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Tonami Playman Profile picture
Tonami Playman
@TonamiPlayman
For the love of Data, Transit, and Energy
Mar 17 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Bringing this up again for the people in the back. Regional grids, Micro grids, Distributed grids, or worse, Off-grid Solar are band aid solutions.

Nigeria needs a national grid to achieve affordable electricity because load centers are in different regions from energy sources. Nigeria's current grid is under-built which results in underutilization of grid and generation capacity. The main load center is Lagos with the radial grid centered around it, but all Hydro (H) are located in Niger state & most Gas power plants (T) are in the Niger Delta. Image
Mar 10 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Vietnam has over 20 companies with more than 10,000 employees. You need a minimum of 26k to make the top 10. The #1, Vietnam Electricity, has 100k.

Compare that to Nigeria where Dangote Cement is the only company to cross the 10k mark with 21k employees. Image The total of Nigeria's largest employers is only 84,500 employees, not even enough to match Vietnam's #2 employer. The total of Vietnam's top 10 employers is 489k for a country with half of Nigeria's population. Image
Image
Nov 4, 2025 • 14 tweets • 8 min read
There's no such thing as free lunch. Uncontrolled extraction of groundwater will lead to land subsidence.

Tokyo & Shanghai used to have a sinking problem until they stopped the extraction. Venice sank because of it.

A 🧵 on subsidence & groundwater extraction. Image More here

…downtoearth-org-in.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.downto…
Oct 2, 2025 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Designing a national rail network and prioritizing phase 1 (red) shows that they did not consider actual traffic patterns.

Lagos-Onitsha is the busiest traffic corridor but gets no direct connection in this plan.

Also, HSR from Sokoto to Mauduguri (top yellow) is LOL. Image Trips between Onitsha & Lagos would have to go via Abuja with a transfer extending a 475km direct route to a 1,000km route. 110% ⬆️

The Lagos-PHC route would increase from 675km to 1,200km. 78%⬆️
Sep 5, 2025 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
@mucheke @kinjeketile @K2grind @Jasiri_CCIP Running more trains would be a better option than procuring double decker coaches. Currently only 2 express trains & 1 inter-county train run daily. Just add more trains.

Current coach capacity
Economy - 118 seats
First Class - 72 seats
Premium - 28 seats @mucheke @kinjeketile @K2grind @Jasiri_CCIP The SGR platforms are 450m long
Each passenger coach is 26.6m
Each locomotive is 22.5m

Longest train that can be accommodated is
(15 * 26.6m) coaches + 1 * 22.5m loco
421.5m total length

SGR fleet size
40+19 = 59 coaches
5+1 = 6 passenger locomotives Image
Sep 5, 2025 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
That's why the Akosombo dam was built in the first place to support the Aluminium smelter that became VALCO.

VALCO uses about 1/3rd of Akosombo dam's 1,038 MW capacity. Image Aluminum smelters consume 13-15 MWh of electricity per ton produced.

VALCO has a capacity of 200,000 tons per annum. Aluminium smelting pots must run continuously 24/7 to prevent solidification.

So at 13MWh per ton, that's
200,000*13/365/24
=297 MW power demand. Image
Jul 13, 2025 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
When trying to determine what location would be best to site a new Lagos airport, you're left with 3 possible sites.

Distance from Lagos island.
West - Ado Odo / Agbara - 50km
North - Papalanto / Olorunsogo NIPP - 51km
East - Lekki FTZ - 65km Image The current Lagos airport at Ikeja is already surrounded by dense urbanization creating a noise nuisance, & restricting any future growth.

One could consider a multi-airport system, but those are highly inefficient.
Jun 24, 2025 • 10 tweets • 5 min read
The cost of Grid Solar PV + Battery Storage has dropped so low that most African cities can meet more than 90% of their annual electricity needs with only Solar + Storage. The Shortfall can be met by other sources like Hydro, Coal, or Gas. The dramatic drop in CAPEX is mainly due to the drop in battery systems costs, which dropped by 40% between 2023 & 2024 due to the proliferation of LFP chemistry.

Further cost reductions are expected as 2nd Gen Sodium-ion batteries reach mass production.

May 12, 2025 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
I've proposed the relocation of the Lagos airport from the current location at MMIA to a more outer location in Ogun.

In my vision for what such an airport would look like, this is how I would integrate it with a larger rail masterplan for the larger Lagos metropolis. Image The airport in its final form, is planned to have 5 runways, 4 passenger terminals, & an air freight terminal.

This can be built in phases. Phase 1 would have only 2 runways and 1 passenger terminal. The train station would be sited between terminals 1 & 2. Image
Image
Apr 20, 2025 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
There are a few ways to discern if someone is being realistic of just blowing smoke.

1st, the shortest road distance between Enugu & Onne is 232km. How does a 135.5km new SGR line connect Enugu to Onne port? Image 2nd, in the current Nigerian frame work, a state-owned entity cannot build a railway in another state.

How does Enugu build a railway that goes through several other states without their input? Image
Apr 10, 2025 • 19 tweets • 6 min read
This is an amazing job and the most detail we've ever gotten on a LAMATA rail project. First off, I would like to point out that for an official govt organization, approving a voice over that butchers 100% of the pronunciation of the name is high level cringe. This is not just a LAMATA problem, but a general problem across both public & private entities in Nigeria. We have no right to complain when foreigners butcher our names when we can't even take it seriously for official presentations.
Mar 3, 2025 • 18 tweets • 6 min read
I would love to see what the actual map of this Anambra state rail mater plan looks like.

Going by the description, this is the route that I deduce. Without seeing the actual map, this is my critique of this plan. I would update it once I see the official route map. Image This proposed route would be about 65km long. If one is thinking about building a rail corridor that can seamlessly integrate into a national rail network for both passenger & freight traffic, this is a terrible alignment. Image
Feb 18, 2025 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
We love deceiving ourselves in Nigeria. Ever so often we get wild claims like this.

Let me make this clear...

...There's no bullet train revolution about to happen in Nigeria for a Lagos-Abuja HSR for a few reasons highlighted below. Image Link to article here.

guardian.ng/news/lagos-abu…
Jan 21, 2025 • 16 tweets • 6 min read
I noticed LAMATA has updated the Lagos Urban Rail Masterplan. Image If we compare this to the earlier maps from the 2010s,

-they've eliminated the shared track section between the Orange & Purple lines from Redeem to Toll Gate.

- Eliminated the shared section on the Purple & Blue lines from LASU to Okokomaiko. Image
Dec 4, 2024 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
A good update on the status of the Lagos Blue Line Phase 2 construction.

The 14km Blue line extension from Mile 2 to Okokomaiko has 6 stations and is scheduled to be completed in 2026. At the 16:50 mark The LAMATA director stated the completed 27km line would carry 250k to 500k daily riders and at the 17:17 mark, he stated they would have 250k daily riders at the start in 2026.

Nov 30, 2024 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
The actual active section of the Lagos Red line is 24.5km with 8 stations, so a 3.5km station spacing. For a commuter line, that is an actually good spacing.

What's not clearly understood is the different hierarchies of metro lines. Image In Lagos, the Red line & Blue line are in different categories, despite both of them just being referred to as metro by @Lamataonline

The Red line is a longer range suburban line which usually have ~4km station spacing.

The Blue line is an urban line which usually have ~1km
Nov 12, 2024 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
This concession plan is DOA. The Lagos Blue only carries 4,500 passengers per day, a number that is less than most regular bus services.

It would need significant upfront investment in the procurement of new trains. Yet you want a for-profit private entity to run it. 49 of the 127 CTA bus lines in Chicago carry more passengers than the Lagos blue line's 4,500 daily average, and those are not BRT.

rtams.org/ridership/cta/…Image
Oct 27, 2024 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
Considering Kenya's 4 major truck traffic corridors;

Nairobi-Mombasa - 483km
Nairobi-Kisumu - 342km
Nairobi-Marsabit - 531km
Nairobi-Garissa - 367km

All are within 500km range. A DC charging network would need 3 charging locations along each corridor. Image
Image
Image
Image This is based on the assumption of 500kWh as the median truck battery size.

A 500kWh truck @ 70% utilization & 1.3kWh/km efficiency would have a range of 270km and charge from 10-80% on a 500kW charger in 45-50 mins.

So a charging location every 250km is sufficient.
Oct 4, 2024 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
This false rhetoric has been playing for so long that Gemini AI presents it as fact.

Site - Atlantic Dist - Channel draft

Lekki Port - 0NM - 16m
Onne - 19NM - 12m
Apapa - 19NM - 12m
Obeaku - 27Nm - 4-6m
Port Harcourt Port - 31NM - 10m
Calabar Port - 34NM - 6m Image How can anyone look at a map and make such a blatantly false conclusion?

This situation also highlights the problems with AI search. If people write enough rubbish online that ends up being used to train the LLM, it's going to be spewing out rubbish too.

Sep 8, 2024 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
The entire 68km Lagos Green line is planned to have only 10 stations according to the official masterplan.

If they stick to the plan and don't add more stations, this will create a very unusable line.

Thanks to @chriskost for bringing this to my attention.
Image Here I compare the station spacing to 2 express metro systems.

Lagos Green Line - 68km - 10 Stns - 7.5km spacing
BART Green Line - 70km - 20 Stns - 3.7km spacing
Guangzhou Line 21 - 61.5km - 21 Stns - 3km spacing

Sep 7, 2024 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
The Onne Oil & Gas Free Zone was established in 1996. The Rivers State govt should have pushed to expand the zone to include manufacturing, There're readily available gas pipelines that can serve power plants to guarantee 24/7 electricity for the zone.
Image Link

intelservices.com/oil-gas-free-z…