The Federal Government has, on Monday, announced the commencement of commercial operations on the Lagos-Ibadan rail line.
Disclosing this in a tweet, the Presidency said that the commercial operations commenced today and formal commissioning will be held in the first quarter of 2021.
The Special Assistant to President Buhari on Digital and New Media, Tolu Ogunlesi, via his official Twitter handle said the rail line has commenced operation “with only one trip return” for now.
Ogunlesi said:
For now, according to the NRC, only one return trip daily, leaving Ibadan at 8:00 am for Lagos and leaving Lagos for Ibadan at 4:00 pm.
Speed and capacity will increase with time because there’s still some construction work ongoing.
The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, last week, while speaking in Abuja at the inauguration of elected members of the Chartered Institute of Transport Administration of Nigeria (CIoTA), disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari will commission the newly constructed Lagos-Ibadan rail line by January 2021.
The minister announced that the prices of the tickets had been put between N3,000 and N6000; a development that sparked an outrage from Nigerians who claimed that the price was quite exorbitant in considering the distance and how much bus drivers charge.
The Lagos-Ibadan railway, one of the major projects embarked on by the Federal Government, is being handled by the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC).