The All Progressives Congress (APC) has accused President Goodluck Jonathan of being hypocritical over his persistent claim of reviving the railway when he has bluntly refused to grant the necessary right-of-way approval to the Lagos Metropolitan Transport Authority (LAMATA) for the construction of its redline light rail project from Iddo to Ifo in Ogun State with a capacity to carry one million passengers per day.
APC said this is in spite of the fact that investors were ready to invest over one billion dollars in the project.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Saturday by its national publicity secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said in failing to grant the approval, which has been pending since May 2013, President Jonathan premised his action on the fact that Lagos is an ‘enemy state’.
“President Jonathan is simply being hypocritical when he listed the revival of the railway as part of his administration’s so-called achievements during the kick-off of his electioneering campaign in Lagos, and during which he also tried to project himself and his party as friends of the South-west in general and Lagos in particular.
“His words and actions since assuming office six years ago do not support that he claims to have revived the railway but did not tell Lagosians how he has stopped, in its tracks, the LAMATA Red Line Light Rail Project that would have alleviated the suffering of Lagosians as they commute daily across the densely-populated city, not to talk of the loss of over 30,000 jobs that would have been created by the project”, it said.
APC said there is no stronger indication that President Jonathan holds the South-west in general and Lagos State in particular in contempt than his failure to grant the right-of-way approval for the project, considering its massive benefits that include ease of transportation, the decongestion of the city, the creation of, at least, 30, 000 jobs and the attraction of huge investments that the project, if approved, would have brought to the state.
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