The Ministry of Transportation is seeking to tackle flood on Lagos-Ibadan rail line during the rainy season.
Speaking during the inspection of the rail project at Ibadan, Oyo State at the weekend, the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi said the ministry was going to observed areas where flood usually affects the project, especially the communities along the rail corridor.
The communities along the rail corridor had complained to the ministry over increasing flood in their environment due to activities of the project construction.
Amaechi said, “the technical committee will resolve the case of overpass, the problem now is the flooding challenge which we asked the committee to address, residents of Ajegunle community are complaining of the need to build overpass and we cannot build overpass everywhere.
“During the rainy season, we will observe where the construction has led to flooding as the citizens that have given us land must enjoy the sacrifice they made and when it happens we will correct those mistake,” he stated.
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He also tasks the Ministry of Works and Housing to hasten in process of obtaining approval to construct access roads leading the train stations along the rail route.
“The rain is coming, so you must hasten with the approval or the construction will linger till after September.”
Works on Lagos-Ibadaan rail route has reached significant level with few correction and amendments left to put the project together.
As the train stations reach the completion stage, the lack of access roads into these stations, particularly from Stations in Ogun to Oyo State remains one of the few challenges facing the project especially as the rainy season is gradually returning.
Despite the challenges, the Minister is hopeful that a commission date for the project will soon be approved by the President.
“If you look at the level of work we cannot ask the president to commission this, but ones we give CCECC definite time, I know they will speed up.
“There are some minor things they still need to put in place but it’s taking the time to do that, some of those things should not take more than a day or two to put in place so am not so worried,” Amaechi affirmed.
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