One of many times, the Federal Government has shifted the completion of the Lagos-Ibadan rail project to an unknown date again. The reason give this time seems ridiculous to many, but it may what it after all.
The Minister of Transportation, Chief Rotimi Amaechi has revealed that the Coronavirus outbreak in many countries of the world and particularly in Nigeria, may delay the completion of the Lagos-Ibadan rail project.
Amaechi said the cause of the delay this time is established on the fact that the higher percentage of the workforce handling the rail project is stuck in China.
The minister said that the Chinese government prevented some of the workers from returning to Nigeria because of the virus, its reported spread and the growing number of casualties in China.
He said: “If not for coronavirus, I would have said that we are nearly finished with the Lagos-Ibadan rail.
“The bulk of the workforce is still in China. The government of China did not allow them to return and that has delayed the work on Lagos Ibadan.”
The minister also explained that the government was still test-running the rail tracks.
He, however, noted that the government would deploy 10 coaches each to the Lagos-Ibadan and Abuja-Kaduna rail lines to ease passenger movement.
“We are still test-running the tracks. Commercial activities are yet to commence fully.
“To test-run the tracks, we brought in two coaches, each coach takes about 25 passengers. So the two coaches take about 50 passengers.
“We have got signals from the passengers and the engineers that the tracks are ready to run, but we need to complete communication, signalling and station buildings. Once that is done, we are good to go.
“We are bringing in 20 new coaches and four new locomotives, 10 coaches will be deployed to Abuja-Kaduna and the other 10 to Lagos-Ibadan.”
The Lagos-Ibadan Rail Project and many Shift in Completion Dates
The Lagos-Ibadan rail project is not 8 years old. The rail project, which was expected to start in 2012 and end in 2015 has faced several delays. The project is expected to be executed in six phases, projected to cover a total of 2,733 kilometres. The latest disclosure implies while Nigerians are anticipating the completion of the Lagos-Ibadan railway, the long wait continues.
The Federal Government of Nigeria (FG) has once again compromised the timeline for the completion of the Lagos-Ibadan railway project as the April 2020 earlier projected is no longer feasible.
The information was made by Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi while inspecting the project, alongside the Minister of State for Transportation, Gbemi Saraki, and Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State from Apapa in Lagos State, up to Ibadan.
According to Ameachi, the current state of work on the over $1.5 billion projects showed that the April completion date was no longer feasible.
The minister reportedly stated,
“Looking at the state of work in Apapa, completing the project in April doesn’t seem feasible, especially the extension of the rail line to the seaport. We’ll, however, continue to work and redouble our efforts to complete the project and meet set targets.”
Amaechi had disclosed during an inspection tour of the project in November 2019 that the contractor, China Civil Engineering Construction Company (CCECC), had pleaded for additional two months for the completion of station buildings and communication signals.
He said…
“We are no longer giving ourselves the time, the contractor is the one giving us the time. The initial contract was from Ebute-Metta but because we wanted it to end at the seaports, we extended it and that is where the challenges are.
“The fact is that they can get to Ebute-Metta soon but getting there without getting to Apapa will not achieve much because we need to clear the gridlock and the easiest way to do it is to get the track to the seaport, that way, cargoes will be loaded to wagons and taken to Ibadan.”
The minister also blamed the delay in the project on dealing with urban renewal, building new flyovers, overhead bridges, underpasses, pipes, sewage, stealing of their equipment and lack of the needed support not initially gotten as some people are still in court over the lands taken from them.
Latest Details on Coronavirus: Over 100,000 Cases Confirmed Globally
In the U.S., there have been 233 confirmed cases and 12 deaths, mostly in the state of Washington the number of confirmed coronavirus cases globally neared 100,000 on Friday, as infections outside of China continued to mount and many countries and cities struggled to get the epidemic under control. There were 98,698 confirmed cases of the virus.
American health care workers expressed concern about a lack of training, and delays in testing are causing anxiety. The world’s leading health official implored international leaders to unleash the full power of their governments to combat the new coronavirus outbreak.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases globally neared 100,000 on Friday, as infections outside of China continued to mount and many countries and cities struggled to get the epidemic under control.
There were 98,698 confirmed cases of the virus worldwide, more than a fifth of which were in countries other than China, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. South Korea, the second worst-hit country, reported another jump in infections, bringing its tally to 6,593.
WEST African Health Organisation, WAHO, said it had begun preparedness for epidemiology response capacity to Coronavirus.
The ECOWAS regional health body said it was putting in place modalities to build epidemiology capacity for outbreak response to bridge preparedness gaps.
The organization disclosed this at a two-day simulation exercise to strengthen regional preparedness and readiness capacities to the Covid-19 epidemic in West Africa, WAHO Regional Centre for Surveillance & Disease Control, RCSDC, sponsored by the Africa Union Centre for Disease Control (Africa CDC) in Abuja.
