A delay of over a year in finalising the sale of the old Lagos train station is hampering the opening of a café and art gallery by a British couple.
The old station building was opened in 1922 but has been derelict for eight years until its sale in March 2013 to a British couple resident in Lagos.
The word ‘sale’ is a loose one as the final deed has yet to be signed after a year of frustration and delay.
REFER, the National Rail Network which is selling the property, said that a commercial establishment is to be created and that the sale process is still ongoing.
According Martiniano dos Reis of estate agency Garvetur, the property was purchased fourteen months ago but the only document signed was the Promissory Contract as the final deed must be authorised by the Government.
The real estate agent said the two Britons had been coming to Lagos for 30 years before finally moving there. The intention of the couple is to keep the original architectural features of the 1920s building, convert the space to install a café and art gallery, the theme for which will be based on railways.
Meanwhile the future of the small but interesting railway museum in an adjacent building is still as vague as ever. The council intends to reopen the museum which first attracted visitors in the 1980s.
There is a Railway Museum Foundation, whose spokesperson Maria Rita Pereira commented , "Our goal is soon, once they have finished the works of upgrading the roof, to reopen to the public and share the management with the council."
According to the Lagos councillor responsible for Culture, Fernanda Afonso, the contract for fixing the museum roof which was meant to have been done last August, still awaits approval by the Tribunal de Contas and it is “expected that the work will commence later this summer,” as the council said last year.
The museum which is closed for safety reasons is categorised by the council as being "very important to the city of Lagos as it houses a collection of locomotives dating from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries which are unique examples in the country."
The council’s action, on inaction, over the museum tells another tale and councillor Fernanda Afonso only now is looking at a protocol between the foundation and the municipality so the museum can once again be open for the public to enjoy.
