Since he moved to Ijoko, in Ogun State two years ago, David Matthew, a job seeker, has been relying on train for his movement. For many living in Ijoko, Agbado Station, Iju Station, among others along the train route, the Nigeria Railway Corporation Mass Transit Shuttle Service (NRC-MTSS) is a cheap means of transportation, especially avoiding the chaotic traffic on Lagos roads.
“By 5am, I must be at the train station at Ogba Iyo, the Nigeria Salt Company (NSC) area, in Ijoko, Ogun State, to get a seat in the train.
“I never entered a train before I moved into this area, but now, it has become my surest way out of this sleepy village, because I spend only N150 to get to Ebute Meta,” he said.
Because it is cheap, compared to a bus ride, commuters throng the station and before the train gets to Agbado Station, the 18-coach train usually deployed in the route by NRC is filled. Those who cannot get a seat either hang on the coaches or sit on the train’s rooftops.
What the passengers gain in terms of cost, they lose in comfort and safety as many fatal accidents go unreported on the route which is serviced by worn out coaches, refurbished by the corporation for intra-city shuttle.
“As early as 6am, you would see people tightly packed inside the coaches like sardine. The train whether morning, afternoon or night, is not the best option for women who cherished their endowment, or corporately dressed men going to work,” Matthew said.
That the trains are moving at all, is a miracle by the Adeseyi Sijuwade-led NRC management.
Since the shuttle started, it has not been able to attract the middle class who seem unimpressed with its service. It is patronised by artisans, traders, touts and the poor, who often hang on all available spaces and sit on cabin rooftops to avoid ticket charges.
Sijuwade dismisses the middle class’ claim that the Corporation is inefficient, adding that statistics showed that over three million passengers used the train service between January and September last year.
He added that the 3.2 million people who patronised the corporation’s services in the first nine months last year, were slightly lower than that of the same period in 2012, which was 4. 155 million passengers. He hopes passenger traffic will be five million in 2014.
Marketing the railways potentials at a Public-Private Participation (PPP) forum in Abuja in October last year, Sijuwade said: “We have been able to record about 3, 179, 778 passengers between January and September. Last year, we had 4, 155, 988 passengers. In 2011, we had 3,493,443.”
With a population of 170 million, five million passengers in the next 12 months, experts say is a lean projection. But they agreed that coming from the corporation’s background, the figure looks ambitious, while not doubting its capacity to achieve or outstrip the target.
A source in NRC confirmed that the corporation serviced all its routes in the last four years with 29 locomotives, 250 wagons and 120 coaches, all in different stages of rot. Most of these rolling stocks, the source added, were refurbished and repaired by local engineers within the NRC, with no new stock added in the last decade.
The source noted that about 550 wagons, 50 coaches and 55 locomotives are awaiting repairs, adding that when they come into use, they may affect the passenger response capacity.
Had the corporation been operating maximally, it would have in its fleet, about 84 locomotives, 800 wagons, and 170 coaches. How this will translate into effectiveness with only the Western line working, and the Eastern line ensnared between politics and the general insecurity in some part of the North is better imagined.
Sijuwade admits the corporation is over-working the available rolling fleet. At the PPP forum, he said the NRC ordered for the manufacturing of 11 air conditioned 68-seater coaches, adding that six of them would be delivered last December, and the rest expected before April 2014. The snag is, the corporation has yet to take delivery, and the management is not forthcoming with reasons for the delay, 13 days into another year.
In a recent paper, an analyst, Mr Stephen Ojelana, said not much would be achieved with the tardiness in keeping to timelines and failure to ensure the construction of wider standard gauge upon which more modern coaches could run.
Another expert, Mr Israel Akano, advocated tinkering with the Nigeria Railway Act 1955, which vested all powers concerning rail lines in the NRC. “The Presidency and the National Assembly should carry out fundamental amendment to that Act with the intention of expanding the space and permitting private sector players in the railway sub-sector of the transportation industry,” he said.
The Minister for Transportation, Senator Idris Umar, confirmed that the government, in line with the advice of the National Council on Transportation, is carrying out far reaching reforms of the corporation, adding that more private players are being wooed into the railway sub-sector.
Umar said the rehabilitated western rail line and the eastern rail line, as well as the modern standard gauge which would replace the existing narrow gauge are among infrastructure that would be concessioned to private operators on completion.
Umar stated that for transparency and due diligence, the process would be embarked upon in partnership with the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC).
According to the Minister, concessioning arrangement is to ensure that the railways would continue to function optimally and sustainably without funding and meddlesomeness associated with public utilities being a cog. He said the path to remedy the poor condition, and improve efficiency and profitability of the railways is for the government to privatise the NRC.
Under the proposed privatisation plan, three separate concessions of 25–30 years would be granted to private companies to run railways in the western, central, and eastern parts of the country.
The rail system has about 3,557 kilometres of 1,067mm (3ft 6in) narrow gauge tracks. There are two major rail lanes: one connects Lagos on the Bight of Benin to Nguru in Yobe State, known as the western lane; while the eastern lane begins from Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta and ends in Maiduguri, in Borno State, while the central lane appears untapped.
Till date, the resuscitative measures of successive governments have not seen the light of day: none of the proposed new tracks have been completed, and the rehabilitation and refurbishing of tracks and coaches have almost always come short of expectations.
The inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the railway have made it unable to serve as an effective means of transporting passengers and freight from the nation’s major commercial cities to the hinterland.
A breakdown of the yearly budgetary allocations in the past four years since the government picked interest in reviving the sector, shows that in 2012, a total of N20.3 billion was approved for the NRC, out of which N16.3 billion was earmarked for capital expenditure. The sum was targeted at rehabilitating the Jebba-Kano, Port Harcourt-Makurdi-Kaduna, Kuru-Maidugiri and Zaria-Kaura-Namoda rail tracks, as well as to procure and rehabilitate rail wagons, coaches and tanker wagons.
In 2011, N29.6 billion was budgeted for the construction and rehabilitation of most of the afore-mentioned rail tracks, out of which N5.5 billion was set aside for the construction of Ajaokuta-Warri rail line.
Available statistics also showed a total of N31 billion ($207 million) was approved on a special request in the supplementary Appropriation Bill of 2010 for the construction of Lagos-Ibadan rail lines.
In 2009, N23.3 billion was budgeted for rail transport, out of which N20.7 billion was reserved for capital projects that included the rehabilitation of 120 coaches and wagons, rehabilitation of the Ajaokuta-Warri rail line, which was also catered for in 2011 budget.
According to industry analysts, the rail transport has huge potential in a country with a population of 170 million. In the highly populated cities like Abuja and Lagos alone, the rail transport has the immense opportunities such as daily business of moving over one million passengers in each city within the inter and intra city transportation, generating huge revenues, decongesting road traffic as well as reducing road accidents.
The system ferries 8,000 passengers within Lagos and Ogun states and another 4,000 between Lagos and Ilorin line.
Unfortunately, like all things Nigerian, even the NRC has been unwittingly caught in the political web, which may gravely affect its effectiveness and deflate the eagerness and progress so far made by the current management of the corporation.
The NRC became the first major casualty of the ongoing schism within the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as NRC’s Chairman Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje, who was appointed in April, last year led a group of aggrieved members to quit the party. Though his position was not touched by the Presidency, Baraje, citing political differences, voluntarily resigned.
Bureaucrats and other experts said this would impact negatively on the NRC as critical decisions that ought to end on the table of its chairman would have to compete for attention from the Minister for Transportation. “This might be responsible for the lull in the activities of the corporation,” an observer noted.
However, NRC’s Deputy Director Public Relations Mr. David Ndakotsu said the management is determined to carry on with the transformation initiatives of the present administration and make the railways the fulcrum of mass transportation in the country.
In a statement issued after a management retreat held at Ada, in Osun State, the NRC, Ndakotsu said, came up with a strategic road map for 2014, and resolved among others to: “Achieve 30 per cent reduction in the journey time for the intercity train services, 10 per cent monthly reduction in the frequency and extent of train delays, 25 per cent monthly reduction on customer complaints, and not more than 10 minutes delay in scheduled departure time and 25 per cent monthly reduction in the number of accident.
“The Managing Director, Adeseyi Sijuwade, said the corporation’s 2014 direction will be guided by the vision, mission and mandate of the corporation to provide a more efficient, reliable and safe rail transport service.”
But how many passengers the corporation hopes to attract with a 30 per cent slash, which translates into about 50.4 hours travel time on its Lagos-Kano route (which takes 72 hours), among other sundry infractions even on its intracity routes by which the corporation intends only a 10 per cent monthly slash, is left to be seen.
While the NRC battles with its problems of age-old neglect and tries the best way to wriggle out of them, the best option, according to experts, remains the liberalisation of the sector that would enable more participation by the private sector. Nothing short of competition could wake the NRC to the realities of the challenges ahead in providing for the needs of commuting Nigerians.
Only then would Sijuwade’s statement that: “ The NRC as a strategic transport provider, must respond to the growing demand of its services by running regular and timely passenger trains with attractive ambience,” ring true.
