That was a terrible thing. It shows
the irresponsibility and lack of memory of some of those who had taken
decisions on some things since the destruction of what we had. You know in 1964, Konisberger led a
United Nations team to survey Lagos and directions of growth and make
recommendations. And that Konisberger report recommended that Lagos should
build a mono rail from Ikeja to Ebute-Ero. It could see the way Lagos was
growing and the need for mass urban transit. That was in 1964. That same report
recommended a regional approach to the supply of water damming Ogun River, just
like New York is supplied from Upper Hudson River.
That was to supply Ogun State and
Lagos. Unfortunately, when the civilians came Jakande didn’t like the idea.
That’s that. We had already in the vote 1964 to 1965 money to start central
sewage around Tinubu Square and to be expanded. It was abandoned. At that time, we thought we should
not have government offices scattered around. We got through council in 1964
what we called planned construction of government offices. We were going to
practically acquire, Holist Street, Oke Suna Street, and all the streets down
to Race Course. Anyway, all these were part of the concept.
Now, let’s go back to the Metroline
project. With the coup de’tat of 1966, that put paid to that. By 1967 states
were created. Even before the Konisberger report, there was a report from a
group that came from Canada. They made recommendation on inter city transport.
Lagos is like Venice. Go to Venice, there are a hundred lanes, water
transportations, there should be a hundred ferries going between Ikoyi Victoria
Island and where you have Lagos State University, LASU, in Ojoo. Under the
colonial government we used to go to Apapa by water. We have not
exploited all that.
On the Metroline issue, nothing
happened. We were retired in 1975 after the coup. I went into private life.
Later, we resuscitated the project. There is no way you can carry everybody —
workers, passengers within a short time on road where a city is more than two
million. You want to put everybody in taxis? It’s not possible. We were able to
persuade the government. At that time, Shehu Musa Yar’ Adua was the Minister
for Transport to make it that one, in principle; every city above two million
should have mass transit. Two, arising from that we would identify 14
cities that were about two million or already two million; with of course Lagos.
For Lagos, we agreed that they should go and design for construction a mass
transit line immediately. We selected RTP of France. The fantastic thing they
have in Paris is coordinating the buses with the subways etc linking one
another. It’s fantastic. They had also worked in San Francisco, USA. They were
appointed and we all agreed. Their credentials were very good.
We went from Lagos to Ibadan,
Ilorin, Kaduna, Jos, Kano, Markurdi, Enugu, Aba, Port Harcourt, Benin City,
Warri and Abuja, which was projected to be the capital. RTP decided on
designing Lagos. Then the military government said they were going to hand-over
in 1979. They bought the idea. Of course, they wanted to plan a Transport
Commission but that they would leave it to the civilians. But in the meantime,
the French RTP had done preliminary studies and handed over.
[size=10pt][b]Jakande came. Some people went to him and sold the idea of light
municipal mass transit or something. So, he had to fall back to the RTP
decisions. And we were lucky, we secured $450 million loan at six percent
fixed interest rate for 25 years. One month later, it was impossible to get
such loan because of change of policy. But there we were lucky that for 25
years we would have had this at give-away. And economic studies have already
shown that charging the prices people were already paying, we didn’t need
subsidy. The country would benefit. They looked at Abidjan and Cairo. Abidjan
wasn’t quite ready. So, Cairo. They started designing Lagos and Cairo the same
time. Then people"(Buhari/Idiagbon)" did coup against Shagari and
decided to cancel the project of which we had already paid 15 percent per $60
million. Work had started in Yaba. They then took us to court and they found us
guilty naturally and fined us $60 million. I am sure that’s part of what we
settled finally in the Paris Club debt.
It must have become $3 billion
dollars and not one kilometer was constructed. You can see the stupidity and
how we waste money. But these same characters — then, we had not gone back to
civilian rule — were very happy in 1990 to be honoured guests in Cairo
at the commissioning of Cairo Mass Transit which has made all the
difference to Cairo! We are not ashamed. They all went there. Maybe they did
not know what they were doing. How can a country lose time, lose
treasure? And they have brilliant Nigerians manning places abroad. Then as a
country we make ourselves objects of ridicule. They showed me what they are
planning now. I am not opposed to it. Half bread is better than none. Let it go
ahead. By now we should have been extending the previous plan towards
Okokomaiko and Victoria Garden City. That would have removed two- thirds
of the cars from the road on a week day.
Asiodu is a former Nigerian Federal Permanent Secretary.
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