The Nation Newspaper

Category: Transportation

  • Will GE’s withdrawal affect narrow gauge deal?

    Power giant General Electric (GE) has withdrawn from the railway narrow gauge concession one year after it ought to have rolled out new wagons on the tracks. What is the implication of its withdrawal for the project?ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE writes

    The nation’s march to a modernised rail system, especially its centennial asset- the narrow gauge – appears halted as power giant General Electric opted out of the concession deal.

    GE’s action ended speculation about its preparedness to take over the assets which the Federal Government has been showcasing as one of its poster projects.

    GE said it was opting out of the concession because of its decision to remove transportation business from its portfolio. Its decision to drop transportation from its portfolio was to enable it concentrate on its core competence – healthcare and power generation.

    In May 2016, the government announced GE as the preferred bidder for the project.

    Under the agreement, GE was to inject $2.7 billion into the narrow gauge modernisation programme, including the tracks and provision of the rolling stock.

    It was to introduce 20 locomotives and 200 wagons within the first 12 months  of the takeoff of the temporary agreement. By the second year, it would strip the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) of all its rail assets as it consolidates on the modernisation, while the corporation operate as the regulator.

    Initially, a roll out had been fixed for May last year. Rather, what commenced were series of meetings by the Transaction Advisory Committee (TAC), government appointed consultants with the new operator.

    The Minister of Transportation Mr Rotimi Amaechi changed the take-off date to December last year. Again it failed.

    Amaechi had insisted private investors into the railway was in line with global best practices.

    “While the government owns the rail tracks, investors are usually encouraged to own the rolling stocks, both passengers and cargoes.”

    With its links to the nation’s productive centres, the narrow gauge will assist in the rapid development of the agriculture, mining and steel sectors and link same directly to the sea ports for export.

    Again, the continuous rehabilitation of the narrow gauge network will no longer be at any cost to the government. Outside the 1,100 kilometres Western line, (Lagos-Kano narrow gauge track), regarded as the most lucrative route and the nation’s major rail backbone, which includes Lagos, Abeokuta, Ibadan,  Ilorin, Kano, Funtua, Zaria, and Kaura-Namoda, the GE would also take over the Eastern line – Port Harcourt-Maiduguri route, which includes Port Harcourt, Aba, Umuahia, Enugu, Makurdi, Jos, Gombe and Bauchi to Borno State.

    “The activation of the narrow gauge was meant to grow freight movement exponentially. We have over 30 million tons worth of freight on the Lagos-Kano route for which presently we are moving slightly above 1,000 tons. While the Port-Harcourt-Maiduguri route is currently moving nothing, we are anticipating 11 million tons on that route,” Amaechi had said.

    That was why GE had opted for cargo as its preferred choice of line of trade. It proposed to move one million tons of freight in the first year and outstrip as importers are explore the new deal.

    The new proposition is a departure from government’s projections, which had wanted to have more friendly passenger shuttle. Intercity shuttle, as presently run, is epileptic with the rusty coaches, driven by aging locomotives that take no fewer than 72 hours travel time between Lagos-Kano.

    “This is absolutely unacceptable. The railway system will not be able to attract any quality passenger traffic with such tradition. We must look at fast-tracking things at the railway,” Amaechi said.

    The journey of General Electric’s intervention in the nation’s rail sector started in 2009, when it signed a Country-to-Company (C2C) agreement with the Federal Government to support the financing, design and building of infrastructure and capacity across the rail, power and healthcare.

    This agreement was renewed for another five years at the Head of States conference in Washington, DC in 2014, a deal which was inherited by the Buhari administration in 2015.

    Under the agreement, company is to partner with the Ministry of Power to develop 10GW power over the next 10 years, assist the Ministry of Health to develop diagnostic centres across the country, and help the Ministry of Transportation in the modernisation and expansion of the nation’s locomotive assets.

    On its website www.ge.com/africa the firm said “Its milestones in the transportation sector in the last five years include the modernisation and expansion of Nigeria’s locomotive fleet. Right now, GE is working with private sector participants to develop a locomotive assembly facility. That facility would modernise 30 old locomotive engines and assemble 170 new locomotives. The company is also acting on the order to supply locomotives to the Nigerian Rail Corporation (NRC) as part of the country’s fleet renewal programme.

    GE however said its decision to walk away from the sector would have no adverse effect on the ambitious move to modernise the almost moribund narrow gauge sub-sector of the rail business which is already plagued by rotted fixed asset – rail tracks and aging rolling stocks -locomotives, coaches and wagons.

    It claimed its exit would not affect the concessionning plan, as other consortia of firms in the agreement would continue the assignment. In a terse response to The Nation‘s enquiries, Yewande Thorpe, of GE Global stated: “GE will be transitioning leadership of the International Consortium, selected to execute the Nigerian narrow-gauge railway concession, to Transnet. This development is in line with GE’s decision to exit the Transportation business from its portfolio. Transnet has been a trusted partner of GE for several decades.  We have confidence in their ability and that of the other Consortium members to execute on the rail concession project successfully. We will continue to offer our utmost support to the team as we remain committed to the sustainable development of Nigeria.”

    In order words, GE would be transferring the concessioning to Transnet International is a member of a four- firm consortia led by GE, which had been holding series of meetings with FG’s Transaction Advisers over the take-over model of the narrow gauge. Other members are: APMT Ltd, and Sino Hydro.

    While Transnet handles the modernising of the tracks, APMT handles the container cargoes, while Sino Hydro handles the operationalising of the locomotives that would be provided by the principal partner – General Electric.

    But the process until this present impasse had been fraught with perceived irregularities. Twice last year, Amaechi had publicly complained about “GE’s inconsistencies,” alleging that the conglomerate had “been less than transparent in its dealings with the government.”

    The GE swiftly denied such allegations, claiming it remained committed to changing the ugly narrative in the rail subsector of the transportation system. Its Executive, Business Development, (Transportation, Nigeria) Mr. Eyo Ekpo, told The Nation that the consortium was still “actively engaged in negotiations with the Federal Ministry of Transportation.

    Ekpo, however, disclosed that in the last one year, GE and its consortium partners – Transnet, SinoHydro &APM Terminals, have not only negotiated in good faith, but have invested significant resources. “We have been transparent and diligent in meeting all requests from the government at no cost to the Federal Government,” Ekpo said.

    According to him, both parties – GE (and its consortia) and the Federal Government, are at a critical juncture of the project and it expects all contractual agreements to be finalised and fulfilled by the parties before commencing project execution.

    A top NRC source hinted that long before GE divested from transportation, it had thrown a number of hurdles before the transaction advisory committee which led to an impasse.

    The source which preferred not to be mentioned, said: “While the concession agreement had covered Lagos to Kano, GE had insisted on shuttling between Apapa and EBJ (Ebute Metta junction). Again, while the Nigerian government would want full bouquet of services -passenger and cargo services, GE had insisted it would only run freight services. These are issues that are still being negotiated before GE threw in the towel,” the source added.

    GE’s withdrawal may however have thrown the window open for fresh negotiations for new bidders. Mr Patrick Adenusi saw this possibility when he said, GE’s withdrawal might thrown spanner into the nation’s march into a modernized narrow gauge system.

    According to him, when the picture becomes clearer, the National Assembly might pass a resolution requesting the executive government to begin the process for the award of the concession again in view of GE’s withdrawal from the deal.

    Though Amaechi seemed to have foreclosed this possibility last week when he disclosed that the government would be willing to continue negotiation with the other parties to the concession agreement. But even if this is accepted would the consortia be willing to accept the government’s terms, or would they be insisting on working within Lagos alone or interested only in freight services as being championed by GE?

    The reality: Nigerians may just have to wait much longer for the modernisation of the narrow gauge to materialise.

     

  • Will GE’s withdrawal affect narrow gauge deal?

    Power giant General Electric (GE) has withdrawn from the railway narrow gauge concession one year after it ought to have rolled out new wagons on the tracks. What is the implication of its withdrawal for the project?ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE writes

    The nation’s march to a modernised rail system, especially its centennial asset- the narrow gauge – appears halted as power giant General Electric opted out of the concession deal.

    GE’s action ended speculation about its preparedness to take over the assets which the Federal Government has been showcasing as one of its poster projects.

    GE said it was opting out of the concession because of its decision to remove transportation business from its portfolio. Its decision to drop transportation from its portfolio was to enable it concentrate on its core competence – healthcare and power generation.

    In May 2016, the government announced GE as the preferred bidder for the project.

    Under the agreement, GE was to inject $2.7 billion into the narrow gauge modernisation programme, including the tracks and provision of the rolling stock.

    It was to introduce 20 locomotives and 200 wagons within the first 12 months  of the takeoff of the temporary agreement. By the second year, it would strip the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) of all its rail assets as it consolidates on the modernisation, while the corporation operate as the regulator.

    Initially, a roll out had been fixed for May last year. Rather, what commenced were series of meetings by the Transaction Advisory Committee (TAC), government appointed consultants with the new operator.

    The Minister of Transportation Mr Rotimi Amaechi changed the take-off date to December last year. Again it failed.

    Amaechi had insisted private investors into the railway was in line with global best practices.

    “While the government owns the rail tracks, investors are usually encouraged to own the rolling stocks, both passengers and cargoes.”

    With its links to the nation’s productive centres, the narrow gauge will assist in the rapid development of the agriculture, mining and steel sectors and link same directly to the sea ports for export.

    Again, the continuous rehabilitation of the narrow gauge network will no longer be at any cost to the government. Outside the 1,100 kilometres Western line, (Lagos-Kano narrow gauge track), regarded as the most lucrative route and the nation’s major rail backbone, which includes Lagos, Abeokuta, Ibadan,  Ilorin, Kano, Funtua, Zaria, and Kaura-Namoda, the GE would also take over the Eastern line – Port Harcourt-Maiduguri route, which includes Port Harcourt, Aba, Umuahia, Enugu, Makurdi, Jos, Gombe and Bauchi to Borno State.

    “The activation of the narrow gauge was meant to grow freight movement exponentially. We have over 30 million tons worth of freight on the Lagos-Kano route for which presently we are moving slightly above 1,000 tons. While the Port-Harcourt-Maiduguri route is currently moving nothing, we are anticipating 11 million tons on that route,” Amaechi had said.

    That was why GE had opted for cargo as its preferred choice of line of trade. It proposed to move one million tons of freight in the first year and outstrip as importers are explore the new deal.

    The new proposition is a departure from government’s projections, which had wanted to have more friendly passenger shuttle. Intercity shuttle, as presently run, is epileptic with the rusty coaches, driven by aging locomotives that take no fewer than 72 hours travel time between Lagos-Kano.

    “This is absolutely unacceptable. The railway system will not be able to attract any quality passenger traffic with such tradition. We must look at fast-tracking things at the railway,” Amaechi said.

    The journey of General Electric’s intervention in the nation’s rail sector started in 2009, when it signed a Country-to-Company (C2C) agreement with the Federal Government to support the financing, design and building of infrastructure and capacity across the rail, power and healthcare.

    This agreement was renewed for another five years at the Head of States conference in Washington, DC in 2014, a deal which was inherited by the Buhari administration in 2015.

    Under the agreement, company is to partner with the Ministry of Power to develop 10GW power over the next 10 years, assist the Ministry of Health to develop diagnostic centres across the country, and help the Ministry of Transportation in the modernisation and expansion of the nation’s locomotive assets.

    On its website www.ge.com/africa the firm said “Its milestones in the transportation sector in the last five years include the modernisation and expansion of Nigeria’s locomotive fleet. Right now, GE is working with private sector participants to develop a locomotive assembly facility. That facility would modernise 30 old locomotive engines and assemble 170 new locomotives. The company is also acting on the order to supply locomotives to the Nigerian Rail Corporation (NRC) as part of the country’s fleet renewal programme.

    GE however said its decision to walk away from the sector would have no adverse effect on the ambitious move to modernise the almost moribund narrow gauge sub-sector of the rail business which is already plagued by rotted fixed asset – rail tracks and aging rolling stocks -locomotives, coaches and wagons.

    It claimed its exit would not affect the concessionning plan, as other consortia of firms in the agreement would continue the assignment. In a terse response to The Nation‘s enquiries, Yewande Thorpe, of GE Global stated: “GE will be transitioning leadership of the International Consortium, selected to execute the Nigerian narrow-gauge railway concession, to Transnet. This development is in line with GE’s decision to exit the Transportation business from its portfolio. Transnet has been a trusted partner of GE for several decades.  We have confidence in their ability and that of the other Consortium members to execute on the rail concession project successfully. We will continue to offer our utmost support to the team as we remain committed to the sustainable development of Nigeria.”

    In order words, GE would be transferring the concessioning to Transnet International is a member of a four- firm consortia led by GE, which had been holding series of meetings with FG’s Transaction Advisers over the take-over model of the narrow gauge. Other members are: APMT Ltd, and Sino Hydro.

    While Transnet handles the modernising of the tracks, APMT handles the container cargoes, while Sino Hydro handles the operationalising of the locomotives that would be provided by the principal partner – General Electric.

    But the process until this present impasse had been fraught with perceived irregularities. Twice last year, Amaechi had publicly complained about “GE’s inconsistencies,” alleging that the conglomerate had “been less than transparent in its dealings with the government.”

    The GE swiftly denied such allegations, claiming it remained committed to changing the ugly narrative in the rail subsector of the transportation system. Its Executive, Business Development, (Transportation, Nigeria) Mr. Eyo Ekpo, told The Nation that the consortium was still “actively engaged in negotiations with the Federal Ministry of Transportation.

    Ekpo, however, disclosed that in the last one year, GE and its consortium partners – Transnet, SinoHydro &APM Terminals, have not only negotiated in good faith, but have invested significant resources. “We have been transparent and diligent in meeting all requests from the government at no cost to the Federal Government,” Ekpo said.

    According to him, both parties – GE (and its consortia) and the Federal Government, are at a critical juncture of the project and it expects all contractual agreements to be finalised and fulfilled by the parties before commencing project execution.

    A top NRC source hinted that long before GE divested from transportation, it had thrown a number of hurdles before the transaction advisory committee which led to an impasse.

    The source which preferred not to be mentioned, said: “While the concession agreement had covered Lagos to Kano, GE had insisted on shuttling between Apapa and EBJ (Ebute Metta junction). Again, while the Nigerian government would want full bouquet of services -passenger and cargo services, GE had insisted it would only run freight services. These are issues that are still being negotiated before GE threw in the towel,” the source added.

    GE’s withdrawal may however have thrown the window open for fresh negotiations for new bidders. Mr Patrick Adenusi saw this possibility when he said, GE’s withdrawal might thrown spanner into the nation’s march into a modernized narrow gauge system.

    According to him, when the picture becomes clearer, the National Assembly might pass a resolution requesting the executive government to begin the process for the award of the concession again in view of GE’s withdrawal from the deal.

    Though Amaechi seemed to have foreclosed this possibility last week when he disclosed that the government would be willing to continue negotiation with the other parties to the concession agreement. But even if this is accepted would the consortia be willing to accept the government’s terms, or would they be insisting on working within Lagos alone or interested only in freight services as being championed by GE?

    The reality: Nigerians may just have to wait much longer for the modernisation of the narrow gauge to materialise.

     

  • Harnessing potentials of inland waterways

    Each time an accident occurs on Nigeria’s waterways, like it did again last week in Lagos, when two boats collided at a jetty in Iddo, it calls attention to a sector that is practically  teetering for lack of a clear roadmap or policy for the transportation sector.

    It was another major accident in two months, coming after no fewer than 12  persons lost their lives and properties worth millions in Benue State for almost the same reasons.

    Transportation and logistics experts have been benumbed at the lot of the nation, which has continued to pile pressure on just one mode of transportation – road, while other alternatives such as water wastes away for lack of exploitation.

    Nigeria has an inland waterway that is more than 10,000 km. This water resource comprises rivers, creeks, lagoons and lakes, and intra-coastal water that got its source from two main rivers Niger and Benue, both of which form a confluence at Lokoja, in Kogi State.

    River Niger is the second longest in Africa and the 11th in the world. The river and its main tributary, which is River Benue, the delta creeks as well as the lagoons bordering the coast, form the principal navigable waterways in Nigeria.

    It is also instructive that these principal navigable waterways link Apapa, Tin Can, Warri, Port Harcourt, Onne, and Calabar seaports and the numerous river ports and jetties.

    According to statistics from the Nigeria Inland Waterways Authority’s (NIWA) website, www.niwa.gov.ng 28 of the 36 states of the Federation can be linked by water, though only about 30 per cent of these vast resources, which is about 3,800Km waterways are navigable. The NIWA established that in the least, 17 out of the 28 states are accessible through either of these two rivers.

    Among the states that can be accessed either through river Niger or Benue include: Adamawa, Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Delta, Edo, Gombe, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Nasarawa, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto and Taraba.

    Same river channels also open to five neighbouring countries on the continent – Benin Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

    Through the lagoon and delta creeks a transport route can also be established between the hinterland and urban centres of Nigeria on River Niger, which can go as far as Niamey in the Republic of Niger and Garua in Cameroon on River Benue.

    Although the longest is the River Niger, the busiest is its tributary, the Benue River, which is the most used waterway, especially by the larger watercrafts, especially for commercial activities in the delta area of Cross River and all along the coast to the Lagos lagoon.

    To manage Nigeria’s vast inland waterways resources, NIWA was established by Decree No 13 of 1997, now under cap 47 of the Acts of the National Assembly Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004. But 21 years on, the sector has remained rudderless, unable to attain its pride of place, boost local and international trade and be a major contributor to the nation’s stunted Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

    Stakedholders in the water sector of the transportation mix have harped on the need for major economic players such as multinational firms like the Dangote Group, Unilever, NB Plc, and Guinness Plc, among others, to embrace the waterways as the alternative haulage route for their raw materials or finished products, rather than the roads.

    Dean of the School of Transportation Studies, Lagos State university (LASU), Prof Samuel Odewunmi said a huge economic potential is locked up in the pervading rot of the sub-sector as presently obtains. He called the attention of governments both at the centre and states to massively invest in the waterways.

    According to Odewunmi, if optimised by littoral states, the waterways alone is capable of generating millions of passengers and cargo traffic, and could ultimately lead to a drastic reduction in the pressure on the roads due to the high volume of passengers and cargo traffic, all of which have negatively impacted on the nation’s roads network.

    No doubt, it was in view of the vast transportation and commercial potential of the nation’s waterways that the Federal Government awarded the contract for the dredging of the lower River Niger at the cost of over N33 billion.

    The project, which was flagged off by the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, was aimed at boosting water transportation.

    The dredging of the River Niger, whose length stretches to 572km from Baro in Niger State down to Delta State, cutting across eight states of the federation namely, Niger, Kogi, Anambra, Imo, Edo, Delta and Bayelsa, was completed in 2012, according to the NIWA.

    Following the silting of River Niger as a result of the massive flooding of 2012, which wreaked havoc in riverine states, the contract to dredge the river was re-awarded by the Jonathan administration in 2014 for another N34 billion. The Buhari administration, however, cancelled the contract in 2015, and was able to complete the dredging last year with only N100 million, using NIWA’s dredging equipment and inhouse experts.

    NIWA said a maintenance dredging of the 162 Km of Ajaokuta-Onitsha water channel has been primal since the 2012 flooding to achieve a year round navigable water because of its economic viability.

    Performing the maintenance ceremony at Ajaokuta, Kogi State, Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi noted that the maintenance dredging would go a long way in increasing the value of water fronts and boost economic activities across communities on the river banks.

    While NIWA might have got a presidential accolades in saving the nation billions with its inhouse acumen at dredging the nation’s busiest waterways, the most glaring demonstration of NIWA’s continued failure to deliver on its mandate is in the area of security. Life remains unsafe on the waterways. Accidents are a common feature, leading to loss of lives and destruction of properties worth millions.

    Experts said this is because the nation’s waterways remained largely unnavigable and lacking in all international bench marks of safety due to lack of enforcement of regulations.  Accidents occur routinely on the nation’s waterways, while serial incidences of attacks by sea pirates have compounded the nightmare of water transportation. From Lagos to Niger, Cross River, Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta states, stories of accidents, kidnappings and robberies abound.

    But NIWA also claimed that most operators are at fault, alleging that most comply with the regulations in breaches.

    NIWA’s General Manager Corporate Affairs, Mr Tayo Fadile, said analysis of most accidents showed that over crowding, poor watercrafts, overspeeding in stormy weather are rife among other reasons fingered in accidents on waterways in littoral states.

    While NIWA would continue to lead the crusade for safety of lives on the watyerways, operators and patrons must play their parts in making the waterways safe for all users, Fadile inisisted. He said the agency is active in all the nation’s inland waterways.

    The Secretary, Nigerian Shippers Council, Mr Hassan Bello, harped on the provision of good navigation lines across the states to improve ferrying of persons, goods and services. He said the sector could be attractive if these are provided by the government as investors would be sure of returns on investments.

    He added that the provision of alternative means of movement on the waterways would further provide jobs for the teeming Nigerians looking for opportunities in the transportation sector.

    Fadile, however, said while the provision of navigational aids are work in progress for the government, which he said is working hard to make this possible, attention should also be on the quality of crafts used on the waterways.

    According to him, most operators use boats and poor quality watercrafts to carry both passengers and cargoes. “Apart from poor quality of boats and other crafts, a lot of operators also ply the water without adherence to simple regulations such as lack of life jackets. We have said it times without number that no one should board a watercraft without life jackets, but we still see this often on our waters. Some even travel at night when they know there is no navigational aid to direct night travels. These are some of the challenges being brought by operators and we are all out to remove them,” Fadile asserted.

    One other big headache that NIWA has is  jurisdiction between it and similar agencies in littoral states, leading to frictions and legal tussles. This conflict has always left the operators in the lurch with many capitalising on the lacuna to perpetuate illegal activities on the waterways.

    Experts agreed that despite its great potential and opportunities for economic development, the nation’s waterways remained grossly under-utilised and under-developed.

    They argued that for prudent and profitable utilisation of the Nigerian inland waterways transport system and the government must transform the inland waterways infrastructure facilities into a modern competitive multi-modal transport system.

    They held that the inland waterways’ huge infrastructural deficit has thrown up opportunities for investors to play in virtually all areas of the sub-sector.

     

     

  • The Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge conundrum

    Despite the Federal Government’s spirited effort to achieve an uncommon feat in the revamping of the railway, the Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge project may not be delivered in December, writes ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE.

    Top on Minister of Transportation  Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi’s salver right now is how to manage the fallout of the much touted delivery of the Lagos-Ibadan speed train by December.

    Reason: Nigerians, who are expecting to see President Muhammadu Buhari flag off the train by December and commercial activity in January may have to wait much longer.

    Rather than becoming a major staple on the government’s bouquet of deliverables, the speed train may have to wait till perhaps the second quarter of 2019.

    When he led the Project Implementation Monitoring Team (PIMT) on its routine tour of the project on October 30, this year, Amaechi merely retorted: “I won’t tell.” It was a verdict loaded with forebodings and against the grain of optimism he had expressed in June.

    The Minister had been irrevocably committed to the December deadline and had mounted pressure, a source within the top echelon of the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) said “was unknown in this part of the world by any government on the firm”, to ensure compliance.

    Amaechi would have gone into history book as the first state official to midwife such a gargantuan project and deliver within 18 months.

    At the groundbreaking ceremony, which  held at the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) premises on March 7, 2017, the Acting President Prof Yemi Osinbajo (as he then was), restated the Buhari administration’s commitment to revert to the train culture and change the narrative of transportation architecture in Nigeria.  “Our ultimate goal is to restore a railway culture for cargo and passenger traffic. We are confident that the national rail project will create up to half a million jobs and facilitate the movement of up to 3.2 million tons of cargo per annum.

    “It will also reduce the burden on national highways thus, reducing deterioration of the road network.”

    Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT), National President Ibrahim Jubril said lack of access to the rail by importers is impeding the government’s directive on ease of doing business in the country.

    According to him, the country is losing billions of naira monthly for not allowing bulk cargoes to be moved by rail, adding that presently, truck drivers collect an average of N800,000 to move a 1×20 ft container by road anywhere outside Lagos and about N250,000 within the state, an amount which has multiplier effect on the cost of goods in the open market.

    Jibril said the continuous movement of cargoes by road is not only responsible for the deplorable condition of port access roads, but has forced the upward review of the cost of freight.

    Sixty-two days to the end of the year, the rail is only about 40 per cent completed.

    Since the earthworks began in June last year, Amaechi had ensured he came on site monitoring at least once a month to push the project.

    Statistics

    The 156-kilometre Lagos-Abeokuta-Ibadan Railway is the first railway in the Southwest since 1896, when the first line, which was the backbone of what is now known as the NRC’s western line was laid.

    With a contract sum of $1.5billion, the Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge was originally penned to be delivered by the CCECC in 36 months.

    The speed train line would have 10 ultra-modern railway stations with four in Lagos: (Apapa, Lagos, Agege and Agbado), three in Ogun: (Kajola, Papalanto and Abeokuta), and three in Oyo: (Olodo, Omi Adio, and Ibadan).

    The 156 km line would have four extra-large bridges, 11 large bridges, four medium bridges two steel bridges, 10 frame bridges, 207 culverts, 40 railway crossing-no level crossing and 31 pedestrian overpasses.

    Assessing the level of civil work at his last visit, Amaechi had disclosed that only three bridges are left between Ibadan and Abeokuta and six between Abeokuta and Lagos.

    Overall, the minister admitted that the pace of work was faster at the Ibadan-Abeokuta axis, while he categorically carpeted the slow pace of work at the Abeokuta-Lagos end.

    “If I tell you I am impressed with the level of work at the Lagos end I would be lying,” he told a stunned CCECC last Tuesday. And this much he traced to a number of hurdles, chief among them being the relocation of water pipes, which the sub-contractor ought to have delivered by November 5, but has been extended for another two months “because of other unforeseen exigencies which they encountered in the course of the relocation”. About 34 kilometres of pipes were affected by the relocation.

    Impediments

    Lagos had posted the most difficult challenge to the actualisation of the project. This according to sources was due to the state being already built up. Aside the water mains, gas and petroleum pipelines, which were submerged underground and in the sea, high tension power lines, overhead bridges, and several structures had been some of the impediments at the Apapa and Lagos end of the project.

    Amaechi said: “Though these are real and tenable excuses, they are not permissible, as these are “known challenges for which solutions ought to have been proffered.” While the other three segments of the project started last year, work did not begin on the Lagos corridor until August.

    “Every other thing but money could impede the progress and delivery of the project,” Amaechi had said, alluding to the fact that the Buhari government had paid its counterpart funding of the Lagos-Ibadan speed train rail project.

    Showpiece

    At least, the Minister of Transportation every month ensures that issues relating to the project are tabled before the FEC. And in May he ensured that the Minister of Information and Culture Alhaji Lai Mohammed led a media team to inspect the extent of work. Mohammed had praised Amaechi for driving the project through, hitherto thick tropical rain forests.

    Mohammed gave the project a pass mark. He said the aim of the visit was to showcase to Nigerians the volume of work the government had put into the railway within a short period.

    He told reporters: “We are satisfied with the level of work. The idea is to let Nigerians know that this administration has done a lot in the area of infrastructure development. This is especially because people continue to complain that they do not know what we have done, so we want to show people what we have achieved.”

    What Mohammed did not say was that delivering the Lagos-Ibadan speed train could have boosted the administration’s profile and acceptability ahead of the campaigns and actual elections next year. That is why everything is tied to delivering the 156.65-kilometre, Lot II of the Lagos-Kano standard gauge rail line.

    Apart from Lai Mohammed, a joint committee of the foreign loans committee and that of land transportation of the National Assembly led by Senator Shehu Sanni and Senator Gbenga Ashafa, have also visited the site to be abreast of the development and had left sobered by the level of work within so short a period, a development Ashafa, described as “unprecedented”.

    If the government had achieved its delivery target and started commercial operation a month after as Amaechi had insisted, it would be the first time a Nigerian government would deliver such a project ahead of schedule and the Minister of Transportation seemed poised to get it done.

    “We have detractors, who have been asking what we have been doing and we want to use this to prove our detractors wrong. We want them to see that you can actually begin a project as big as a standard gauge and end it within your tenure and that it doesn’t need to become inconclusive as the past governments almost made us believe,” Amaechi said.

    Secondly, the minister believed a firm which could construct 1,500 kilometres of rail lines in its home country should not find delivering 156.56 kilometres a hard knot to crack.

    Going by the March assessment, track-laying ought to begin by April. It didn’t start at Itori until early May, few days to the ministers’ visit. This explains why it was only 1.7 km of tracks that could be laid as at the period.

    Despite this, however, the contractor put two track-laying machines each with a capacity for 1.2 km tracks daily on the site. The idea was to complete the Itori to Ibadan end, (which had much less encumbrances before attending to the Lagos end which had been dropped for its encumbrances.

    The projection is that each of the track laying equipments would begin from Ibadan and Abeokuta. With the capacity for 2.4 km per day, CCECC is sure to deliver 72 km in the next 30 days, covering the entire spectrum of the project within two months. As at October, the extent of work on track laying seemed hazy, as attention appeared to be back on completion of the civil engineering works.

    A top Team Consults source, who asked not to be named, said: “The project could have achieved more strides by now, if the contractor had started from the hinterland, which had but little challenges outside payment of compensations for those whose land or buildings were acquired for the project, but had first started working from Lagos, beginning from Ebute-Metta (where the then Acting President Yemi Osinbajo) flagged it off in March 2017.

    “They had to stop when it was discovered that little or no progress was being made and today, we are living witnesses to what could be done if the CCECC had less encumbrances to contend with,” he said.

    The source, whose firm oversees the contractor on behalf of the Federal Government, said the uncertainty over the December deadline was compounded by the heavy rainfall. According to him, the unpredictable pattern of rainfall affected the work plan, as it made access to the site difficult, and increased the water level of the water bodies along the corridor.

    On a likely delivery date, the source said a more likely delivery period could be first quarter of 2019. He, however, envisaged that since there may be likely disruptions within the electioneering period, this may be extended to the second quarter.

    He asserted that baring any major disruptions, the project may be ready for inauguration by government in May.

    Even at that the Buhari administration would have set uncommon pace in a domain where such projects take minimum of a decade before delivery.

    Although, Amaechi believed the contractor had no reason to delay the project, his dream of using it to shore up the image of the administration is fast fading. But the strides had underscored the government’s commitment to bequeath to Nigerians a new transportation narrative by giving them a new deal in rail transport.

  • Lagos-Badagry expressway: Ending a nation’s shame

    Lock up transportation and you lock up an economy. This aphorism has been proven beyond doubt on the Lagos-Badagry Expressway, which has been locked down to traffic for over two decades. Hence the joy of residents and motorists knew no bounds when the Federal Executive Council (FEC), awarded the contract for its repairs, writes ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE.

    The approval last Wednesday, by the Federal Executive Council (FEC), of the repair of the 46-kilometre Lagos-Badagry Expressway, may have saved the government from bad publicity.

    Angry stakeholders (which comprised residents, motor unionists and other road users) had planned a massive two-day protest from Badagry to Mile 2 on October 30 and 31, to call attention to the deplorable state of the road. But one of the co-ordinators, Mr. Mike Whetodeh, a former director at the Administrative Staff College of Nigeria (ASCON), Topo, Badagry, said the protest has been called off in deference to the new development.

    “FEC today approved a contract for the rehabilitation of the Lagos-Badagry Expressway, specifically the 46km Section from Agbara-Badagry-Seme Border. The repair of the section from Eric Moore to Okokomaiko is being carried out by the Lagos State Govt,” the government disclosed on its twitter handle, @Asorock last Wednesday.

    The road is dilapidated as the Lagos State Government failed to work on it after promising to convert it to a 10-lane expressway.

    The National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) Vice-Chairman,  Mr Oloyede Edun, described the road as a death trap. According to him many lives have been lost to accidents in the past, while it has become a den of armed robbers, who rob motorists plying the road with impunity. He said the Federal Government has been on the road for about 30 years.

    A concerned resident, Mr Benjamin Bako, a businessman, who lives at Agbara, said the road went from bad to worse and got worst due to abandonment.

    He said remedial works by the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) were merely superficial, and a conduit for sleaze, as it lasted long enough for it to be re-awarded to either the same contractor or another.

    “Government officials and contractors have been feeding fat on the plight of the people living in this area. It is as if we are not living in Nigeria and it is worrisome that such a huge network of corruption, greed and avarice with such impunity could be going on for a decade right in Lagos, the nation’s commercial capital,” he said.

    Bako was part of those spearheading the protest that was called off. He said protest remains the only platform through which the people can register their grievances against the government.

    Road to neglect

    The Expressway is extremely deplorable. Areas such as Iyana-Ishashi, Ijanikin, Agbara, Magbon, Oko-Afo, Elijah and Mowo are impassable. Vehicles, most of which are rickety, due to the state of the road, use one way to get to their destinations. Motorcycles have become the preferred means of transportation. Admitting that the corridor has passed through a terrible time, the Lagos State Government, however, did not agree it abandoned the road completely. Its plans for the critical corridor was underscored by the various initiatives, especially the plan to turn it  into a 10-lane, with mass transit light rail and bus rapid transit lanes.

    Earlier in the year, Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Mr. Ade Akinsanya, said the government would employ a PPP arrangement to reverse the fortunes of the road.

    He spoke of plans by the Akinwunmi Ambode-led administration to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a consortium of investors for the construction of the Seme-Badagry Expressway. The initiative was a novel answer to the long delay suffered by the project since the Fashola years, when funds needed for it couldn’t be raised.

    Ambode has also directed that the completed portion – from Eric Moore to Okokomaiko – be opened to the public by the contractor, even as the Public Works Corporation have been directed to embark on aggressive repair works on the road.

    A trip on the road could leave a first-time visitor to the country through Seme Border wondering if the government understood the importance of the road to its economy.

    Tales of woes

    Built in the 60s, the road leads to West African sub region, connecting Nigeria with 17 other countries such as Benin Republic, Ghana, Togo, Bourkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Buissau and Liberia, Mali, Mauritania and Niger among others.

    It also serves as a critical link to the commercial and tourism hub with the road being the only access to Agbara, the nation’s foremost industrial cluster with over 1,000 corporate presence and a spring of other communities, which sprung along the route.

    For the residents, an hour’s journey now takes almost 12 hours to navigate. Prof. Samuel Odewunmi narrated that he had to resort to sending necessary materials to one of his Master’s student when the student spent 11 hours to get to class at the Lagos State University, Ojo, on a Saturday.

    “He arrived at the school after 4pm and I just asked him to rest for one hour and to return home. He left the school around 5pm and didn’t arrive at his Lekki home until 11pm. I then henceforth resorted to sending him his lecture notes online.

    The parlous state of the international gateway has simply paralysed commerce. Bako said many firms at Agbara are either at the verge of closing up, or rationalising their staff as a result of glut occasioned by the poor road.

    “Many, who cannot withstand the traffic on the road caused by bad portions, resort to okada, violating the Road Traffic Law 2012. No one would wish to go by okada, but when the road is bad and one wishes to arrive home early, he has no option than to take the risk.”

    Renewed hope

    But these frustrations may be a thing of the past soon as the Federal Government has taken responsibility to repair the road.

    Prof Odewunmi described the move as belated, but smart, as it would lay to rest the nation’s shame. He said Nigeria is the only country with the worst section on the trans-West African route.

    Odewunmi, who is the Dean of Transportation Studies at LASU, said the nation and Lagos State are losing heavily as a result of the lockdown of that critical corridor adding; “When transportation is not working, the entire economy suffers cardiac arrest.

    “Importers spend four days from FESTAC Gate to Agbara first bridge, and it could be traumatising if you are importing perishable goods.”

    He also urged the Federal Government to drop the 10-lane idea as it may be unsustainable and avoidable wastage, taking into cognisance the present volume of traffic along the corridor. “If we are fixated on 10-lane, government may not finish in 10 years, but if you do a four lane expressway, with provision for future development, when we have the funds and the right volume of vehicles, it would deflood the traffic and we can achieve the project in record time,” he said.

    Commissioner for information and Strategy Mr Kehinde Bamigbetan commended the Federal Government for taking the burden of repair off the state.

    “The Lagos-Badagry Expressway is an international route and it is strategic to us in Lagos State, for the purpose of commerce and International trade and especially for the purpose of inter- African collaboration,” he said.

    He said the repair will encourage more traffic between Lagos and the West African sub region, and boost the state’s tourism industry.

    “The development of the Badagry axis has been one of the key focus of this government. We are keen on the development of tourism in Badagry, and various other initiatives. The rehabilitation of that axis by the government will further enhance and complement the commercial value of  Badagry as a destintion for commerce and tourism,” Bamigbetan said.

    Former Commissioner for Transportation Kayode Opeifa said the Vice President Prof Yemi Osinbajo, Minister for Power Works and Housing (PWH) Babatunde Fashola and the Deputy Chief of Staff to the President Mr Ade Ipaiye deserve all accolades in the eventual listing of the road for repair by the Federal Government.

    Opeifa said six weeks back, he had volunteered to lead a protest to call government’s attention to the plight of residents and motorists on the corridor, adding that all that are no longer necessary as the government has finally owned up to repair the road.

    Opeifa confirmed that the government is considering a four-lane expressway, a decision, which according to him is buttressed by a study conducted by the Fashola government in Lagos, which indicated that a 10-lane is unnecessary for the present traffic load along that corridor.

    Conclusion

    Apart from being a trans-West African link road, the Lagos-Badagry Expressway is in the nation’s largest senatorial district and a tourism hub.

    “With a population of almost 15 million people, the senatorial district, which is home to a large number of UNESCO historic sites such as the whispering palms, the Point of no return and other tourism sites, is the highest revenue yielding zone for the nation outside oil. We are grateful that at last, the government is showing some concern for the people and that is what matters,” he said.

  • Lagos unveils ANPR to track traffic violators

    Lagos State Government has rolled out an e-inspection technology application to tackle traffic and vehicle documentation violations. The new effort, which takes fines to violators’ doorstep, will eventually ensure that only healthy vehicles are on the roads, writes ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE

    Imagine a return of the banned Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIOs) to all roads in Lagos State. Also, imagine that your location is not only captured by Google map, but that you are actually being monitored by VIO right on the road. What will you have done rightly?

    You can no longer hide, so long as you ply Lagos roads. This is because technology will fish you out if you commit a traffic offence.

    Some Lagosians have had a bitter taste of this technology. Some of them, Tiamiyu Mohammed, a Uber operator and Moses Adeife, a car owner, are among the hundreds, who have been caught by this technology  deployed three weeks ago after a long period of test-runing to restore sanity to Lagos roads. Interestingly, offenders are rushing to pay their fines.

    Deploying technology to drive traffic compliance is no longer a dream in Lagos State. If you drive a vehicle that is not road worthy on Lagos roads, or you drive with expired driver’s or vehicle licence, or you do not have hackney or inspection/testing permit, or any other documentation that authorises you to ply the roads, the sanity of your vehicle, you may be the next victim.

    Gone are the days, when VIOs chase vehicles round the streets. That era stopped last year vide an executive order when Governor Akinwunmi Ambode ordered them to get off the roads.

    Their presence, as it were, has been replaced by the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) and Closed Circuit Monitor (CCTV) devices to track vehicle administration offences and traffic violations.

    The VIS has these two categories all over Lagos. They are the fixed monitors, which are installed on all major roads and highways in all the 57 Local Governments Areas (LGAs) and Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) and the mobile units installed on all VIO vehicles moving round locations not captured by the fixed units.

    The feat, according to the VIS Director, Hafiz Toriola, an engineer, is the culmination of a three-year research, which has taken officials of the agency round the world to understudy the technology in other developed societies where such had been in use for decades.

    It was also the crystallisation of the e-inspection and e-billing, launched last year by the Ambode administration. It is meant to use street cameras to identify vehicles plying the roads without valid documents.

    Automatic number plate recognition according to Wikipedia can be used to store the images captured by the cameras as well as the text from the license plate, with some configurable to store a photograph of the driver.

    The systems commonly use infrared lighting to allow the camera to take the picture at any time of day or night, with the ANPR technology taking into account plate numbering variations from place to place.

    ANPR was invented in 1976 at the Police Scientific Development Branch in the United Kingdom. Prototype systems were working by 1979, and contracts were awarded to produce industrial systems, first at EMI Electronics, and then at Computer Recognition Systems (CRS) in Wokingham, United Kingdom (UK). Early trial systems were deployed on the A1 road and at the Dartford Tunnel. The first arrest through detection of a stolen car was made in 1981.

    However, ANPR did not become widely used until new developments in cheaper and easier to use software were pioneered during the 1990s. The collection of ANPR data for future use (i.e., in solving then-unidentified crimes) was documented in the early 2000s. The first documented case of ANPR being used to help solve a murder case occurred in November 2005, in Bradford, UK, where ANPR played a vital role in locating and subsequently convicting killers of Sharon Beshenivsky.

    Critics have described the ANPR as a form of mass surveillance. Concerns about the system centered on privacy as citizens feared that government was tracking their movements. There are also cases of misidentification, high error rates, and increased government spending.

    How Does It Work?

    According to toriola, both the fixed and the mobile variant, work by capturing vehicles at random and the details of the vehicle would run automatically through the various databases such as the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Motor Vehicle Administration Agency (MVAA), Police and the Nigeria Insurance Association (NIA) and the Lagos State Transport Department, all of which are already configured into the operating system, and instantly, a result of the vehicle’s compliance of violations would emerge. Where all details; such as road worthiness, vehicle licence, and for commercial vehicles; hackney permit, the Lagos State Drivers Institute certification (LASDRI) are in order, the vehicle is certified okay, but where one or more documents is invalid either because it has expired or not available, the system generates a fine/bill, which will first be sent as a text message to the offender, and the hard copy taken to the offender’s house address as captured on the data base.

    According to Toriola: “In a case where we are unable to get the address of the owner, maybe due to relocation or as a result of fake address, we would blacklist the vehicle and flag it, so that we would begin to monitor it and enforce arrest and compliance anytime the vehicle gets back on our roads.”

    He said the camera of either the fixed or the mobile units on VIO vehicles will take the picture of the vehicle, zoom in on the number plate of the vehicle and when the offence was committed. It will state the offence(s) and give the offender seven days to seek redress (in case of doubts) or payment.

    The VIS Director said the agency has started billing offenders who have been coming to pay. “Most offenders were shocked at the level of sophistication and detailed capturing of their offences, which has rightly put Lagos alongside countries that are deploying the best global standards in driving its transportation architecture,” Toriola added.

    He said from the back end, the agency can see any vehicle anywhere in the state, see its state of health and can put an off the road sticker on any vehicle delivered to the home of the owner of such vehicle.

    He said: “We now have so many of these cameras on our roads across the state. And our message for now is that our people should obey the law and maintain their vehicle. They should get all the prescribed particulars for their vehicles and obey traffic rules and regulations. If they do this, they need not be afraid of this new innovation which is meant to drive sanity down our transportation system,”Toriola added.

    Another revelation according to him, is that the device has exposed the cartel that runs a ring of fake vehicle particulars in the state. “The device is helping us to detect a lot of fake documents; such as fake driver’s licence, fake vehicle licence and fake insurance and road worthiness licence. Those, who fall victims of these are calling their agents and we are now hearing so many funny confessions.”

    He said the ANPR would be complementing the computerised vehicle inspection system, which was rolled out last year, where vehicles can undergo comprehensive diagnosis, away from the manual checking, which VIS men, hitherto carried out, and the acquisition of the Magneto Optical Device, a technology, which helps in diagnosing any vehicle’s details.

    According to Toriola, the future of seamless transportation in a state with above the national average of vehicular density. With the right technology, according to him, Lagos is moving away from manual inspection, testing and billing as electronic alternatives are being deployed and more loopholes which make the system dysfunctional are being identified and blocked.

    Throwing his weight behind the innovation is a road safety advocate and founder of Safety Without Borders, Patrick Adenusi, who commended the state for blazing an uncommon trail. To him, the innovation ought to be a national agenda.

    Adenusi said Lagos, in driving its transportation architecture with ANPR, was 35 years late.  “It is the global best practice and one should say that it is not only Lagos, but all the federating states and the security system, including the FRSC, the police and other security agencies that ought to be on the system.

    He said the system has attracted excellent ratings across the world in countries like United Kingdom, US, Canada, Switzerland, France, UAE, Germany, Netherlands and several others where it has been introduced because it has not only contributed significantly to curtailing traffic infractions, it has also helped to burst criminal activities, especially car thefts.

    According to him, every vehicle like human being, has a name and identification numbers, which is called the Chasis number. He said though engine numbers may change, chasis number never changes as it is the identity of the vehicle. People can attempt to alter the vein number of stolen vehicles, but they are often exposed once they are captured by the ANPR device.

    In the US, the ANPR is being manned by the police. As one passes a police patrol with such device, the police officer will just  capture your number plate and input this on the software on his laptop or ipad and instantly all one’s details are available to him. Where one is not supposed to be on the road as a result of a violation; either of non-inspection, or carrying an expired document, he issues a bill and send same to one’s mailing address or phone number, same way that Toriola had stated that the VIS system runs.

    He said: “If we are adopting the same thing in Nigeria it is excellent as it would help everyone to do the right thing.”

    Adenusi observed that there are quite a number of vehicles operating in Lagos and across the country without valid papers. Citing the instance of a situation where a VIO had stopped a woman, who claimed she was a civil servant and works at the state’s secretariat, Alausa, but whose particulars expired five years before.

    He added that a check of the military, para-military and other security personnel would also reveal that so many of them ride freely on the roads without any valid documentation. “They just did the initial registration and thereafter, you will see them fix stickers of their stations, either Airforce, Navy, Police, Army or any other security outfit and brazenly go about the violations in a who-dare-accost-me manner. Many would not even use seat belt and some would put their beret on the dashboard. But does being in any of these say you should flout basic laws that guarantees safety?” he asked.

    He said though this kind of innovation is salutary, ensuring compliance of all categories of citizens without having sacred cows, will determine how successful it could be.

    According to Adenusi, if we want the government to provide basic infrastructure that meets global standard without going aborrowing, one of the ways is to support this kind of avenue where only those, who are able to maintain their vehicles can only keep them on the roads.

  • Narrow gauge: A concession gone awry?

    Seventeen months after its expected take-off, the narrow gauge is still in limbo, raising fears that it may never materialise. The question whether the narrow gauge concession to General Electric (GE) will ever materialise has been boggling the minds of many since May, last year, writes Yinka Aderibigbe.

    Seventeen months after its proposed take-off, the railway concession, which is meant to inject $5.5 million into modernising the rolling stock of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) has remained on paper.

    If it had taken off, the General Electric (GE)  in accordance with the interim agreement which was meant to run for the first 12 months, would have injected 20 locomotives and commenced the takeover of NRC’s assets and liabilities  in line with the concession agreement.

    The concession initially had all the trappings of being the biggest signature project of repositioning conceived by the Buhari administration for the corporation.

    However, the administration was almost at a loss to convince the world that concessioning the obsolete narrow gauge to the GE was the best after all.

    Burdened by the need to secure funds to help modernise and run the corporation, the Buhari administration had thought of concessioning the railway. According to Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, the government is primed on delivering a standard gauge and premium railway transportation to Nigerians for goods and services movement.

    At a roundtable last year, the Minister had disclosed that the GE was actually poised to begin operation with 100 locomotives.

    Asked last month on the current status, Amaechi was at a loss for words, avoiding any matter relating to the narrow gauge concession.

    According to him, under the administration, railway has received unprecedented attention.

    The administration’s adoption of a new funding paradigm, which is to bring renowned investors such as the American leading corporation into a critical sector like the railway, promises to overhaul the nation’s transport architecture.

    This is aimed at creating hundreds of primary and secondary job opportunities for the transportation industry. But that was as far as hope could go. Right now, the hope of creating jobs dims by the day.

    The over-concentration of the country’s transportation on road mode has badly impacted on the economy. Nigeria was ranked 182nd of 189 countries on trading across borders by the World Bank in its last year’s “Doing Business” report.

    The cost and time taken to import and export are well above the average for sub-Saharan Africa and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) high-income countries.

    Amaechi had disclosed that the GE was also committed to the establishment of a Transportation University to train qualified personnel for the sector.

    “One of the conditions we gave  the GE was for them to come here and build a Transportation University and they agreed,” Amaechi said.

    The good thing about concession is that the mode saves the government a lot of money, which is put to other use to create more jobs.

    To NRC workers, however, the delay is a welcome development as it postpones the rationalisation, that must of consequence follow the concession agreement.

    A top official of the Nigeria Union of Railway (NUR), who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the union is keeping watch on the development and will respond adequately in defence of its members anytime the concession agreement takes off.

    Besides the gray issues of rationalisation, the workers said the concession agreement might have run into stormy waters over the scope of operational coverage of the agreement. While the GE insisted on working only on the Lagos axis of the freight business, shuttling between Apapa to Ebute Metta, thus ensuring that cargoes that leave the ports end up at Ebute Metta, the Federal Government has insisted that the new investor do not only run freights on the entire spectrum of the 1200 kilometres Lagos-Kano narrow gauge, but include passenger traffic as its flagship offering.

    According to the government, the injection of new and modern locomotives will undoubtedly increase freight traffic between the ports and inland dry cargo terminals, especially in the Northern part of the country.

    The NUR had at several fora insisted that none of its members should suffer or be sacked unjustly when the concessioned agreement fully rolls off. They also insisted that the concession agreement should not cover the NUR property, which spread across virtually all the states of the country.

    In spite of the delays in concession take-off, the GE International Operations (Nigeria) Limited Transportation Business Development Executive, Mr. Eyo Ekpo, praised the Federal Government for demonstrating the political will to end to the rot in the rail sector.

    He said the determination to run the two spectrum of the railway – narrow and standard gauges under the concession initiative, is aimed at creating new funding formula that will ensure that the system continues to be modernised at no cost to the government.

    “The GE had resolved not to cut corners in helping Nigeria fix all issues on the development of its rail system. We prefer to go through a process that produces outcomes that are, ultimately, sustainable. There is political will, there is process and there is a plan, all put together by the government and if you combine that with what the GE consortium is bringing to the table, what you’ll expect is an outcome that is actually credible and sustainable, one that will be beneficial to Nigerians,” he said.

    Ekpo lamented the decay in the rail system and wondered how the nation with population of over 180 million had survived almost exclusively on road mode of transportation, with the rail playing virtually no role in the transport plan.

    According to Ekpo, the GE’s plan was to resuscitate and expand the narrow gauge rail infrastructure along the railway value-chain across the country.

    Giving more insights into the concession objective, Ekpo said the Federal Government was looking forward to the American firm setting up local production capacity for locomotives and wagons in the medium term, while the long term is the establishment of a Transportation University.

    “The government set out objectives for the rail construction; it was not just about completing a railway line. There was also the other bit, which set up local manufacturing capacity both for locomotives and wagons, within the country.

    “The second is the training of human resources, which is not just only a university, but a post-graduate training centre and the GE are fully  committed in writing to achieving it,” Ekpo said.

    Though transportation and logistics experts have continued to express fear about “some unreliability of the terms of the contract,” Amaechi again assured that the government was committed to the sanctity of contracts on concession of projects.

    He said the government would not only guarantee its concession agreements, partnerships and contracts, but implement those it inherited and safeguard them from being truncated.

    The involvement of the private sector, especially in railway system, is the outcome of the amendment of the Nigerian Railway Act 1954, which removed the exclusivity of financing the system hitherto vested on the Federal Government.

    Despite the hitches, the Transportation Minister insisted that attracting the private sector into the rail system was the best way out if the nation must join the rest of the world in deploying modern train systems to resolve mass transit challenges facing the country.

    Citing the GE’s bold moves to revolutionise activities of the narrow gauge, he said, if one considers that it was coming at no cost to the government, then it ought to be supported and the government praised for discovering willing partners in putting new impetus to the moribund rail system.

    NRC Managing Director, Mr. Fidet Okhiria, said the GE’s participation remained the only way by which railway could fulfill its mandate of providing cheap, affordable and reliable mass transit services to Nigerians.

    He said Nigerians have the requisite experience and exposure to drive a very efficient and effective railway. He welcomed the bold step to see the government develop local capacity for repairs and production of essential components and hardware needed to run an efficient railway services.

    With the coming of the GE, there may be improvement in the NRC’s operations with passengers getting a fair deal.

    The other leg of the argument is that GE’s involvement will stimulate active participation of other corporate players. But how far can this argument be sustained with the GE’s continued absence in the nation’s railway sector? Will the government be disposed to ensuring competition on a turf that has almost become extinct in the transportation mode?

  • Resolving traffic gridlocks with non-motorised option

    With 6.5 million people walking from one destination to another in Lagos daily, a non-motorised system may have promoted itself as a viable means of beating the traffic gridlock for many in the mega city, writes ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE

    Dateline September 22, 2018. Hundreds of hapless commuters mill around bus stops, between Cappa and Ikeja Along on the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway, which is increasingly getting notorious for its nerve-racking gridlock.

    Ahead, a long queue of vehicles stretched as far as the eyes could see. In some of those vehicles, especially the commercial ones, halpless commuters could be seen hopping and resorting to making the rest of the journey on foot. Whether by day (when people are rushing to work, or night, when they are returning home), pedestrians have made walking a pastime.

    Walking has become the next main means of transportation for many a Lagosian, and it doesn’t really matter whether you are rich, or poor.

    A professor with the Lagos State University (LASU), who prefers anonymity, narrated how he had to hop on commercial motorcycles to beat such menace recently. The don, who was coming from  Badagry axis, said he had to abandon his car and driver at Igbo Elerin, around Iba Local Council Development Area (LCDA) when the traffic locked down; and took three commercial cyclists, before he got to Ikeja GRA.

    Another commuter narrated how she walked from Oshodi to Ogba, when the route was locked down by a gridlock. She said she was used to such experience and would not consider it any pain to commute by leg, especially when it becomes impossible to execute the journey by motorised transport.

    Once seen as an option for the poor, gradually, non-motorised transport has wormed its way as a major option that can no longer be ignored as a cheaper alternative/means of transportation in a city said to have above national average of motorised transportation in the country.

    Over the last 17 years, easing travel experience has been behind the government’s road reforms, especially in Lagos.

    The Managing Director of Planet Projects Mr Biodun Otunola insisted the roads must be well-segmented to capture all users and delineated to ensure that it be made more friendly to pedestrians. Already, Berger area of Lagos stands as a testimony of how proper delineation, and reduction of human interactions could improve traffic flow and road usability.

    The Berger example is part of the reforms which has delivered wider roads. The opening of 144 inner city roads another 188 ongoing, the state roads have according to an analyst have become exclusive to motorised movement to the exclusion of other classes of road users.

    He therefore canvassed the government to come up with a policy that would share the road with n which other users as it is done in more advanced or planned economies.

    “Besides motorists, other road users must be safe using any of our roads. Lagosians must feel safe walking, or riding a bicycle, a tricycle, or jogging on our roads,” the analyst said.

    At a forum, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode admitted that more Lagosians have taken to walking as a means of moving, especially within short distances. He admitted that a little above six million out of her 23 million population now trek, while another 12 million use motorised means to move about in the city state daily.

    The need to capture all users and make the road users according to him remains the way to deflood the roads of gridlocks.

    Last year, the Lagos State Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority (LAMATA) unveiled plans for a policy to promote safe non-motorized transportation (NMT). LAMATA was being helped in developing this robust intervention by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

    The UNEP might have chosen Lagos to flag-off its NMT initiative in Nigeria because of her population. In Africa, NMT is also being promoted in Nairobi, Kenya, and some other developed countries.

    Non-Motorised Transport, which involves walking and bicycle riding, has gained wide acceptance for its affordability. It is also environmentally safe.

    In a paper, ‘’The significance of non-motorised transport for developing countries: Strategies for policy development,” by Maurits Servaas, Project Leader for Interface for Cycling Expertise (I-CE), a Netherlands association, said though NMT is associated with poverty, walking has become an important mode in an integrated transport system.

    Walking, he said, is beginning to play an increasing role, albeit usually as a convenient and non-polluting mode in multi-modal systems, for a number of high-income industrialised countries like the United Kingdom (UK), US, Germany and France.

    In the report published in 2000, I-CE showed that while in Nairobi and Dar-es Salaam nearly half of trips are entirely made on foot, the remaining share of the travel is made on public transport.

    While walking is associated with poverty, the functions of bicycles differ widely between Africa and Asia. While in Africa, bicycle serves as a means of transport for goods and people, in Asia and Americas, cycling is essentially for recreation.

    His works were done in collaboration with the World Bank, which is concerned with ensuring the proper utilisation of the potential of non-motorised transport.

    In an online paper, Share the road: Prioritising non-motorised transport in developing countries, Sheila Watson, deputy director of Environment and Research at the FIA Foundation, a UK-based charity committed to promoting safe and sustainable mobility across the world, suggested a fully-integrative multi-modal transport system that must incorporate non-motorised transport. She said NMT appeared most suitable for short distance, while public transport or cars are suitable for long distance as it offers greater comfort and efficiency.

    According to Watson, the most- desirable and efficient modal mix depends on several factors, such as the pattern of land use, prices, travel needs, existing transport vehicles and infrastructure, among others.

    She canvassed that transport architecture must be planned around the people because they are the heartbeat of every city, adding that cycling has significant health and environmental benefits, and helps to reduce pollution and promote physical fitness.

    Unlike motorised road users, experts said pedestrians and cyclists are vulnerable.

    That’s why Watson insists on sharing the road. “There are strong indications” she said, “for the design of separate spaces for non-motorised transport. These spaces, in turn, must form part of an integrated mobility system that connects the users to mass transit options.”

    Studies showed that a uni-modal system, such as that of a state like Lagos, often leads to sub-optimal situation, with too many private cars or even too many bicycles leading to congestion and a reduction in average speed, compared to multi-modal systems.

    The FIA Foundation, which works with the UNEP, to help cities in developing countries to prioritise walking and cycling, said what kills NMT in most urbanised cities across the world is the vulnerability of the people.

    Though NMT has significant health and environmental benefits, in many cities across the world, pedestrian facilities have been poor and people aren’t safe crossing the roads, says the foundation.

    On the average, 80 percent of journeys in some African cities is made on foot. Watson said about 27 percent of the 1.3 million people who die on the road yearly are pedestrians and cyclists.

    A report by the International Roads Assessment Programme (iRAP) in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, also found that 95 percent of roads assessed had high pedestrian flow, yet only 20 per cent had pedestrian footpaths.

    The Nairobi City County Government had developed a NMT Policy, which was launched in March, 2015, after identifying that 70 per cent of the 723 road traffic fatalities in Nairobi in 2014 were pedestrians.

    The policy proposed a range of measures including lower road speeds, new infrastructure and traffic calming measures, as well as awareness raising activity, enforcement and financial commitments.

    The highlight of this policy is to “create a system focused on people rather than vehicles.”

    Another country, which has introduced such policy is Mexico City, which introduced a Mobility Law in 2014.  The law introduced a mobility hierarchy, with pedestrians at the top, followed by cyclists and then mass public transit, with private motorised vehicles last.

    However, other cities go further. Chennai in India has allocated 60 percent of the transport budget to constructing and maintaining NMT infrastructure. This is in line with its ambitious goals to achieve continuous footpaths on at least 80 percent of all streets.

    LAMATA’s ambition is to bring Lagos at par with this development, with a policy that aims at supporting walking and cycling.

    Just 10 per cent of countries in Africa has policies to promote walking and cycling, against 64 percent in Europe. In Kenya, Share the road’s work, with the Kenyan Urban Roads Authority, led to a policy change in 2011, which has integrated walking and cycling facilities on new urban road projects.

    Though the details of the NMT policy is still under wraps, LAMATA has left no one in doubt that it will incorporate walking and cycling into its new road projects.

    LAMATA said NMT remained one of the ways to make the roads more effective.

    LAMATA’s Managing Director Abiodun Dabiri said NMT was one of the main policy options and part of the institutional reforms that the state must implement to address traffic congestion and environmental pollution while ensuring public road safety.

    LAMATA’s conceived plan would, undoubtedly, be captured by the new policy transportation framework under works by the government.

    Dabiri said the draft NMT policy would aid the development of key infrastructure to facilitate pedestrian movements and community integration and complement the integration of multi-modal transportation dream of the government.

    The policy, when passed into law, he said, will involve three levels – community integration through the creation of a continuous pedestrian network, connection of pedestrian network with main public transport corridors and accessibility to the main transportation hubs and interchanges of the city with significant passenger demand.

    The Permanent Secretary Ministry of Transportation Dr. Taiwo Salaam described the NMT a a key component of the intermodal transport mix, adding that when fully on stream, all roads would have walkways and bicycle paths.

    “We are determined in Lagos State to begin to build roads that will cater to the needs of all classes of users. This will reduce traffic congestion and make the road safer for all,” Salaam said.

  • Arming operators for safer waterways

    For two days, captains and deck hands returned to the classroom to learn how to make the waterways safer. The training was organised by Lagos State Waterways Authority (LASWA); ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE was there.

    BY the nature of their job, nothing should be left to chance. Last week, they returned to the classroom to horne their safety skills.

    The two-day training started at the Falomo Terminal on Wednesday. On Thursday, the exercise moved to Ebute Ojo Terminal. Over 200 captains and deck hands were trained in boat maintenance and emergency response skills.

    Participants were from the four major operators: SeaCoach, Halo Waters Ltd, operator of Water Taxi (Waxi), Tarzan and Sifax, as well as their smaller counterparts under the Association of Tourism and Boat Owners Association of Nigeria (ATBOWAN), spread over the five divisions of the state.

    It was LASWA’s way of adding value to a sector it has regulated for the past 10 years.

    Rather than throwing a party to mark its first decade as a regulator, LASWA took operators from the mainland (Ikorodu and Ikeja) and the Island, (Ojo, Apapa and Badagry), back to school, in what it’s Managing Director Kayode Emmanuel described as “a partnership to make the waterways safer for all.”

    According to Emmanuel, the waterways remained Lagos’ next goldmine, “waiting to be made safe for maximal exploitation by all operators.”

    Capacity development, he said, remained sine-qua-non, for operators if the state must win the war against incessant incidents on the waterways. A cause, he said, the state would continue to champion.

    Emmanuel said LASWA has not relented in clamping down on illegal operators, adding that it has been distributing life jackets –a major safety item in water transportation to operators.

    Before the end of the year, the agency, he said, would be distributing 2,000 lifejackets of all sizes to the operators.

    Emmanuel said 2,500 lifejackets were distributed among operators last year.

    “Though the government has no business distributing lifejackets, we have been at the forefront of doing this just to help replace worn out jackets from some of these operators, thereby making the waterways safer for all users,” Emmanuel declared.

    The MD said the agency now has a data of all operators, noting that this is good for adequate planning of waterway transportation.

    He also observed that the state has been developing alternative modes of transportation, especially water.

    Emmanuel said 2,500 passengers now use the waterways from Ikorodu to Victoria Island daily, via the Ikorodu Terminal.

    The Ikorodu and Falomo terminals are now operational out of the four critical terminals being penciled down by the government. He added that the Mile 2 and Badore terminals would be operational by next year.

    “By merely operationalising the Ikorodu Terminal, our passenger traffic jumped from 1000 daily, to 2,500, 17,500 weekly and about 70,000 monthly,” Emmanuel said.

    The LASWA MD disclosed the government is scaling up all its old jetties and building modern ones. “The government is laying the foundation for a solid infrastructure for safe water transportation. Besides the terminals, government is also remodelling 26 jetties.

    “This would be complemented with the acquisition of modern vessels to promote passenger comfort and the establishment of a virile search and rescue unit to ensure quick response in times of emergencies on the waterways.”

    The government, he said, was channelising the waterways to make them more navigable.

    The facilitator, Mr Dele Olaoye, said the waterways could be a money spinner if more profitable routes are charted, made more navigable and operators provides more comfortable, modern coaches to replace the old worn ones.

    Olaoye, the Managing Director of Q-SHE, a safety, health and environment consultant, said the Lagos waterways have  the potential of competing with road transportation if adequately explored, and the right things done.

    According to the consultant, whatever happens on the water could be altered positively or otherwise by the quality of hands manning the vessel in question, adding that a vessel with a well trained captain and a team of trained deckhands would know the dark/danger spots along their routes, how to avoid them, and what to do in times of danger and threat to safe travel on the waters.

    He advised captains and deck hands to take pre-emptive steps, check their vessels (the oil level, state of the engine, the propellers and battery among others) every morning.

    “A good captain should also attach to his ignition key a floatable item in case it falls into the water,” Olaoye further stated.

    After the routine check on the vessel, the captain should also check all the life jackets to ensure they are in good condition, remove and replace those that may pose a threat to safety.

    He said they must give a short safety drill to all passengers and assist them to wear the jacketsbefore setting out on the journey. Apart from the adjustable hooks, the ends of the rope on the jackets could be tied to further serve as precaution against being jerked off the neck of any one during accident.

    He said, though meant to be a life saving tool, the jacket has often choked many who didn’t wear it appropriately.

    Besides donning the jacket appropriately, passengers must also be drilled to relax in case of accident, as many, according to him, die out of anxiety, stampede and ignorance of what to do during emergencies.

    “The lifejackets would ensure that you remain floatable until help comes to you. You need to teach your passengers to remain calm, relax and let the jacket keep them afloat on the water.”

    Olaoye listed some rules of the thumb that must guide an operator.

    According to him, a captain and deck hands must avoid drunkenness and illicit drug abuse, must avoid overloading, must never leave the shore without ensuring that all passengers wear their life jackets.

    Other don’ts are; avoidance of reckless driving, over-speeding in a storm, avoid distractions, and never leave the boat in the hands of inexperienced hand.

    He said in case of emergency, captains and deck hands must send SOS messages either via radio signals or direct distress calls to emergency response centres through the emergency lines 767, 353 or 112 or any other lines provided by the operator. They could also call the numbers of the next jetty if known.

    Captains and deckhands should also rally passengers to ensure they provide the needed assurance for their safety.

    According to him, the operators as the first line responders must ensure they facilitate quick evacuation of victims in case of a boat capsize.

    Among the routes being channelised and expanded are; Ikorodu to Lagos Island, Falomo to Apapa, Mile 2 to Apapa, Apapa to Ojo and Ojo to Badagry routes, all of which are to be fully channelised because they have high passenger traffic and are lucrative.

    The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Transportation, Dr Taiwo Salaam, said at the opening session that the government would continue to partner with operators to promote water transportation safety.

    He said the training and re-training underscored government’s commitment to minimise accidents on the waterways.

    A deck hand with Halo Waters Limited, operators of the Waxi (water taxi), Mr Frank Seniboh, said the training exposed the operators to the nuances of the business of water transportation.

    “Government is trying. It is important to train operators, many of who did not understand the industry in which they are operating. This training will no doubt reduce accidents as we would be able to use what we have learnt here to prevent accidents as we have been armed with what to do in case of emergency,” Seniboh stated.

    LASWA rounded off the training with presentation of First Aid kits, Safety flare for visibility in case of emergencies, high resistance gloves, Non stick mat to be placed on their boats at no cost.

  • Reinventing Lagos’ transportation architecture

    The training of bus conductors by the government signals the advent of a new regime of organised public sector transportation in Lagos, writes ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE

    With the coming of modern bus terminals, as well as hundreds of bus shelters, that are nearing completion, the Akinwunmi Ambode-led administration in Lagos State has left no one in doubt of its determination to reinvent transportation.

    That determination was consolidated last week with the training of conductors, a critical factor in the government’s transportation reform.

    Since assuming office, Ambode has enhanced transportation systems, so profoundly that a lecturer at the School of Transportation Studies, Lagos State University (LASU), Prof. Samuel Odewunmi, described his intervention as, “beyond conceivable threshold”.

    Odewunmi canvassed a robust intermodal system that would maximise the state’s massive investments on road, rail and water transportation.

    In a paper: “Accelerating integrated transport system: rail, road and waterways,” delivered at the second Lagos Traffic Radio Lecture, the don said such development became imperative because of the anticipated migration of more Nigerians due to growing insecurity across the country, which could put pressure on the state’s 23 million population.

    In the last two years, the government has invested hugely on changing the state’s transportation architecture. Ambode inherited an unregulated public transportation system, where the about 18 million population relied on unplanned, unsafe, unreliable and rickety means of transportation – popularly called Danfo – or commercial motorcycle or tricycle for their travels.

    Building on the successes of the strategic transportation masterplan by his prede cessors, which sought to replace the privately-owned commercial transportation with an organised public sector-driven transportation system, the government consolidated on the Lagos State Traffic Law 2012, restricting okada operators from some arterial roads and bridges, and  the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) revolution by introducing a reform that seeks to inject 5,000 maxi buses into the transportation sector over the next three years, under a group franchise operator system that would grant 50, 100 and 200 buses to willing operators.

    In tandem with Odewunmi’s position, The Commissioner for Transportation, Mr Ladi Lawanson, at another forum, said the government was determined to revolutionise the rail and waterways transportation, with massive investments to further promote the mass transportation initiative aimed at decongesting city centres and freeing the state of the about two billion man hours lost to gridlock yearly.

    Ahead of the take-off of the pilot phase of the project in November, the government last week confirmed it has updated its databank, disclosing that over 4,000 bus assistants (popularly called conductors) operate in the state.

    The Chief Executive Officer of Lagos State Drivers’ Institute (LASDRI), Mr Phillip Ogunlade, confirmed on Friday that 4000 conductors have been trained on new skill sets that would be needed when the new bus reforms of the government eventually takes off.

    “More than 4,000 members of the Bus Conductor Association of Nigeria (BCAN) have registered with the Lagos State Drivers Institute (LASDRI) for training and accreditation in line with our mandate,” Ogunlade said.

    Ogunlade, who refrained from speaking on the transportation policy, confirmed that his agency has trained bus conductors on such skills as customer relations and the requisite roles of a conductor in the new regime.

    BCAN President Mr Israel Adeshola said the training would equip them to function and conform to the state’s reforms on transportation.

    “Over 4,000 members are fully ready to operate along with the new Lagos State transportation reform.”

    While LASDRI would deal with accreditation of operators, which includes drivers, the Directorate of Commuters Service is to provide appropriate gears, including identification badges, uniforms and route numbers for operators.

    “We want to assure the people and the government that our members are fully for the state transformation of transport system. All these we have done to get prepared for the state development plan in the transport system,” he said.

    According to him, the association has enlightened its members that very soon conductor work will no longer be business as usual.

    “The association had trained so many registered members. BCAN wants to ensure no more jumping and hanging on the buses anyhow.

    “We are in line with the state government’s plan on the new transport reform and we enjoin others in the system to key into the system and get registered,” he said.

    Adeshola however appealed to the state government to carry members of the association along with the ongoing reform.

    Planet Projects Managing Director Mr Biodun Otunola said the government was actually pioneering a paradigm class shift.

    According to him, while hitherto the government has continued to invest heavily in making the rich in the society more comfortable, by investing in motorable roads and building more airports across state capitals, the poor, who form the bulk of mass users of the roads across the state are denied comfortable ride.

    Otunola who said the 20,000 passengers who use airports across the country, do so in comfortable environment, while the 12 million passengers who use the road in the state alone, have to queue up under the blazing sun or the rain, without a shelter over their head and rush for rickety buses only to end up becoming a victim of one-chance robbery gangs, operating in commercial vehicles.

    He said it is unacceptable that an average Lagosian spends over 60 percent of his income on transport cost monthly, adding that with the bus reform, cost would be crashed, and safety more assured as government is determined to ensure all operators have  identity cards and wear uniform that would be clearly marked.

    Also on the card would be the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) which allows passengers plan their journey time right from their homes, while travellers would pleasurably walk into the comfort of a terminal purchase their ticket and sit down to wait for their buses at whatever time of the day, adding that when the buses begins operation, they would run a 24 hour schedule.

    Otunola whose firm was behind the construction of laybys which has brought huge relief on critical roads across the city, and bus terminals which is springing up in 10 different locations and about a thousand bus shelters across the state; said Ambode’s massive investments in providing supportive infrastructure for the roads is a major policy shift, as it would for the first time, “give back to the people the real essence of governance where it is most critically needed.”

    “Government must redefine the content of its welfarist offerings. People could choose the kind of education or the type of healthcare, they wanted, but not the road. The road is a leveler. It brings the poor and the rich together and that is where government’s spending should go because it has the capacity to create more wealth,” Otunola said.

    He said all over the world, government make the terminals more inviting and attractive in order to generate a fluid or “itinerant economy” as people spend more on consumption at the terminals, whether road, rail or air.

    The Managing Director Lagos State Ferry Services Corporation (LSFC) Mr Paul Kalejaiye said the government is determined to replicate the same signature projects with which it has been noted on the road on the waterways. Last year, the government unveiled three executive boats and four jet skis in what was seen as a bold attempt to further strengthen the state’s responders on water emergencies.

    Espousing the government’s strides at a public forum recently, Kalejaiye said the government is dredging, clearing and charting new routes, building more jetties, and ensuring a seamless world-class inter-modal system of transportation aimed at promoting the waterways as a better, and more affordable alternative to road transportation.

    But it is on the road mode of transportation that the government seems determined to make the most profound statement with iconic threesome Oshodi interchange, that came with a shopping mall and a 30-bed hotel facility, which is projected to process a million passenger traffic when fully on stream, the Ikeja Terminal, which is projected to accommodate 400,000 passenger traffic, as well as the Oyingbo, Yaba, Ojodu Berger Terminals among others all of which are in various stages of completion.

    The terminals, when completed, would be serviced by a new set of medium or large capacity buses which the Mercedes Benz in Brazil confirmed the first batch of 200 buses is on their way to Lagos.

    Mr Ladi Lawanson, the State Commissioner for Transport, said the government is would commence commercial operations of the buses before the end of the year.

    “In the last couple of months, we did the commissioning of the Ikeja Terminal, which was meant to be the flagship.

    “The Ikeja Terminal would be signaling the beginning of what was going to be the entire project, consisting of 13 terminals including Oyingbo, Yaba.

    “We are using the Ikeja axis as a laboratory where we are going to roll out from,” Lawanson said.