For a cosmopolitan city like Lagos, coupled with its enormous population and attendant traffic challenges, deploying a working and well-thought-through transport management system is a no-brainer, so expectedly, whoever will be in charge of managing the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA) has got to be someone who not only think on their feet but also has the requisite experience and expertise to do the job to the T. It was in putting this square peg in the square hole, that is LAMATA, that Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu picked Engr. Abimbola Akinajo to help him actualize his dream in the transportation sector.
And indeed, Akinajo came in ready, hitting the ground running and deploying the necessary manpower and machineries, backed with her professional know-how, that has seen LAMATA being commended and even having other state governors across Nigeria send in their people to come and understudy the good work Akinajo is doing with LAMATA.
Akinajo is the first female and third managing director of the 16-year-old transport planning, implementing, regulating and franchising agency, and so far, she has shown that, as the popular cliché goes, what a man can do, a woman can do even better.
Testament to Akinajo’s brilliance and impeccable work ethics is the smooth running of the BRT transport system, as well as the recently deployed Blue Rail system in the state. Also, the intermodal transport system is being deployed by the state government, and LAMATA is critical to its successful deployment and running.
A chartered civil engineer with over 30 years of post-qualification experience, the last 25 of which have been in the design and delivery of major transport infrastructure projects. Akinajo earned a B.Sc. in civil engineering from the University of Lagos.
Akinajo was the managing director of Nexant Consulting Limited, a multi-disciplinary construction management and engineering consulting firm.
The consulting firm has extensive expertise and experience in Railway Engineering works (tracks, signalling, telecoms, power & electrification), major civil engineering projects (stations, depots, highways, bridges, buildings, etc.), structural engineering works, as well as asset management. The consulting firm was, at the time, the consultant for the Blue Line rail project.
She is a member of Institution of Civil Engineers (MICE), Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) and the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE).
