Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has announced that the long-awaited Lagos State Red Line Rail project will formally be commissioned on February 29, 2024 by President Bola Tinubu.
According to a post by the Senior Special Assistant to the Government on New Media, Jubril Gawat, this was made known by Governor Sanwo-Olu, at the launch of the ‘Lagos Market Trader Money’ for 15,000 beneficiaries, on Wednesday, February 14, 2024, noting that the project will help change the face of public transportation in Lagos State.
Gawat in his post said, ‘’Governor of Lagos State, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has announced that the Red Line Rail Project will be commissioned on the 29th February 2024 by Mr President, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR.’’
Governor Sanwo-Olu had earlier revealed that President Tinubu had promised to formally flag off the Lagos Red Line rail in February, 2024.
He said this when he visited the Headquarters of China Railway Rolling Stick Corporation in Dalian, China, where he went to conclude transactional conversations with the top management of the company, on the purchase of rolling stock for the blue and red rail lines in the State.
The governor said, “We are ready for the flag off of the Red Line. We are waiting for Mr. President. The President is still promising us this month February for us to formally flag it off. We have started doing a lot of testing.’’
What you should know
- The 37-kilometre Red Line rail project, which was flagged off by Governor Sanwo-Olu in April 2021, is expected to have 8 train stations from Agbado to Oyingbo in the first phase while terminating at Iddo in the second phase.
- The Red Line is part of the state government’s vision of an integrated multimodal transportation system contained in the State’s Strategic Transport Master Plan (STMP), developed by LAMATA, which aims ultimately to birth a world-class transportation network that will support the state’s profile, as the economic capital of Nigeria and Africa.
- The Red Line rail project has faced a couple of delays with the Lagos State Government earlier assuring that it will be completed before the end of 2022.
- This was further extended to the first quarter of 2023 as the government announced that it has received 2 trains, TALGO Serie 8, for the Red Line Rail System.