By Steve Agbota

The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has said that the new Lagos-Ibadan rail line would be fully ready for formal inauguration and commence full operation in June.

Amaechi, who stated this last week in Ibadan, Oyo State, after a train ride from Lagos on an inspection of the line, also ordered the arrest of buyers of vandalised rail track facilities and other equipment.

According to him, about 90 per cent of the project being handled by China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) was ready, adding that the remaining work should be completed in two-three weeks.

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He said he would need to obtain the approval of President Muhammadu Buhari to give the actual date of the inauguration of the line currently on skeletal service/trial run.

“I hope the office of the President will approve the commissioning of this project in June. We will communicate the actual date in the next one or two weeks but certainly, I think it is in June.

“We are not 100 per cent ready for commissioning but we are 89 to 90 per cent ready for commissioning and we are hoping that by the next three weeks, we will be ready. And by then, they will give us a date from the office of the president.

One thing is that by the time they give us a date, we will be ready for commissioning,” he said.