THE chaotic traffic logjam in almost every part of urban Lagos has once again brought to the fore, the cancelled Metro project that would have made gridlock a non-issue in the countrys commercial nerve centre.In a city where the average worker wakes like a cock and goes to bed late, just to get to the office early enough to eke out a living, a project like Metro Line would no doubt have saved the situation.The project, before now, was thought to have been put to the cooler by his successor after the December 31, 1983 coup, the late Air Commodore Gbolahan Mudashiru.But his boss and head of state at that time, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, who is the presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), disclosed in Lagos in the week that he actually cancelled the project because of the exorbitant funds requested by the company handling it.Speaking during the formal presentation of CPC manifesto at the City Hall, Buhari said he took the decision then in the interest of the country.Hear him: As at the time I was in government, the company handling the project requested for $100m and I could not pay such huge amount, as the country was broke then.When Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo was leaving the government in 1979, the economy was good, but within four years, the civilian regime squandered the money in government coffers. Nigeria was broke when we took over and we were even in debt.Apart from that, we promised Nigerians when we took over that we were not going to take any foreign loan.Economically, it was unwise then to embark on the project. Even before we cancelled it, we set up series of committee, both in Nigeria and abroad, to look at it before the final decision was taken.At the time of conception, Lagos would have been one of the very few African countries enjoying such a project and it would have gone a long way in alleviating the terrible traffic bottlenecks in Lagos today.Former permanent secretary, Chief Philip Asiodu, in a recent interview alluded to the fact that Buhari killed the project.He said: 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.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 monorail from Ikeja to Ebute-Ero. It could see the way Lagos was growing and the need for mass urban transit. With the coup détat of 1966, that put paid to that. We were retired in 1975 after the coup and 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. It is not possible.We were able to persuade the government, at that time, the late Gen. Shehu Musa YarAdua was the Minister for Transport, to make it that every city above two million should have mass transit, he recalled.For Lagos, he said it was agreed that they should go and design for construction a mass transit line immediately. RTP of France, which in Paris was coordinating the buses with the subways, etc linking one another, was picked as contractor.He continued: We went from Lagos to Ibadan, Ilorin, Kaduna, Jos, Kano, Makurdi, 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. In the meantime, RTP had done preliminary studies and handed over.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 per cent 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 didnt need subsidy. The country would benefit.In the interview, Asiodu added: They started designing Lagos and Cairo the same time. Then Buhari/Idiagbon did coup against then President Shehu Shagari and decided to cancel the project, of which we had already paid 15 per cent per $60 million and work had started in Yaba, he noted.They then took us to court and found us guilty, naturally, and fined us $60 million. I am sure that is part of what we settled finally in the Paris Club debt. It must have become $3 billion dollars and not one kilometre 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. Maybe they did not know what they were doing.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, he regretted.Buharis admission of responsibility for the cancellation of a project that would have by now saved Lagos and indeed Nigeria the loss of man hours on the road, apart from other health hazards caused by too many vehicles on the road at the same time, could no doubt affect his chances in the forthcoming election.It is indeed one of the many opportunities bungled by one of our many leaders, some of whom still wants to rule us.-Ade lives in Lagos
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