By Kolawole Ojebisi
Immediate past Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has revealed how former governor of Lagos State, Akinwumi Ambode, passed up the golden opportunity to etch his name in the history of Lagos State by initiating and completing the metro line project.
Amaechi said Ambode’s failure to grab the opportunity, particularly the way he handled the blue line project, provoked him. He spoke during an Intermodal Transportation Summit in Lagos organised by the Transportation Correspondents’ Association of Nigeria (TCAN) with the theme, “Intermodal Transport: Prospects and Challenges.”
Amaechi said that Ambode would have achieved the feat at minimal financial cost stressing that the federal government had allowed the Lagos State government to make use of the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) track for the red line.
The former minister also recalled that there was a monorail project in Rivers State before the Lagos State Government started its project.
He said: “There was monorail in Rivers State. But in all honesty Lagos State has done well in rail transportation. The place I nearly got angry was when Ambode almost gave up the blue line.
“I tried to get Ambode. I tried through the Vice-President, I reported him to the President until the new governor came. I said, “listen, we were about to close the line. There is a line the Ministry of Transport would give you based on our agreement.”
“Ambode had told me as if they were not interested. He said they were to construct it (a new track). I said, “no don’t construct, use the federal government’s corridor. There is not enough train movement, buy your own coaches and run on our tracks.”
Amaechi, however, commended the present administration of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu for taking up the projects and seeing them to completion.
Lagos State, under the administration of Sanwo-Olu, is the first sub-national to start metro lines with the inauguration of red line and blue line in Nigeria.
