By Adelola Amihere
With Lagos-Ibadan railway project in its final lap of completion, the federal government has pledged to commence construction of the Ibadan-Kano railway project by April 2020.
Recall that the Federal Government recently awarded the construction of the $3.5billion Ibadan-Kano standard Guage to the China Railway Cooperation Company (CRCC) but the Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi said the contract was yet to be approved by the Federal Executive council but he’s hopeful that the contract would be approved before the end of the first quarter of next year.
Fielding questions from journalists during his monthly inspection of the ongoing construction of the Lagos-Ibadan railway, Amaechi who also expressed displeasure with the pace of work of the Lagos to Ibadan warned that he would not tolerate such on the Ibadan-Kano rail project when it begins.
The Minister said” The Chinese are fixated on completion of work by April, we are pushing them to work, starting from January 6, the excuse they are giving now is that most of their workers have gone on Christmas break.
“They have said they have a time line which is for the minor stations to be ready by February and major stations would be ready by April which means you can commission by April or you force them to speed up and that will be before February.”
He continued further,” The Lagos – Ibadan would be ready by next year but we will not allow this type of speed on Ibadan to Kano standard Guage rail because if we allow this kind of speed by 2023 they will not have finished and after a few more months another government r will come in and say he did the work whereas I have been suffering, running up and down to ensure we complete the work.
“Although it does not matter who completes it, what matters is that Nigerians have means to covey their goods”, he added.
