Akinwunmi Ambode, not afraid of primary
Gov. Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State has allayed the fears by residents of the state over ongoing projects.
He said that his administration was making concerted efforts to complete many of them before May 29 when his tenure would end.
Ambode gave the assurance during an inspection tour of ongoing projects in parts of the state.
The governor said the good thing about continuity in governance which he had been preaching, is that the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, had signed on to the projects.
“I know that the feedback we are getting is that Lagosians are worried whether some of our critical projects will be delivered before we leave office.”
“We want to assure them that with what we have had from the contractors and the inspection we have done today, these projects will be completed. And some of them if they are not completed, Mr Jide Sanwo-Olu will complete them on assumption of office.”
“That is the whole essence of governance of continuity that we are preaching. That is why we believe strongly that he will not only complete them but also escalate them to higher level and that is the whole idea about APC,” Ambode said.
He said that plans had been firmed up to roll out the Bus Reform Project, BRP, of the State Government in March, with 820 high and medium capacity buses which would redefine public transportation and make the state more globally competitive.
Ambode said the initiative was basically designed to inject 5,000 buses, modern terminals, facilitate ease of mobility for residents and also rev-up Lagos economy, among others.
He inspected the assembly plant at Awoyaya in Ibeju-Lekki area of the state which also served as the temporary holding bay for 500 out of the 820 buses.
He said that he was optimistic that the buses would be rolled out after the general elections and the next phase of the project would be to assemble the buses in Lagos.
“This is an assembly plant. The dream is that beyond the procurement of 820 buses by the government, the next set of buses in the vision should be assembled in Lagos: in this assembly plant and in another one in Epe,’’ he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the governor and his team also inspected other projects that include: the Oshodi Transport Interchange which is 85 per cent completed.
The team also inspected the bus depots at Oshodi, Yaba and Oyingbo to be ready by March
Others are: the International Airport Road to be ready by early May; and the Oshodi-Abule Egba BRT Corridor to be delivered in April. (NAN)
