Ambode to eliminate danfo this year

The Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, on Monday said there were arrangements to evacuate yellow transports, prevalently known as danfo, from Lagos streets. 

He clarified that danfo would offer route to a more productive, all around organized and world-class mass transport framework that would encourage simplicity of development inside the city.

Ambode also said his administration had completed work on a comprehensive environmental sanitation policy that would make the city to be clean without any burden on the people in terms of taxes.

Speaking at the 14th annual lecture of the Centre for Values in Leadership (CVL) at the Muson Centre in Onikan with the theme, ‘Living Well Together, Tomorrow: The Challenge of Africa’s Future Cities,’ Ambode admitted that the danfo transport system in Lagos was not acceptable and befitting of a megacity, adding that a well-structured transport mode was needed to address the challenge.

He said, “When I wake up in the morning and see all the yellow buses, okadas (motorcycles) and all kinds of tricycles, I feel that the claim that we are a megacity is not true. We must acknowledge that it is a faulty connectivity that we are running.

“We have to look for a solution and that is why we want to banish yellow buses this year. We must address the issue of connectivity that makes people to move around with ease and that is where we are going.”

The governor said the main objective of his administration was the growth of the Lagos economy from fifth to the third largest economy in Africa.

In his opening remarks, CVL founder and renowned development expert, Prof. Pat Utomi, said the idea behind the formation of the group was to get young people to appreciate early that leadership was all about service to the people.

Chairman on the occasion and a former Governor of Cross River State, Liyel Imoke, said Nigeria’s population by 2050 would have tripled, adding that it was important for the country to start planning for liveable cities.

On his part, the Director of Centre for African Economies, Oxford University, Prof. Paul Collier, who was also the keynote speaker, said the country should start building its cities, with recourse to the population projection of Nigeria by 2050.