Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge track laying completed, says Zakari

Temitope Adebayo

The Nigeria railway cooperation has announced the completion of track laying of Lagos-Ibadan rail gauge project of 156-kilometer stretch as promised.

The Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Transportation, Sabiu Zakari, while addressing newsmen during the project inspection at Abese, an area in Ogun State over the weekend said that he is satisfied with the job well done.

Although, he explained that the work is still in progress but the validity of work is exactly what the ministry want and what is been done is in accordance with the specification, that is in the scope of work that is been provided.

According to him, the immediate action has already been taken where the gas pipeline and the consultants are already addressing the problem.

“As we have seen it by ourselves and I believe the work been done as assessed by our consultant and our engineer is what is suppose to be done. I am satisfied with the work”, he said.

Commenting on the tremor that recently happened at Abese, the permanent the secretary noted that it is part of the thing that likely to comes up in engineering work and as far as what is been done is a concern, it is within the parameters of what is been provided.

“The incident will not attract any extra cost for now, because what happens in engineering work is that, there are places you make savings and there are places you make the addition. So, the addition we have made will take care of this”, he explained.

Also, speaking at the project inspection is the Board Chairman of Nigeria Railway Cooperation (NRC), Engineer Alhassan Ibrahim Musa, who pointed out that there are the problem of work in some areas, but noted that the cooperation is really on the point.

“But wherever we see that there are problems, issue or new ideas come up, we have to go back to the drawing board, and include the new idea in order to improve in the service that we are going to deliver.

“For instant, in the Abeokuta station, a lift was provided by the contractor, but we saw a need to convert it to an escalator, considering the volume of traffic on the convenience of the people, who are going to use the services”, he said.

Alhassan Musa added that such development took the cooperation and other stakeholders back to the drawing board, especially for that particular location that all the parties involved in the project have to rethink and redesign.

On his part, the Managing Director of NRC, Engineer Fidet Okhiria, said, “The last time we visited, the second 4km track has not completed but they have been completed now, the two tracks have gotten to Ibadan and anytime we will go by rail and come back by rail.”

“We now want to concentrate on the Lagos ends, maybe sooner than later, we will start up operation from Iju-Ibadan. What is remaining is the yard line and the station line”, he added.