Restoring rail travel

GRADUALLY, the resuscitation of rail travel is receiving a lift in the country. This is gladsome, especially taking into consideration the fact that this sub-sector of Nigerian transportation had been comatose for years. Indeed, although the then President Olusegun Obasanjo, on October 9, 2006, declared that “no nation has achieved holistic development without a coherent, integrated, efficient and reliable transportation system” while setting out his vision for the revitalisation of Nigeria’s 3500km rail network, funding problems stalled the vision, including the Lagos-Kano standard gauge modernisation project, and  it took the Goodluck Jonathan administration to construct the Abuja-Kaduna rail line between February 2011 and December 2014. In  October 2014, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the sum of $6.6 million for the procurement of two locomotives for the Abuja-Kaduna railway. However, on assuming office in 2015, the Muhammadu Buhari administration gave even greater impetus to the rail revitalisation project conceptualised but not executed by the Obasanjo administration.

The rail routes, namely the 327km Warri-Ajaokuta-Itakpe line, the 168km Abuja-Kaduna line, the 157km Lagos-Ibadan line and a couple of other routes have been giving a boost to the transport system. Conceived as a means of enhancing the shipment of resources from the coast to the hinterlands of the protectorates and ferrying goods and resources to places proximate to the sea for onward shipment to Britain, the rail system is said to be perhaps the greatest singular enterprise bequeathal to Nigeria by the colonial government. It helped to kick-start development tremendously. From its conception by Gilbert Carter, then Governor of Lagos, railway upped the economies of the protectorates, bringing development to the country.

However, as fundamental and strategic to development as railway was and is, there was little or no investment in its sustenance and development in over a century of operations. For example, until the Nigerian Senate passed the Nigerian Railway Corporation Bill on July 21, 2016, the antiquated Railway Corporation Act of 1955 was the only law in place to guide the operations of the sector. The alleged activities of some transportation czars committed to the sustenance of their personal business of transporting goods through articulated lorries accounted in part for the eventual suffocation of rail transport. Thus, the fact that the sector is witnessing some level of activity is worthy of applause.

Even with the teething problems confronted when it kicked off, Nigerians may be gradually returning to the idea of travelling by rail. The coaches are neat and efficient. In a Nigeria infested with insecurity on the roads, rail transport will, all other things being equal, go a long way in helping travellers to achieve their aim of navigating one part of Nigeria to the other without anxiety. More fundamentally, an effective rail system will contribute significantly to boosting the economy, with the growth of other businesses around the loop of this major transport system. In the long run, investors will be encouraged to expand the scope of the sector, thereby bringing about a seamless overhaul of the sector.

However, aside the anxiety over the huge borrowings that went into the resuscitation of the sector, there seems to have been a conceptual error in the thinking behind the project. Till date, travelling by rail in the country is still a far cry from what obtains in the civilised climes. First is the unusually long and strange number of hours that travellers are made to spend on the resuscitated railways. The subsisting system is just a little effort in the quest to address the yawning gaps in rail transport. All over the world, a railway system is conceived to be a mass transit instrument which, of a necessity, has to be easily accessible to the populace. It has to be affordable and must appropriate the latest technology. Unfortunately, the current resuscitated railway system lacks standard technology, and is not even operated as a standard gauge. In 2021, Nigerians expect to travel in fast trains that take into consideration the busy nature of the entrepreneur. There must be drastic improvements in the operations of the rail service. While it is commendable that Nigeria now has functional train services, the ultimate goal is to have trains that are as fast and effective as those in use in the advanced world.

The foregoing notwithstanding, we commend the efforts of the Buhari government in the sector. They will go a long way in reviving the fortunes of the sector.

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