IT took a long time, but at last, the Lagos State Government has taken an active interest in the long standing neglect of the rail network in the Apapa axis, the nation’s number one economic gateway. Governor Raji Fashola went with a high powered delegation of his cabinet to inspect the abandoned work yard of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) at Marine Beach, Apapa recently.

At the end of the exercise, he called on the Federal Government, whose exclusive duty it is under the constitution to develop and operate the railway system, to take up its bounden responsibility of restoring the Apapa rail system in order to allow it play its role in the evacuation of goods cargoes to all parts of the country.

Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola SAN (2nd left), Commissioner for Transportation, Mr. Kayode Opeifa (2nd right), and the Chairman, Lagos State Task Force on Environment and Special Offences (Enforcement) Unit, Chief Superintendent of Police, Bayo Sulaiman (right) during the Governor’s inspection tour of the abandoned Nigerian Railway Corporation Port Work Yard at Marine Beach Apapa on Sunday, August 31, 2014.

Governor Fashola also promised to compile a report of what his team noticed and the things required to be done in a joint effort with the federal government to ensure that the rail transport sector is revived to ease the logjam and danger that trailers, trucks and tankers from all parts of the country constitute.

We commend the interest shown by the Lagos State Government in playing its part to ensure the federal government takes the Apapa rail sector along in its railways revitalisation effort, which is proceeding at an intolerable snail’s pace.

We need the extra voices added by the LASG and the organised Labour, which recently made a similar call on the Federal Government to tackle the infrastructural decay of Apapa and other parts of the country to enhance the growth of the economy. Before now, the LASG had tended to treat the abandonment of federal government assets in Lagos as if it is none of its business.

There is no alternative to joint efforts between the state and federal governments, as well as the private sector in the development of our economic potentials across the country.

This particularly applies to railways development, in which unfathomable opportunities exist for job creation and development of new frontiers in small and medium scale businesses.

The revitalisation of the Apapa rail line, which was set up by the British colonial masters and run down by the military regime in the middle 1980’s, is long overdue.

This neglect is responsible for the nightmare of getting in and out of this vital economic zone as a result of the jungle of tankers, trailers, trucks and all sorts of automobile juggernauts that struggle for entry through the overworked and congested roads.