The Lagos State governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Obafemi Hamzat, has promised to deploy 4,000 compressed natural gas (CNG) buses to transport one million passengers daily as part of efforts to ease the state’s transportation challenges.

Hamzat, the incumbent Deputy Governor, also disclosed plans to expand water transportation through the deployment of 77 electric ferries and improve connectivity across Lagos through an integrated transport system.

He made the commitments on Sunday during the Lagos governorship debate organised by the Nigeria Debate Consortium, comprising Channels Television, TVC News, Punch, TheCable, and Vanguard.

Explaining his transportation plans, Hamzat said the objective was to reduce commuting time and give residents more opportunities to rest and spend time with their families.

“The plan is to give back time to the citizens to plan, to rest, to spend with their family. There’s nowhere in Africa that the private sector has funded a rail.

“Since BRT started, it has done 77 million journeys; that is with 1,000 buses. My plan says we will push it to 4,000 buses; the idea is to move one million people a day with 4,000 CNG buses, meaning up to 5,000, create BRT lanes from Marina to Epe, from Marina to Badagry and so on and so forth,” he said.

“Today, over four million people have the Cowry card. What does that mean? It means you can use ferry, you can use rail, and you can use BRT buses — one payment — so that we can deal with how to subsidise it.”

On healthcare, the APC candidate promised to expand access to medical services by increasing the number of primary healthcare centres offering round-the-clock services.

Hamzat said that, of the more than 300 primary healthcare centres in the state, the government planned to increase the number of flagship facilities from 87 to 150, with the centres operating 24 hours a day.

He also disclosed that the state government was constructing additional hospitals to improve access to healthcare for residents.