Following the increment in the flat rate of tickets from N460.00 to N700.00 for passenger transiting from Kajola/Ijoko in Ogun State to Iddo in Lagos State onboard the narrow gauge of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), train users have accused the management of NRC of subjecting passengers to inhuman and deplorable condition onboard the Lagos-Ogun trains.
The aggrieved passengers, in a chat with Nigerian Tribune on Thursday identified some of the basic needs of passengers onboard the narrow gauge trains to include seats properly covered with leather, coaches fixed with lights and fans, including toilets and windows to protect passengers from rain whenever there is a downpour.
A regular passenger of the daily Ijoko/Kajola to Iddo Lagos mass transit train, Mr. Pius Mordi said that the management of the NRC at the district level has no regard for the welfare of passengers who are faced with challenges of excreting or easing themselves when pressed because the toilet are chocked with passengers.
He advised the NRC to ensure that passengers are not allowed to stay in the toilet whenever the train is in transit.
Apart from that, Mordi also said that some of the seats in the coaches have been damaged and are not covered with leather, thus making it uncomfortable for passengers to seat.
Another passenger, Kayode Awosika lamented that despite the income generated from over 10,000 passengers daily on the two mass transit trains that transit Ijoko/Kajola and Iddo every work day, the train coaches have no lights when it’s evening, thereby forcing passengers to enter and disembark from the trains at nights in total darkness.
For Mrs Taiye Oloruwa, the train ticket rates should be based on destination of a passenger and not flat rate, adding that since the N700.00 per passenger rate was introduced, passengers going to Agege from Ijoko have opted for commercial buses.
She suggested that the rate should be pegged at N500.00 per passenger so that passengers disembarking in-between trips and Iddo terminals can patronise the service.
She also suggested that the train windows should be fixed stating that, “Anytime it rains, passengers get soaked because the trains have no windows.
“Passengers sitting beside the windows get soaked and even those at the doors are not spared. Despite this, the NRC has increased it’s rate to N700,00. This is unfair,”
When contacted on the lamentations of the passengers, the NRC District Manager for Lagos, Engineer Augustine Arisa said that management is not unaware of the challenges passengers are facing inside the coaches but that the coaches are currently being refurbished in phases.
He disclosed that the first phase of six coached are being refurbished at Iddo and Loco workshops adding that as soon as work on the coaches is completed it will be attached to the existing coaches in the corporation’s fleet.
Arase explained that after the first phase another batch of six coaches will be removed from operation and sent to the workshops for refurbishing so as not to completely ground train operation.
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