Abuja residents to begin using city trains by Christmas, says Minister

By Cosmas Uzodinmma, Chief Press Secretary, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory.
The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello has declared that residents should get ready to ride on the FCT light rail this Christmas as work on the project has reached 98 percent completion.
Also airport travellers would now have a choice, either to board cabs on arrival or departure or ride on trains from  the airport train station to the Central Business District Central Station or vice versa.
The Minister gave this indication amidst a galore of encomiums as he  swore-in the newly appointed Mandate Secretaries (as in State Commissioners) as well as Coordinators of Abuja Metropolitan Management Council and Satellite Town Development Department.
He revealed that he had met the project packages of Abuja light rail projects, at stages of completion below 70 and 50 percent respectively.  But drove the projects to 98 percent completion. He announced that residents should expect to ride on these trains by Christmas this year.
Malam Bello pointed to the significant works that have been done in the three major access ways into the City namely; the Outer Northern and Inner Southern Express Ways as well as the major arterials into the heart of the City, also known as the Constitution and Independence Ways. Some of these, he added, are ready for use by the public while major finishing touches were going on.
He indicated that the delay in the (new) appointments was deliberate and designed to strengthen the civil service institutional framework for the delivery of services.
He revealed that the Administration was already harvesting the fruits of the change agenda as he disclosed that he has made substantial payments to both local and foreign contractors enabling them to remobilize to sites. Dead sites have come alive again, he said, thousands of jobs have been saved, while the economy of the capital is flourishing again.