Senate to probe railway projects under Buhari

Worried over repeated derailments and mechanical failures on the Itakpe–Warri rail corridor, the Senate on Tuesday resolved to investigate the railway projects and others executed under the immediate past administration of the late Muhammadu Buhari.

The Senate subsequently set up an ad hoc committee to carry out a comprehensive probe into the projects and submit a report within six weeks.

The resolutions were sequel to a motion sponsored by Senator representing Delta Central, Ede Dafinone (Delta Central), who drew the attention of the Red Chamber to what he called the “disturbing and persistent technical breakdowns” on the Warri-Itakpe standard gauge rail line.

Presenting his motion, Senator Dafinone recalled that the line, which was commissioned with fanfare, has now become a source of public concern and national embarrassment as a result of constant derailments and service disruptions.

He maintained that the projects executed by the Buhari administration have continued to endanger the lives of passengers, undermined confidence in the country’s rail transport system, and raised serious questions about the quality of engineering, supervision, and maintenance of the project.

He urged the Senate to mandate the Federal Ministry of Transportation and the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) to immediately undertake an independent technical assessment of the Itakpe–Warri corridor to determine the root causes of the failures and implement corrective measures without delay.

The lawmaker equally called on his colleagues in the Senate Committee on Land Transport to conduct an on-the-spot oversight visit to the affected areas, particularly the Agbor section in Delta State, and submit a comprehensive technical and safety report.

To mitigate the unsavoury development of technical failures in future, Senator Dafinone called for the establishment of a National Rail Safety and Standards Unit to carry out periodic safety audits, enforce compliance with international best practices, and ensure accountability and transparency across all national rail corridors.

Other lawmakers, in their individual contributions, called into question the quality of the rail projects executed under the last administration.

Senator representing Bauchi Central, Abdul Ningi, described the persistence in the technical failures “a national embarrassment that speaks volumes about the inefficiency of those managing the rail sector.”

He said, “This is not about politics. The government borrowed billions of dollars to construct these lines, yet they are failing barely two years after completion.

“We cannot continue to waste public funds and endanger lives because of negligence and mismanagement. Those responsible must be held to account.”

Lawmaker representing Imo North, Patrick Ndubueze, called for a total reorganisation of the NRC as he declared that it has failed to live up to public expectations.

He said: “We should reorganise the NRC completely. The agency is no longer functioning as it should. Our roads are deteriorating because freight that should move by rail is being moved by road. If we fix the rail system, it will decongest the highways, reduce accidents, and save lives.”

Senator representing Ogun West, Solomon Olamilekan Adeola (Ogun West), who spoke specifically on the Itakpe–Warri line, said the Senate should investigate whether due process was followed in the bidding and execution of the project.

Senator representing Jigawa North-West, Babangida Hussaini, identified poor project conception and weak maintenance culture as problems bedevilling rail projects in the country.

He said, “From design to execution, our approach to project management is very poor. The same contractors who built other railways across Africa have delivered quality systems that are still running efficiently. Why is ours collapsing so soon after commissioning?”

He further submitted that the same problems were responsible for the poor state of our road infrastructures.

He said, “This is why our roads are failing. If the rail lines were working, heavy goods would not need to move by road. We are now paying for inefficiency in one sector by overburdening another.”

In his concluding remarks, President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio described the motion as “timely and necessary to protect lives, restore service reliability, and safeguard national investments.”

He said, “This is not a partisan issue. The derailments began even before this administration took office. We must find out what went wrong, from how the loans were obtained to how the projects were executed and maintained. The Nigerian people deserve answers.”

The Senate, at the end of the rigorous debates, mandated the Federal Ministry of Transportation and the NRC to immediately fix the Itakpe–Warri line, deploy more coaches, and improve safety standards.

It equally directed its Committee on Land Transport to conduct a full-scale investigation into all railway projects executed during the Buhari administration, with particular attention to project funding, implementation standards, and maintenance practices.

The lawmakers also endorsed the establishment of a National Rail Safety and Standards Unit to monitor all rail operations nationwide and ensure compliance with international best practices.

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