The death of three train roof top riders last Monday in Lagos has underscored the need to stop the deadly practice by many commuters. But the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) is short of trains to promote safe and affordable public transportation, writes ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE.
Time was 8.00 p.m penultimate Tuesday. The train driver had barely applied the brakes when hordes of commuters, all men, swarm round the already filled train and made their way to the roof of the coaches.
Within minutes, the roof tops of the 16-coach long train, had filled. People hung on all available spaces, including the train’s engine room and generating set compartment.
That night, the Railway Police Command, arrested 58 of these illegal riders. The Acting Area Commander of the NRC Police Command, Ebute-Metta, Lagos Mainland, Mrs Sarah Mangue, a Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP), later confirmed that over 400 commuters made it to coaches’ rooftops to Agege, before their ride was busted in an operation led by Ishaku Agwum, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP).
Though the suspects had been reduced to a sorry state when they were eventually paraded, events soon proved that they were lucky to be alive. Three of such riders died last Monday. They fell to their death from where they were hanging on the train, at the same spot in Agege, where a similar arrest was made a week earlier.
Their death has again underscored the question: why do people choose to die so cheaply?
A world-wide phenomenon, rooftop riding is identified as a preserve of the poor, the majority of who opted for the illegal and risky ride because they do not have the fee for a more decent ride.
Deadly option
Though accepted as the “usual,” in developing and low and middle income countries, this life-threatening travel has been a long standing culture that many living in Lagos and parts of Ogun State seem to enjoy.
Investigation by The Nation showed that there is no difference between the train’s morning and evening shuttles, which are the heaviest in passenger traffic and the ubiquitous Molue, the ubiquitous Lagos Yellow mini buses, which are gradually being phased out by the government.
The Ijoko-Alagbado-Iddo bound trains the first of which leaves at about 6am, as well as the Iddo-Alagbado-Ijoko trains the first of which makes a return at about 5pm, are usually filled to the brim. On many occasions, the train, the only cheap means of transportation from Ijoko would be filled before getting to Alagbado, with many who can’t find a seat hanging at any available space, either at the door or at the gang way for the bumpy ride.
Though, the morning shuttle does not usually record roof top riding for fear of arrest by the NRC Police Command, all hell is usually let loose on the return journey as largely scruffy-looking area boys, suspected to be returning from Lagos Island where they ply their trade usually take over.
Before the train would hit Mushin station, from Iddo, the coaches would have been filled, making it difficult for everyone on board to even have a space to breathe. Yet each stop means more passengers would come in, such that every little space left, even at the coaches’ joints were taken up.
More anxious commuters soon spill over to the outer spaces, latching on the engine’s corridor while others who are bolder find their way to the roof.
Incidentally, though roof riding is said to be associated with some level of poverty, in Nigeria, there were exemptions. Some of these roof riders actually had valid tickets, but rode on the roof largely because of lack of space, stuffy coaches or outright choice for more unfettered freedom.
Mrs Anthonia Amola, a Lagos Island trader and regular user who lives in Ijoko, said it’s not all the passengers riding on the roofs that don’t have money to buy their tickets. “Many of them actually have valid tickets which they purchased from the railway stations, but prefer to sit on the roof of the train to catch some fun because the spot offers them unlimited freedom to do so many other things,” she said.
The coaches are extremely inconvenient for passengers. They are usually over-crowded and stuffy, so people usually decide to climb the roof top or hang around the gang ways or available spaces along the engine corridor to catch fresh air.
Mrs Amola’s position was corroborated by some of passengers of the most recent arrest who claimed they have valid tickets, yet found their way to the coach roof.
A world of drugs
The roof top is a world open to the daring and the bold. Only the courageous dare to risk their lives in a bumpy ride in which they may have nothing but the rolling air to hold for stability.
To gain inner stamina and “chase away fear,” the roof top offers a home where Indian hemp and hard drugs are offered for sale and shared by patrons.
Once filled, like the coaches, the roof top offers an immunity into which “the ticket masters or the Police dare not venture. It is not unusual to see intruders pelted with stones or water sachets.
“Dem no born anybody well to attempt to dislodge these riders. These hoodlums fit throw them down if they (the Police) dare,” another young commuter said in pidgin.
Really, habitual rooftop riders are averse to any intrusion into their “world”. Two years ago, a photo journalist, late Tunde Ogundeji, was beaten to a pulp at the Ikeja train station, when he attempted to take a picture of some of these riders.
Poor enforcement
The Police said they would not be intimidated by any group of hoodlums in maintaining sanity and law and order on the train. The fact that the practice is prevalent only at night, after official hours, the Police claimed is an indication that these riders are equally afraid of being caught on the wrong side of the law.
Though no reliable data of arrests are available, investigation showed that no fewer than 500 men, whose ages fall within the active population of 26 and 46 years, have been arrested and prosecuted in the last five years.
For a menace that is said to be a growing concern to the Federal Government and the NRC management, the figure is said to be “very low in, comparism to the crime.” This development is said to have continued to fuel the bravado with which more riders hitch an illegal ride on the train’s roof.
NRC District Manager Mr Akin Osinowo said the practice is not new, for him, though illegal, “it has gone to show how receptive people are to our services.”
Osinowo said the practice which is more pronounced in metro Lagos is symptomatic of the fact that the demand for train services far exceeds supply. “NRC is a cheaper and faster means of transportation, a development which recommends it for more patronage by the low and middle income people for whom the second class coaches are deployed.
Ways out
Osinowo said it was in response to the need to provide more services and entice more people to embrace the train that the Corporation deployed the First Class Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU) coach on the route.
According to him, rooftop riding is prevalent especially in the popular category because most of the stations on the Lagos Districts are porous. He said: “Ninety percent of our stations are porous giving easy access to hoodlums and all shades of characters to gain access to the train.”
To curb this, he canvassed the intensification of raids by the Police Command, regular enlightenment campaigns and abatement announcements in the media and the blockage of all porous areas through which the safety of all the station’s platforms are being compromised.
The NRC’s Director Press and Public Relations, Mr Abdulrauf Akinwoye, said the management would continue to think outside the box in its onslaught against the menace.
Akinwoye who said “no normal person would opt to ride on the roof of a coach” said the raiding of trains would be intensified especially at night, while more enlightenment campaigns would be embarked upon to further educate well- meaning Nigerians to eschew this dangerous practice.
The Commissioner of Police of the NRC Command Pius Imue, said the Police is already reviewing all arrangements to plug all loopholes militating against the safety of all train commuters.
Imue, who resumed at the Command last March, said his findings also confirmed that these riders use hard drugs and smoke hemp on the rooftops, adding that these illegal and criminal acts would no longer be condoned by the Command under his watch.
Among other strategies, Imue said would be regular and sustained unscheduled raiding of all stations especially at night, when these people think we have closed and the erection of very low hanging barriers along the train route to prevent any rider from having any respite on the coaches.
“The construction of low barriers along the rail lines especially entry and exit points of all our stations would prevent illegal riders from having a place on top of the trains. When any rider sees that he could be hit by the low barrier and fall to his death, he would think twice before hitching a ride on the coach,” Imue added.
The Police chief said though anyone has the right to commit suicide, none would be permitted any longer to do so within the train’s territory as everything possible would be done to preserve the lives of all commuters patronising the nation’s railway.
