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Opening up suburb axis of Lagos for commercial, tourism activities

By Gbenga Salau
28 August 2016   |   4:16 am
To halt that trend and ensure that people begin to appreciate living and working in some of the suburbs including Epe and Badagry, the Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, has revealed that the government was constructing...
Lagos State Governor Akinwunmi Ambode

Lagos State Governor Akinwunmi Ambode

The inner towns within Lagos are crowded with both human and economic activities, resulting in the facilities getting over stretched. This is not the case in the suburbs, which are devoid of high commercial activities and making it less attractive for residents, especially youths, who are constantly itching to gravitate towards the city centre.

To halt that trend and ensure that people begin to appreciate living and working in some of the suburbs including Epe and Badagry, the Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, has revealed that the government was constructing a network of 25 roads and a marina in Epe.

Speaking while on a tour of ongoing projects executed by the state on the Lekki-Ajah-Epe axis, Ambode disclosed that he envisions making every part of Lagos livable and commercially viable adding that the projects when completed would boost its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), open up the communities within Epe for investment opportunities and generally boost the economy of the state.

He disclosed that work was also ongoing at another marina in Badagry, which will play host to appropriate facilities to grow the tourism potentials of the community too, just as he pointed out that both facilities in Epe and Badagry were modeled after the Dubai Marina.

He said that as Epe was being opened up for more investments and tourism, the projects being constructed to drive the dream were being replicated in Badagry too.

The Epe-Marina site is to facilitate development of the area and promote tourism, which comes with sand filling to the lagoon up to about one kilometers and dualization of the network of roads in the axis with functional walkways.

On why the Epe-Marina and Badagry-Marina projects were embarked upon simultaneously, Ambode said: “We want to actually duplicate what you see in Dubai-Marina. This is a whole stretch of two kilometers of real estate and new tourist centres that we are putting in Epe and Badagry at the same time

“We know that by the time we are expanding tourism potentials of Badagry and Epe at the same time, we will be able to get new investors that will be able to come to our new locations to do other things beyond what you see about recreation, tourism or entertainment and then get a whole lot of investments into Lagos State. This is part of our dreams and dreams do come true.

“We are looking at the future of tourism from both axis. You cannot put tourism in those places without doing the infrastructure that is required to allow people to come in and that is why we are also doing the road network,” Ambode said.

The governor added that the massive investment of government in the area was part of the grand plan to transform the axis and same was in line with the Lekki Free Trade Zone (LFTZ) project.

Also inspected in the course of his several stopovers, were Adeniji Adele transport interchange outward Third Mainland Bridge, where he ordered massive enforcement against illegal dropping and picking of passengers at undesignated bus stops in order to enhance ease of vehicular movement around that axis to drastically reduce traffic on the Third Mainland Bridge inward Obalende and Lagos Island.

He also inspected the on-going rehabilitation and upgrading of Freedom Road, Admiralty Way in Lekki, as well as the on-going bridge being constructed at Ajah Roundabout.

Also commenting, the Commissioner for Water Front Infrastructures, Engr Adebowale Akinsanya, revealed that the Badagry Marina is expected to be completed in August while the contractor handling the Epe Marina assured it would be ready in November, a month ahead of the projected date for completion. Akinsanya maintained that when the two marinas are completed, they would be world class and would compete with any in other part of the world.

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