By Ignatius Ushie
The Minister of Transportation, Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi has re-affirmed the need to engage the communities along Lagos-Ibadan rail route in order to create enough under and overpasses as a means of preventing accidents when the train service becomes fully functional, adding that all complaints by the host communities will be looked into and see that solutions are proffered.
Ameachi who was speaking while inspecting Lagos -Ibadan rail project, revealed that the communities along the rail corridor had written him several times complaining that the existing under and overpasses were not sufficient, hence causing land problems such as erosion to their communities.
According to him, the communities had also complained about erosion originating from the rail line which was affecting them because, in the cause of construction, the grounds were raised very high.
“These communities will write, when they write, I will minute it to the Permanent Secretary, the Permanent Secretary will vet to the Director rail and I wouldn’t hear about it again.
“We are being unfair to them because they gave us all the cooperation we wanted. These communities have been nice to us, why do we want to visit them with what was not there before we came?”
The Minister of Transportation said “what I want is for the engineers to take a study village by village of what impact our rail line must have caused to these communities Vis a Vis our Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)” and proffer a solution, he stated.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of Nigerian Railway Corporate (NRC) Engr. Ibrahim Alhasan Musa said the Corporation was working with the state governments to create enough under and over passes.
According to him, there are over 55 over head bridges, 6 under passes and over 100 culverts from Lagos to Ibadan.
