‘Welcome development for Lagosians’ — Rhodes-Vivour hails blue line rail inauguration

Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, Labour Party (LP) governorship candidate for Lagos in the last elections, has described the commencement of operations of the blue line rail service as a “welcome development”. 

On Wednesday, the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA) announced that the blue line rail will commence passenger operations on September 4, 2023.

Abimbola Akinajo, the agency’s managing director, added that the train operations will begin with 12 trips for two weeks, which will later be increased to 76 trips per day.

Reacting to the news, Rhodes-Vivour said “the opening of the blue rail is a welcome development for Lagosians”.

“With the high cost of living and high youth unemployment rates (despite the Jesus like miracles of the NBS 41% to 4.1%), we hope it will help lift the burden of transport for the masses,” he wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. 

“I must commend all the social commentators and political candidates that made this a burning topic, which is the role of the opposition and the media to ensure the people get the best.”

Rhodes-Vivour also demanded for accountability and transparency from the state government over the project.  

“That said, for a project that has taken 15 years to be partially complete, it is only fair that Lagosians know exactly what this project has cost,” he said. 

“And more importantly, why the project took this long to be partially completed, what was cost for as opposed to what the people of Lagos are getting.

“We also need a timeline for the delivery of a statewide mass transit system.”