and our own which is just down the road.
“In all we have seen the station furniture l, we have seen the state of platforms and we have noticed that there are some works to do, especially around cleaning up all of the illegal activities that have been conducted on the rail track which shouldn’t be and the final approach around pedestrian bridge that we need to clean up and finish and general clean -up of all the stations.
“In all, I think I am very impressed with the level of work of all the contractors on our Red Line Rail corridor. We believe we are still on track to see how we can finish before the end of this year and that’s what we are committed to, real work tirelessly round the clock to see how that will happen, especially when if we can be very hard on enforcement to ensure that we prevent intruders from on a rail corridor, that the most important information that we want to take away today.
“We have told some people that are working and selling on the rail corridor that there will be zero tolerance, we have given notices, we have 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.
Governor Sanwo-Olu who hinted of plans to embark on Green and Purple Rail Line as embedded in the state’s masterplan said some vehicular bridges built by the government to ease traffic gridlock on the rail corridor had been completed.
