Building the Lagos cable car to positively impact and transform peoples lives
Most childhood dreams of becoming an air hostess, or a Pilot often times fizzle out as life catches up with childhood dreams. Growing up robs most adults of this fantasy of piloting a Boeing 737, wearing smart uniforms and being the envy of all. However, for Captain Dapo Olumide this dream became a wish come true. From a career in aviation to piloting the affairs of Ropeways Transport as its Chief Executive Officer, Captain Dapo Olumide spoke with Muna Onuzo on Ropeways Transport’s vision of introducing Cable cars as the solution to the unbearable road transport gridlock currently plaguing the citizens of Lagos State.
Success simply means career actualization, being able to achieve ones set goals. For Captain Dapo Olumide, this means the quest for continuous development of both personal and corporate goals. Popularly called Captain by colleagues, Captain Olumide’s career in aviation has spanned thirty years. The role he has performed in those many years is as long as his cv. Most of his friends are not aware that he was in the Royal Air Force Cadet Corp in England, an aerobatic pilot in the US, was a pilot for Sabena Airlines of Belgium, was seconded to the Presidential fleet, was the CEO of Aero Contractors and the CEO of Virgin Nigeria. He joined Ropeways Transport as its Chief Executive Officer to implement the roadmap to actualize the vision of introducing cable cars to Lagos State as the future of alternative transportation system in Nigeria.
An American trained pilot, Captain Olumide worked with Aero Contractors for 25 years before finally retiring to start a new career in banking at the Africa Finance Corporation.
Muna: Captain, tell us how your aviation career started.
Captain Olumide: My formative years were spent here in Nigeria. As a matter of fact, aviation for me started in England as an RAF Cadet. Later, I returned to Nigeria briefly to attend the flying school in Zaria, although I was only there for about a month, before I left and headed to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida. I finally returned to Nigeria in 1981 only to find that our industry was gradually deteriorating. And things never really improved, so in 2006 I decided to throw in the towel and retire from aviation. Little did I know that I would soon return to aviation to head Virgin Nigeria, with a short mandate to turn around the now distressed airline. I delivered on my mandate and finally retired from aviation for the second time in 2010.
At this point, I needed a new challenge. Although other airlines approached me after Virgin Nigeria was sold, I was more inclined to accept a project that would require both my technical skill and over two decades of management experience. Fortunately, I was approached by His Excellency, Donald Duke whose dream it was to introduce the cable car public transportation system to Nigeria with Lagos as the flagship State. His Excellency sold the vision of the project to me and it dawned on me that this was the type of project I was waiting for all my life, and five years on, I can say that this is not just one visionary’s dream but also it has become our collective dream at Ropeways Transport that is fast becoming a reality.
Muna: What Risk factors are associated with Cable cars?
Captain Olumide: Urban cable car technology is inherently safe, and to date no death has been attributed to a failure of the technology. The fatalities that one reads about results from external factors outside the control of the system e.g. Snow avalanches pushing down a tower, or a military jet flying at rooftop height striking the cable. The technology is not new by any stretch of the imagination. In fact the Chinese have been using rope technology since 250 B.C., yes 250 B.C! to carry people, livestock and produce across rivers and gorges. The first example of an urban cable car was in 1644 in Austria, and the first urban cable car in America was in 1938.
So far, I’ve only talked about urban cable cars i.e. cable car systems designed specifically for use in mega cities. In fact there are many different applications and uses for the technology for example taking tourists up mountains for tourism; in ski resorts; to carry cars off ships; in the mining industry; to move the extracted coal from the mine to the processing facility. Tourism and leisure cable cars are supported by one cable, while urban systems are supported by three cables. This allows them carry more passengers in greater comfort and safety.
Muna: What is the realistic timeline from now to the commissioning of the first cable car in Lagos?
Captain Olumide: We started the project in 2011 in collaboration with the African Development Bank. The project development phase, which has taken five years has now been completed while construction, which will take another four years to complete, is in progress and the first phase will be ready to commence operations in 2018. I can confidently state that we are on time and on budget. Construction has begun already, although residents can’t see any activity for the time being because the on-going work is underground in the form of piling. It is only when the super structure of the cable car stations starts that people will be able to see evidence of the construction work that started probably twelve months before.
Muna: Lagos seems saturated and I am sure many readers will be wondering where Ropeways Transport will find land to situate the super station. Can you throw more light on this?
Captain Olumide: The Land needed for this project was acquired in many locations from Victoria Island, Adeniji Adele, Falomo, Obalende, Apapa, Iddo, Oluwole and Ijora. Some areas like Adeniji Adele are also extremely densely populated (population density of about approximately 35,000 people per square kilometer). This was a huge milestone for our organization as those who live in Lagos can attest to the chaos caused by all the drivers of various commercial buses and tipper lorries. I must say though that we could not have come this far without the support and partnership of the Lagos State government.
Muna: You have said that the idea behind this project is to provide one part of the Lagos transportation jigsaw. Could you please explain that?
Captain Olumide: Lagos State has what they call an integrated transport master plan. The Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA), for example, has projected where they are going to build more terminals. They have projected more BRT routes. It might come as a surprise to you to note that the cable car is also a part of the Lagos State’s transport system master plan and has been assigned three routes. The first route has three lines and they are color coded (blue, red and green). These routes all converge at Adeniji Adele. The green line starts at Victoria Island just at the bottom of Falomo Bridge and crosses the water to the Falomo Police barracks. There will be an interchange station there and from which point, the cable car travels to Obalende and then to Adeniji Adele. The blue line originates at Ijora/7Up and goes to Adeniji Adele via Iddo. The red line starts from Apapa and crosses the port and harbour to Oluwole and interchanges to Adeniji Adele. The three color-coded lines are about twelve kilometers and there will be two hundred and twenty cabins. Each cabin is designed to take about fifty people but for the sake of comfort we have restricted the capacity to thirty-eight passengers. Our projection is that it might be possible to transport five thousand five hundred people every hour from one station to the other. So, between two stations, we are projecting to transport about eleven thousand people in an hour across stations. This translates to seventy-seven thousand people an hour across the entire network.
Muna: Lagos is a historical Landmark for Nigeria. How will the cable car project affect her historical landscape?
Captain Olumide: Lagos, or “Eko” in the Yoruba language is indeed a very old city with its roots dating back to the 15th Century when the Benin Empire as it was then conquered the Awori settlement. A lot has changed since those days with the swamps and creeks of what is now Lagos Island witnessing a boom in development in the form of infrastructure. In the last century, the historical landmark of Lagos was the Cathedral church of Christ on the Marina. In this century the landscape is represented by a row of skyscrapers along the Marina. All of these past, and present landmarks have stamped a uniqueness on the city that is ‘Lagos’. As the future forms the fabric of the past, so will the launch of the cable car in turn become the new landmark of Lagos. This will show the world that Lagos has joined the league of the developed societies of the world. The cable car will symbolise the success and prosperity of Lagos, just as the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Big Ben in London, the cable car in Cape Town and the Statue of Liberty in New York have done. The Lagos cable car station designs will become a symbol of pride to the residents of the city. They will form a distinctive city identification, quite unlike any other city on earth. The historical landscape of Lagos, as with all mega cities the world over is constantly changing and evolving. Take London as an example. For hundreds of years, the Tower of London was seen on every postcard to represent London; today the pictorial image of London has been replaced with the London Eye. The people of Lagos, and indeed the whole of Nigeria is about to witness a paradigm shift in landscape architecture. And just as the Cathedral on Marina once marked the city’s historical landscape in the last century, so also will the cable car become a historical landscape of a past century by the time the year 2115 comes knocking.
Muna: What is the Project Budget and what is your organization currently doing to raise the necessary funds needed to start construction and complete the project?
Captain Olumide: By Project Budget, presumably you mean project cost, and not Project operating expenditure. The project cost is approximately US$600m. We have successfully completed our fund raising and due diligence exercises by the lenders group and our equity portion is currently over-subscribed. In terms of financing milestones leading to the disbursement of funds for construction, we will sign all the technical contracts in the first quarter of next year. Construction, in the form of piling has already commenced and is 100% complete at our Falomo tower location. Piling is also on-going at other tower locations on the island as we speak. The first phase of the Project from Victoria Island to Adeniji Adele will be completed in November 2018.
Muna: Most businesses claim that Government processes frustrate project timeline, what is your opinion?
Captain Olumide: Government works in a different way from the private sector. Government functions on the principle of bureaucracy and policy where the arduous movement of memos and minutes from one table to the other can frustrate any private organization’s well meaning projections. The ability of the Private Sector management to patiently follow up on these finer details will determine if the project will stay on schedule or not.
Muna: What about job creation?
Captain Olumide: Job creation is a major challenge in the country. Therefore,
keeping to the cable car launch scheduled for 2018 will also provide job
opportunities. There are two hundred and twenty cabins in the cable car and each cabin will have an attendant on board. This will not only create jobs but also it is to re-produce the feeling of passenger in-flight service such as you have aboard a plane. These attendants will be engaged for two years, after which another set of attendants will be employed and the current attendants will be reassigned roles. So, yes! There will be employment for over five thousand Lagos residents. It is not just about opening up opportunities; those selected to join the team must be individuals who have the confidence and the desire to understand the cable car technology and who will also ensure that the knowledge is appropriately transferred when necessary.
Muna: What does success mean to you?
Captain Olumide – Some people are happy with just a roof over their head; some want to have flashy cars; and there are those who don’t stop until they reach the pinnacle of their career. Building a cable car is more than a career move for me, its about self-actualization; to have been able to do something that people in Nigeria and even abroad believe to be impossible. When this project is commissioned and I walk into an event and I notice people whispering ‘that’s the guy’, that’s all I need; I don’t need money. My satisfaction comes from the knowledge that I helped create the future, empowered the youth and also inspired them with the confidence that they too can dream and do things that seem impossible.
As an entrepreneur, I believe that we all should have confidence in our ability. Many people lack self-confidence. We need to encourage the floating of more visionary projects. We started the cable car project in early 2011 and we had our visionary investors with us and some of them had not even heard of the cable car system before. Yet, they believed in the viability of our dream. You have to be confident to be able to convince your investors. You have to believe in yourself first, and then step out in faith backed with a positive and strategic action plan or blueprint before anyone will believe and invest in your dream.
MUNA ONUZO