 Thanks for staying with us. It's still the breakfast on Plus TV Africa right now. We're going to take a hot topic, and it's something that we're hoping that soon enough we are going to be singing finally the Lord has done it. I took more than 16 years for the blue line in Lagos to start working. Now we've been promised by the governor of Lagos State, Mr. Songolu, that the red line will be flagged off by this month's end, even though it was set in China, not here in Nigeria, but we'll still welcome it if it does happen. But to discuss this with us, we have the National President of Nigeria and Union of Real Workers, Mr. Comrade Innocent Ajiji. Good morning and welcome to the program. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you. So let's use this time to say thank you to you for what you did during Christmas because they said that we're going to have free rides on the train, and you guys worked really hard. We hope that was a success. Hello. Comrade, can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Okay, we can hear you now. Yes, we can hear you. We hope that exercise was a success. Yes. Oh yeah, it was successful. And the Nigerians are happy with the President of Nigeria for extending this kind of gesture to Nigerians at the right time. So it was successful. Yeah, the projection was about 5 million people. 5 million people. Did you get up to that? Or what experience were there that you had? And the people even come out like influx. Oh yes. Yes, at the point in time the train was not even containing the card we had. And within 802 we were able to transport over 63,000 passengers. And everyone was happy at the point in time. So we didn't even ride on the train because of the crowds that we had. Okay, well, let's come back home. The red line, we are enjoying the blue line even though it has not reached where we wanted to reach or where it is projected that it's going to reach. So I'm sure it's supposed to start from, even if it's starting from Marina, it should get to as far as Badagri or so and maybe continue from Marina to Ajah or something like that. But we thank God for small messes. Now we're hearing the red line is going to start in February. We'd like to hear your comments on that, first of all. Okay, first of all, I want to appreciate Lego State Government and I want to tell Legosians that Lego State has been very lucky in terms of choosing their leaders that are normally leading the state. And it's a project that was started long ago and you can see that there was continuity. So other governors didn't come to say it was not a project that was not initiated by me and as a result of that I will abandon it. But in Lego State it is totally different. We want to indulge other states to learn from Lego State because it's a project that is capital-intensive in nature. It is also time consuming and of course there's a huge amount of money involved. You know you have to build the rail lines, you have to build the stations, you have to bring so many things before you can have a train run in the corridors of the track or the location you wanted it to run. So the blue line, of course, here from my tour to Marina is working efficiently and effectively. Okay, so we're talking about this blue line or rather the red line being flagged off by the end of the month. Well, if the precedence is really blue. No. Yes. Sorry, are you with me? Yes, go ahead. Okay, the red line is going to be here and it's going to run on railway corridors unlike the blue line that is strictly owned by Lego State Government. So the red line, the rolling stops, I know they have got two rolling stops that are on ground right now and they have test run it last week and in all this in preparation to start running up the train as promised by the government. And so from Agadon to Abu-Termeta where we have the Mobile Lodge Johnson station, the track is owned by railway. Then from Abu-Termeta here to Ohimbo was actually built by Lego State Government and they have a very big station which they built at Ohimbo where passengers will alight and even embark on the train. So the intention is to extend it to Ido up to Marina and then at Ikeja they want to have a spore into the international airport where you can equally ride trains from Ohimbo to international airport. And so those are their targets. And I'm not showing you that by the time these trains start running traffic will be less in Legos and then movement will be very, very easy for commuters of our train. Okay, so you said some are being built by Lego State Government and others. Is this like a partnership between the way you have state roads and federal roads? Is this like a partnership between the Lego State Government and the federal government? You are very correct. It's a partnership between the federal government and Lego State Government. Okay, interesting. So now since we talked about the fact that testings are already being done for the red line to be flagged off at the end of the month, how sure are we that this is safe for passengers to commute to their work, their homes and all of that. So is this safe enough adequate testings being done for this red line? I cannot show you that the surface means of transportation in the whole world is the red line. The way our stations are built, they are well secured and you are aware that we have scanners all over. We have security. We have a railway command, a whole command of the police which is headed by a commissioner of police just like every other state commissioner of police. We have a whole command of civil defence with a headquarter here in Legos where we have a commander leading the command just like every other state commander of civil defence. And we have other internal security that are not known to people. So every security aspect and measures that is needed is put in place already because it will interest you to know that on the same track, we are already running Legos to Ibadan train on daily basis where we have never had any situation of security challenge or any situation that was not being able to be managed by the security we have on car. So I assure you that it is very safe for all Nigerians. Let me digress a little bit from Legos but it's still the same railway and trains. Why does it seem like the security you are talking about the train being the safest and all that is not showing that much in the federal level because we remember not too long ago when a lot of people were kidnapped when they were trying to move from one point to the other in the train that was the federal government train, not Legos train. So Legos is experiencing this, what are they doing that the federal government is not doing or what went wrong if they are doing these things? Okay, you know that time actually the security precisely it was a Ujaka Dona train in 2022 where there was a bomb attack and people were kidnapped and so many were killed of course that was a huge blow on the railway management and also the union and in that regard we all came together and then came up with a different strategy entirely to check our track, to check our security and it was the security apparatus was actually energized and that's why since then you have not had any attack on any of our facilities. We equally have a train that is running between Worry and Itagbe, we have a train that is in Kojiste, Worry in Delta and then it runs to Itagbe. On daily basis we also have a train running from Legos to Ipadam on daily basis and then very soon we are introducing our train that will be running from Legos to Kanu also, that one is going to be run on the narrow cage and the other three trains I have mentioned are running on the standard cage which of course Legos state government also their system of railway is built on a standard cage and so that is why it was easy for them to come into partnership with railway so for security I assure you that it will be very very difficult for us to still have the kind of challenge we had but then on the Abu-Jaccaduna train I do hope that this security is the way you are describing it because I have taken the train just for the fun of it and the ride was great anyway but I didn't seem to see any security and sometimes it helps to just see that security personnel that you will know that if there is anything that is going haywire that somebody is going to at least call for help if you cannot but I don't see those people, are they hidden? do you guys have like imagines lines or you know a place for obviously we do not pray for incidents like this but do you have any imagines our exits for these people or anything that can be done in case there is a situation like this that arises well we have our workers moving right inside the train and they work in collaboration with the security and even the security that our train they are even on monthly you may not know their security and as a result of that if you have any emergency our staff are easily identified by them wearing their uniform or reflective jackets so if you have any emergency or any need for assistance you can quickly talk to any of our staff and they will lead you to the right direction and for security their strategy are so many you may not come on there to begin to blow it but I assure you that our trains are well secure okay just finally if you were to advise the government especially the government of Lagos on things that you think could be added because there is always room for improvement what are those things that you think may be lacking or even if they are not lacking they could have been better than the way they are what would you advise the governor if you were given that opportunity okay I would advise the governor to kindly extend the services of this I mean the rail lines to locations where they are actually needed like from Moimbo to Marina Marina to Lakey Lakey to Ajah if possible up to a bay because we have a lot of people coming into town from those directions on daily basis and I'm sure that is done to reduce traffic on the road and so also I would equally advise that they should purchase more trains they should acquire more trains because these two rake of trains they have I am not sure that is going to be enough in terms of containing the number of people that will be patronizing their facilities because I'm saying a lot of experience because even in railway the government actually need to improve by bringing more trains and also bringing trains that will run on the narrow gauge because you see the narrow gauge we have covers over 26 states in Nigeria and covers about 5,455 km which of course the trains we have are obsolete and no new locomotive no coaches, no workers all these are put in place I assure you that Nigerians will not need to travel they will all prefer to move by train and even carrying fuel and goods from Legos to Kotakot, Legos to Metuburi Legos to whatever direction is not a good idea at all so if all these trains are put in place I assure you that Nigerians will find it very very easy to move from one direction to the other Thank you so much Comrade for covering the program and enlightening us on what we needed to know It's been a pleasure having you Thank you so much We've been talking to Comrade Sender Gigi he is the national president Nigerian union of railway workers and he was talking to us on the fact that the government of Legos has promised that the red line will be flagged up at the end of February I do hope that time gets to come very very fast and much as I would like to say trains are good sometimes even getting to where you will get the train to another location will take you almost the same amount of money that you are supposed to pay on the road or something so how will these be done such that you can get there easily and move from one point to the other if I want to go to Abuja for instance I need to go to Ibado if I'm going to Ibado where do I need to get a train to go to Ibado maybe I'll have to go to Ibute Meta and I leave maybe somewhere like Ojo Du Vega and I'll have to go to Ibute Meta at the end of the day at the end of the day the price I'm going to pay from Ibute Meta on a train ride to Ibado is like double of what I'm going to pay from Ojo Du Vega to Ibado so that when we see that there is safety there there is a stop here for instance in other countries there are different stops this is Birmingham this is Coventry different stops like that so you don't have to travel all the way to Ibute Meta you can just take it from your stop or there should be buses like BRT buses that will be dedicated to one of the stops that you need to go to because if I have to pay so much we're developing so I'm sure we'll get there well today is a very very important day as well it's not only for the internet that we've been talking about all this time we're also celebrating or using today today 6th of February is always used for awareness on female genital mutilation it's something that we all need to be talking about all the time and in Africa it's a culture and that culture sometimes when we don't do what the culture tells us it's a SIVA we are dead or something but we're not dead there are some things from our culture or in our culture that needs to change needs to be abolished needs to even change for instance at some point in Cross River State in Calaba precisely twins were killed by bad omen or something but now we know that twins are awesome if you have twins you are just lucky to have the twins and they're not what we used to think of them so there are some things in our culture that might be very very bad and we need to stop that female genital mutilation is celebrated today the awareness is today now there are things that are said as maybe you should be talking about this these are some of the disadvantages if you have female genital mutilation there will be severe pain which is true excessive bleeding or hemorrhage genital tissue swelling that can even lead to death fever, infections like tetanus urinary problems wound healing problems injury to surrounding genital tissues that sometimes it affects you at childbirth and then another one that they didn't add here is sexual libido when you are having your conjugal when you are having conjugal visit you won't enjoy it you won't have the same feeling as when you are natural created by God to do it's alright for the men but for the women it's not so it's very risky in most cases some people die out of this and all that so what is it it's only a myth thinking that it's when you do this mutilation that a woman respects herself whoever is going to be crazy will be crazy we are not without it so let's create awareness when we go back to our villages or friends that this has to stop genital mutilation it has to be abolished a lot of people will come and say if a woman will be promiscuous you don't do that but at the end of the day you don't even want them to die because there are times it leads to death like I said she's about to give birth you don't even understand your body anymore because things that were supposed to be there have been cut out it's something that needs to be abolished and we do not support it at all and you shouldn't either so if you've ever thought about it doing that to your kids your female kids please it's not a good idea make sure they are okay, they are safe it's your duty to keep every woman around you safe so female genital mutilation is not a way to keep them safe instead it's a way to make them feel like they are not women anymore on that note we will have to draw the curtain on today's show we would like to thank you for being a part of this show and we hope that you will return tomorrow for another edition until then remember my name is Nyam Gul Agadji my name is Rumeh Paul Singh thank you and have a good day