As the Blue Line rail begins commercial operations on Monday, the Lagos State government will also flag off the Red Line rail before the end of this year.
This was disclosed by Gboyega Akosile, the Chief Press Secretary to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Thursday, during an interview programme on TVC News, while reacting to a recent report by Brand Finance City Index 2023, which ranked Lagos as the fifth best African city with high desirability by people to live, work, and invest.
It would be recalled that Sanwo-Olu had in March, while speaking with journalists after an inspection tour of the project and the vehicular overpass bridges at Yaba and Oyingbo train stations, said the project would be completed before the end of May.
However, three months after the projected completion date, the project is yet to be commissioned.
Upon completion, the Red Line rail is expected to move 500,000 passengers daily. This translates to 3.5 million passengers weekly and 15 million passengers a month.
“Rome was not built in a day, it is a gradual process. By Monday, next week, we are going to be flagging off the commercial operations of the Blue Line rail from Marina to Mile 2. By the time it starts working, it will add up to the perception index of Lagos as a state where you can come and have peace of mind transportation-wise.
“Before the end of the year, we are going to flag off another one, that is one of the biggest – the Red Line. It is going to be moving a whole lot of people from the Eastern part of Lagos to the Western part of Lagos. By the time we launch the two, our perception will increase because more people will be desirous of living and working in Lagos because they know transportation won’t be a problem,” Akosile said.
According to the report, Cape Town, Cairo, Johannesburg, Casablanca, Lagos and Nairobi were the only six African cities that appeared on the 100 world’s best cities with scores of 60, 67, 72, 76, 90, and 94 respectively.
Akosile said he was not surprised by the ranking, adding that Sanwo-Olu has delivered on his electoral promises to Lagosians, thereby making the state habitable to residents and attractive to others.
“Lagos is the gateway to the aspiration of over 200 million Nigerians. It is the gateway of Nigeria to the world, anyone who wants to come to the country for business thinks of Lagos first. In the last four years, the current administration has more than doubled the budgetary size from N888 billion in 2019 to about N1.7trilion in 2023 and it has been going on that way and what that means is that we are opening up the economy of the state with a lot of infrastructural renewal and developments,” the governor’s spokesman said.
Recalling the governor’s trip to meet with Afrexim in Cairo, Egypt, Akosile said Sanwo-Olu is taking up diverse projects in different sectors to fulfill all the promises he made to Lagosians.
“When Governor Sanwo-Olu came on board, he promised to ensure Lagos becomes a smart city and what he means by that is to make everyone do their business with innovation and technology. What does the government do? What the government does is to provide you with the infrastructure to be able to do that.
“Lagos has done that over time if you look around you. There are CCTV cameras all over the state that we have been installing. And what this means is that people who want to work, invest, and do business in Lagos have peace of mind that their investments are safe,” he said.
