Metro line: Replicating Lagos in Abuja?

As part of his administration’s commitment to enhance the transportation system and ease traffic congestion in the city, the Lagos state government recently unveiled Red Rail. Will Abuja take a cue? KEHINDE OSASONA asks.

The Lagos example

Metro line is an electric rail line mainly for urban transportation with the capacity for heavy volumes of traffic and frequent train movements; a common feature in major cities of the world.

They are mostly characterised by closely spaced stations with around one thousand meters between each. Before now, several attempts to make Lagos commensurate with its status against the backdrop of growing populations, commercial activities, but all that had either been frustrated or met with unfriendly government policies.

From Lateef Jakande to Bola Tinubu, Babatunde Fashola, and Akinwunmi Ambode, Lagos state has been harping on the dream of a modern transport system for close to twenty years, even when each administration set a time-frame to achieve the metro transit; it never saw light of the day until recently.

As at the time Lagos was recuperating from its inability to deliver the metro project within the time frame as promised, Addis Ababa in Ethiopia and Cairo in Egypt delivered the same to their residents in less than seven years.

The construction of Addis Ababa’s 31.6-km light rail transit for instance began in 2011, and operation began in 2015, after two lines were completed by China Railway Group Limited.

Cairo on the other hand began to build theirs in 1982, and completed it in 1989 and expanded it years after.

But following a pronouncement by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu that the blue light rail line started by his predecessors is to commence in 2022, Lagosians heaved a sigh of relief, knowing full well what impact such a means of transportation would make in moving goods and services and the populace.

While unveiling the overpass, Sanwo-Olu expressed the hope that the Red Line rail, when operational, would convey no fewer than 500,000 passengers daily.

Asides from the Red and Blue lines, other layouts of the Lagos metro lines cover Purple Line (Redeem to Ojo); Yellow Line (Otta to Iddo); Brown Line (Mile 12 to Marina); Orange Line (Redeem to Marina) and Green Line (Marina to Lekki).

He said, “In the last four and a half years of our administration, we have prioritised the implementation of our integrated transportation system under the traffic management and transportation pillar of the T.H.E.M.E.S.+ agenda. As a result, we have delivered life-enhancing transport infrastructures which are making life easier for the average Lagosian.

“The LRMT Red Line rail system, the first phase of which we project will move more than 500,000 passengers’ daily, stretches over a distance of 27 kilometres from Agbado to Oyingbo, with eight stations at Agbado, Iju, Agege, Ikeja, Oshodi, Mushin, Yaba, and terminates at Oyingbo.

“The governor added that the 620-metre Ikeja T-flyover was the fourth to be unveiled out of the five overpasses being built as part of the Red Line rail infrastructure.

“There will be a city-wide network of colour-coded Metro Lines, the first two of which Red and Blue lines will move over 34.5 million people monthly, cutting travel time by over 250 per cent,” he said.

While inaugurating the 27km first phase of the rail project, stretching from Agbado in Ogun state, to the National Theatre in Iganmu in Ikeja, President Bola Tinubu commended the Lagos Area Metropolitan Transport Authority (LAMATA) and the state government for such a massive project.

Tinubu said, “We are gathered for the inauguration of the second of the 6th rail line projects and I thank our political leaders here for believing in us and lifting our spirit, we said we can do it and you believed in us, we said the people’s life will end up being better, you believed in us.”

He said what LAMATA and the Lagos state government had done “is a strong reminder that true change is possible.”

Will Abuja emulate Lagos?

Last year, during a tour of the Abuja Metro Rail stations, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, promised to quickly complete the project, to lessen the burden of transport on residents.  

When completed, Wike noted further, the rail projects would afford residents of the FCT “a seamless transportation system, and equally lessen traffic jams within the city.”

“The Abuja Metro Rail project is one of the projects this administration wants to complete and put to use immediately, to reduce the traffic in the city.

“The money for the rehabilitation of the project is there, we will make sure the contractor is paid to ensure that the project is completed and inaugurated in the next few months,” he had said.

Like Lagos, Wike in January, this year, restated his promise that President Tinubu would inaugurate the Abuja Metro Light Rail project in May 2024.

“But be it as it may, we still have to work round the clock to see that we achieve our results and I’ve also directed that the stations must be cleaned. All the things that are not there must be provided. There will be no room for excuses at all.”

President Muhammadu Buhari had in 2018 launched the Abuja metro rail line. The rail line is the first phase of a metro line for Nigeria’s capital city.

After the launch, the president and other dignitaries took a ride from the CBD metro station to Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport.

Residents speak

Basking in the euphoria of her Lagos experience, an Abuja resident, Talatu Ibrahim told this reporter that she cannot wait to cruise in the Abuja version of Lagos Red and Blue rail.

She said: “Well, let me just say that I liked what I saw and experienced the last time I travelled to Lagos and I would like to also experience it here too. Abuja is the capital city for God’s sake.

“Come to think of it; light rail, mono rail and metro lines are fast complementing means of transportation in other nation’s capital; I think we should replicate it here too. It is possible,” she said.

Another resident, Olaku Opeyemi, while also speaking exclusively to Blueprint Weekend charged President Tinubu to re-enact the Lagos feat, saying compared to other capital cities of the world, Abuja is still work in progress.

“I have been privileged to travel to some countries in Europe and Africa, especially their countries’ capitals, my grouse is if some of them could upgrade their metro transportation system, why can’t we do the same in Nigeria?

“We have been denied these luxuries for so long and I believe with Tinubu and Wike in the saddles, it is possible here too.”