Controversy Trails Lagos Blue Line
What’s The Actual Cost, $350m Or $1.5bn?
Beyond the euphoria that greeted the Lagos blue line, there’s controversy surrounding the procurement and actual cost of the Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s iconic project.
What’s the actual cost of the total package of the 27.2kilometres blue rail line? Is it $350 million or $1.5 billion? These figures are hanging in the sky. Neither LAMATA which undertook the project, nor the Lagos state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu will give you the total package. The opaque surrounding the cost seems to have taken the shine off the project. Even Sanwo-Olu was evasive when he fielded questions on channels television recently. When asked for the total figure, he mumbled some incoherent figures and only said the total money for the completion of the project which was about 250 billion then has been sourced. Ordinarily, the total cost of an iconic project of such nature ought to be on the finger tips of the Governor who was an investment banker before he veered into politics. Even the cost of the second hand coaches that he bought from the United States is not known. Like his predecessor, Babatunde Fashola who started the project in 2010. There was controversy regarding the second hand coaches he also procured from Canada. A Nigerian Professor in Canada then, Late Pius Adesanmi blew the whistle and asked Fashola if Lagosians were not good enough to enjoy new coaches that he bought ‘Tokunbo’ for them.
Was the cost inflated to patronise some political power brokers, especially in this election seasons?
The governorship candidate of the Labour Party in the state, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour while featuring on channels television recently indicted Sanwo-Olu and accused him of inflating projects.
Rhodes-Vivour who says he represents a new change said the secrecy around project in Lagos is not sustainable.
According to him, “ what we have in Lagos now is unacceptable. Projects are done four times the established benchmarks.
But unlike the metro line project during Alhaji Lateef Jakande era that was awarded to a French company, all the details and counterparts funding were in the public domain before it was cancelled in 1984 by Major General Muhammadu Buhari.
A trending message online on the Lagos Blue Line read in parts;
“COSTING THE LAGOS BLUE LINE.
“As we congratulate Lagos State on the Blue Line, launched today, let us spare a moment for the grand larceny involved in the project.
“Cost of The Blue Line light rail in the books of the Lagos State Government- $1.5 billion.
“Cost of the Blue Line in the books of the Chinese Company that built it, as filed at the Chinese Stock Exchange- $350 million.”
