Tag: pains

The transformation of the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) has been touted as one of the wonders of the Jonathan administration and fondly described by the ruling party as unprecedented; but for travellers, it is not yet freedom, reports ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE, who was on the Lagos-Kano-Lagos train to feel the pulse of commuting Nigerians.

THE promise was enchanting. “We now make Kano in two days,” the amiable officer who received the reporter into the stinking ambience of the Iddo Terminus, the central hub of the centennial corporation running the nation’s railway service, had said.

Though the reporter had looked at the bright prospect of hitting Kano on Saturday, resting the following day to begin the return journey the next, he had simply responded: “We shall see.” That response was somewhat foretelling, as he ended up spending 60 hours (five days) inside the train, shuttling Lagos-Kano-Lagos.

The journey was supposed to begin by noon that Friday and by 9am, the terminus had been filled by a coterie of travellers, especially Northerners, majority were women with their babies straddling their mother’s laps or back.

The entire space in the arrival/departure hall was filled up with all manners of luggage-big, medium and small, with people fighting for a leg room. At about 2 pm, a female voice from a loud speaker fixed in the hall apologised that the departure would be a bit delayed as a result of an issue along the tracks. Not until an hour later was there more fact that the delay was caused by a derailment of an oil-filled cargo train at Kajola, caused by a head-on collision with an empty coach following a driver’s wrong lane error.

It was learnt much later that the same locomotive that would embark on the Kano trip had gone to clear the tracks for the diesel-bearing train to proceed on its way to the Kano.

It was about 5pm that the station master got the signal that the track was now cleared and the locomotive head was heading back to the terminus. About 30 minutes later, they started selling tickets.

What went for a ticket was a small piece of letterpress printed cardboard, an indication that the Nigeria Railway is still far behind in modern rail service comparable to what obtains the world over. Also baffling was that those tickets still bore the old rates, despite the fact that the fares had been reviewed twice since the train service revival; the last was in June when the modern coaches were introduced.

What was printed on the second class ticket to Kano was N1,600, whereas passengers paid N3,000, while first class paid N4, 500 instead of the N3,000 printed on the card. The sleeper category paid N6,900 instead of the N4,500 printed on the card. No other explanation was given other than that the price regime had changed.

Eventually, with three long blares of its horns, the train, with 16 coaches, made up of two first class, eight second class coaches, two goods cargoes, the kitchen, generator, one seater, and the loco head, eased out into the night at 7pm, seven hours after it was scheduled to take off from Lagos enroute Kano.

The First Class section is made up of two 60-seater each, air-conditioned cabins (delivered in June, 2014), with another super deluxe air-conditioned nine-seater cabin called The Sleeper, where occupants had the opportunity of a bed on wheels.

The more popular second class zone, already nicknamed ‘Ajegunle Molue,’ is a 90-seater specified contraption with six overhead orbit fans and slit windows in each cabin. In here, there is no limit to the number of passengers on board. A cabin raider, who preferred anonymity, said though the manufacturers specified 90 passengers, none had been taking less than 180 passengers since he started following the train, especially during festive periods.

“The second class coaches are where you find so many of our workers and it is also where many of us also find some little ‘change’ to cushion what we earn. Most of the time, the ticketers sell beyond the cabin capacity, which results in over-crowding and sometimes along the way, we also find passengers who would not have enough fare and would want us to assist them on the journey; such passengers are often pushed to second class cabins,” the official said.

Another official likened entering the second class coaches to a “lizard sliding through an opening on the wall.” At many of the train stations, you find passengers entering the coaches through the windows, when access by the doors proved impossible as a result of the sheer number of people fighting to get in.

For instance, a woman, who had prepared a pot of stew for the long journey ahead, had the her stew pot emptied on the head of other passengers while struggling to board the train in Kano. Seeing the

melee that followed, other passengers just made for available windows and pleaded to be pulled in by other passengers already inside the train. The woman made the trip after much rancor without her pot of soup. Most of those she soiled their clothes could not.

Because the second class cabin windows are permanently opened, it is usually heavily dusty. In here, all manners of people – beggars, in different degrees of tattered clothes with their bowls, the poor, the aged, babies with different sizes of rotund stomachs and kwashiorkored psyche, students, low income working class, frail-looking males and females-cohabit. You would see the lean, the gaunt, the robust and the sickly.

One thing associated with the second class is the putrid smell, oozing not only from body odours but also as a result of the lack of adequate working lavatories on the coaches. The coaches ought to have

two toilets and two bathrooms at each wing. On each coach, however, only one each is working. While the toilets have been converted to luggage rooms, the bathrooms are made use of by only a few who could ever make it there to ease themselves. This leaves a permanent stench as there is no water system to clean it up.

Many who could not secure a space in the coaches end up squatting there too. They spill over from the coaches, fill the gangway up to the entrance of the coaches and the toilets; they hang on the doors and

spilling even to the cabin roofs and anywhere else they could have a foothold.

One of such passengers, Abiodun Glover, who claimed to have been using the train since the Lagos-Kano line was revived in 2012, regretted being on the second class. Glover, who works as a teacher in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, said he had opted for the second class when there was no more space in the first class. “My friend, it was not a palatable experience,” he summed up when speaking with The Nation.

A Zamfara State-based social worker, Sarafadeen Abdultafatta, who was heading to Zaria from where he hopes to link his base, said he stood at the gang way from Offa, where he boarded the train to Zaria. Abdulfatta said the main problem of the railway remains the locomotives and coaches. “More people who would have loved to patronise the railway are drawing back because of the lack of adequate engines and especially comfortable coaches. Imagine standing on the gangway of the train when there was no space inside the coaches, how many people can do that? Even inside the coaches are not better as there is no ventilation as a result of the overcrowdedness. People are merely inhaling one another’s stale breath,” Abdufatta, who works with Save the Child Organisation, non-government organisation, said.

Abdulmalik Abdulgafar, who equally boarded the train from Ilorin enroute Zaria, where his family stayed, said the second class zone always affords him the opportunity of seeing Nigeria at its crudest. “If you want to be a leader and you have never ridden on the train, you are not yet fit to rule. It is inside the train, especially the second class section, that you will better appreciate the kind of challenges facing the people and how the standard of living of the larger population you want to lead. You would see the poverty and the level of the deprivation of the people.

“One thing I would want the NRC to think about, however, is the reduction in the stoppage time. I have been using the train since I was a child and I must say that the stoppages we record nowadays were

not there in the 70s and 80s. Let the NRC management identify why their trains can no longer make short stoppage time and save their patrons the stress of train fatigue. “This stoppage usually affects us

in the second class where the condition of train service is at its poorest,” Abdulgafar said.

He noted that while services at the first class can be classified as okay, those of the second class are bad because the officials usually sell beyond the seat capacity despite knowing the bad state of the toilets. This should be addressed.

Abdulgafar, who said he left his car back in Zaria to make the Ilorin trip from where he was returning a week earlier, said many would love to patronise the train, especially because of the bad state of the roads and the accidents leading to loss of lives, if the NRC could improve its services.

He said: “Trains are safer, cheaper and more reliable in spite of all its shortcomings, but it would be nice if the NRC could improve and the government goes beyond its empty propaganda and consider the masses to upgrade train services and give all Nigerians a train system befitting our status as the most populous black nation not only in Africa but on the face of the earth.

“The second class compartment should not be seen as fit only for pigs. Even a sty is more befitting at times. We are not saying they should buy more coaches, the existing ones could be upgraded with better rehabilitation, while attempts should be made to buy more locomotives to increase the frequency of trains along this route. I have heard the Minister of Transport claim that this is the cash cow of the NRC but see how they are treating Nigerians, it is appalling how passengers and loads are crammed everywhere. There is need for sanity and decency at the second class section; we are human beings and not animals.”

Though he admits that a lot has changed since the service was revived two years ago, he said a lot still needs to be done if the management would not be accused of going to sleep instead of seeking creative ways to improve its services and make more Nigerians proud of the railway.

 

Interesting mix of people

The trip was really an interesting mix of travellers. One of them was Hajara Usman, a 20-year-old female student who is travelling by the train up North for the first time. “I found the train interesting. This is my first time I would ever be travelling by train and I would have so many things to write and tell my friends about concerning the train ride.” Hajara was going to spend her Christmas and New Year with her grandparents in Kano.

Another was Miss Kemi Abolarin, a youth corps member posted to Gombe. Though Abolarin had returned to join her parents at Omu-Aran, Kwara State, since she finished her orientation at the camp, she had to travel to Offa from where she joined the Offa-Kano train and she had been on the road thrice in December to shop at Kano.

Describing herself as a budding business woman, Abolarin said she had been in Kano to purchase textiles which she retailed to customers at home and she is happy because her customer base is increasing as she builds her business chain. Though she had been in Kano thrice, only once did she use the second class and had since then vowed it had to be first class. The only snag is that the compartment is always filled before the train gets to Offa, but she had always had to pay just extra for the Sleeper section.

Hajia Memuna described herself as a traveller who is used to train travels in many capital cities of the world. She had been to Washington D.C, Dubai, Japan and Mumbai in India and she complained at the poor services of the NRC compared to the ones she had used. Describing the train as usually the fastest means of transportation anywhere in the world, the Kano-based woman, a reputable gold merchant who was going to see her mum at Offa in Kwara State, pleaded with the NRC management to improve the services in the train in the interest of the travelling public.

“I have been to more than 40 cities across the world and I must say that the categories of trains still in use here are only found in countrysides and not urban areas, not to talk of intercity shuttles. It is high time the government took us seriously. We should not beg to be served well because that is why they were elected and they are not spending their money. If they cannot do it alone, let them invite private investors and let us have a truly functional railway in Nigeria. No government should be boasting of this as an achievement after all these years.

“With over 100 years experience in train services, the Nigeria Railway should be leading in Africa but where are we? Are other smaller nations not taking over and surpassing our achievements? These are posers I think the management of the corporation should ponder over rather than politicise the operations of the train service,” she said.

 

The rich also cry

The Sleeper section was anything but comfort. Obtained at the rate of N6,900, the seater coach is made up of three compartments of six-seater, four-seater and two-seater cabins. The two-seater cabin in which The Nation rode to Kano was anything but comfortable.

Though the mattress was still firm with worn-arm rest, the ground floor bed of the decker contraption had thorn in the middle. The reading table had broken and underneath the toilets were gaping holes.

For their comfort, the occupants have a jerry can of water to themselves with which they can brush, clean up and take a quick bath. The snag is that if this water finishes before reaching Kano, you bear the responsibility of buying it back from water boys at any of the major stations along the way.

Though the name suggests that passengers could sleep on their beds throughout the journey, none could take a nap due to the tossing nature of the train. Despite having the windows tightly shut, the noise could be unbearable.

Hajia Fatima Alhassan Abdallah, proprietress of Rabin Mato Memorial Group of Schools, Kano, who was visiting her mum in Lagos, was full of regrets for her choice of means of transportation. Abdallah, who was using the train for the first time, had paid N4,650 each, for herself and her daughter for first class seats, but was miffed when the train officials billed her N8,000 for two luggage of clothes. They never gave her any receipts for the luggage. Though the coaches were relatively new with comfortable seats, but the atmosphere was stuffy because the air-contiditioned, which was part of the services promised, did not work for almost half the journey, both ways, as a result of “faulty generators.”

“The entire coach is usually stuffy, leaving everyone sweating,” she said. But what is more baffling and which angered many passengers in the first class coaches was the absence of toilet and bathroom facilities in any of the two coaches. Though the two coaches had a toilet and bathroom at each end, none could work because the old locomotive driving them lacked the modern facilities that could make them work.

“The new coaches’ toilets are fitted with vacuum cleaners that were meant to be powered by the locomotive engine but since the old engine head we are using does not have that capacity, we have to lock it up,” a member of the Special Raiding Squad (SRS), who preferred anonymity, said.

The result is that any passenger, who desires to urinate, has to make use of the only bathroom on the Sleeper coach which is a distance away, while any passenger who wants to defecate would have to tolerate the inconvenience till the train gets to another station or substation where they make a brief stop-over and empty their bowels in the surrounding bushes as only few stations have toilet facilities for travellers’ convenience.

The SRS official would want the government to buy more rolling stocks to address the issue of congestion, especially at the second class category. “The coaches are usually over-congested and the facilities stretched thin. Many children use pampers to avoid them messing up the coaches, while adults defecate anywhere. The management merely gave us express instruction to protect those in the first class and prevent its congestion; they never bothered about the second class. The way the second class is usually jampacked is an eyesore. While the maximum number of second class coaches was put at 90, I want to tell you that no less than 150 passengers use the coaches. Those standing are

usually more than those sitting.”

Mrs Jumai Mohammed was another passenger who would not forget in a hurry her first time on the train. For Mrs Mohammed, who alongside her colleague, opted to travel by train following her friend’s conviction, the experience, she was sure, would be her last.

An employee of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), who worked at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, (MAKIA), not only  found the 48 hours’ trip traumatic, she sustained a sprained ankle as she fell when she jumped down from the train staircase when she wanted to ease herself in the bush at Mokwa. All through to Lagos, she regularly visited the First Aid seat for drugs and sprained balm to assuage the pains.

 

The snaky, slow but noisy train journey

But for the kitchen and bar, the train could have been a boring experience all through. While the kitchen with its surfeit of African dishes caters for the hunger of travellers, the bar, with music blaring from a worn out, creaky speaker box added to the din of all-night long noise emanating from the train as it slices through the night.

Adeyemi Fakunle, the Bar Manager, is assisted by Ridwan a bar boy. Both are in charge and ensure that the bar is stocked with choice wines, beer and spirits.

The train flagged off at Iddo, it reached Iju Station two hours later, and passed through Agbado station, and Kajola, and got to Abeokuta by 10pm. It made Ibadan the capital of Oyo state by 1.05am of Saturday and got to Iwo 3.15am. It got to  Osogbo by 5/05am, passed through Okuku, by 7.03am, Erin-Ile from where it made Offa by 7.15am, where the drivers were first changed.

It left Offa 8.50am, got to Ilorin 10am where it refuelled and the train was checked by the mechanical engineers and rolled out enroute Jebba after being certified okay. It made Jebba at 1.45pm and crossed the River Niger few minutes later.

Sunday Faleti, a senior driver with 16 years’ experience, said his best moments is when he is driving the train. Faleti, who took over the locomotive from Offa, said he was transferred to Offa three years ago and would always drive from Offa to Mokwa before he would hand over to another driver who would take the train to Zaria. He is assisted by Teslim Odeniyi, an Assistant Driver.

Faleti lamented the dearth of locomotives. He said the lack of engines in the system is affecting efficiency and is a major cause of delays in the travel time experienced by passengers. He equally would like to see an improvement in the condition of service which would boost the morale of all workers of the corporation, especially the drivers.

Another driver, Francis John, who has been driving in the last 10 years, said none of the drivers in the system has gone on leave in the past five years, while no leave bonus or travel allowance was paid any.

Yakubu Mohammed, a First Aid Corps Officer on the train, described as his major challenges making passengers comply with health tips. The train left Kutiwenji 5.20pm, made Zungeru by 7pm, and was in Minna by 9.20pm where it again had another two hours stop. It left at 11.13pm and arrived Kaduna at 4.am on Sunday morning. The train was in Zaria 9am, at Maidubi, a village known for its big yam harvests at 9.15am and Mamendu, a substation within the Kano suburb at 9.55am. It eventually rolled into the Kano Terminal platform where it discharged its remaining passengers at 10.05am on Sunday, 39 hours after leaving Lagos.

 

The exodus, return to south

Few moments after the arrival of Oba of Benin (name of the locomotive) arrived Kano, and after the last luggage was discharged from the two cargo coaches, the gang men began to load the Lagos and south-bound luggage. By noon, the massive Kano Terminus, with its Arewa picturesque design, had become a beehive of activities, as passengers jostled to book seats in the already over-booked train.

Even The Nation could only get a seat in the first class seater, as all cabins in the Sleeper coach had been pre-booked. More than 90 percent of the passengers on the train were Southerners, Igbo and Yoruba.

One of such passengers was Chief Moses Adesanmi, the Basorun of Yoruba in Jigawa State. Adesanmi, an Ile-Ife, Osun State indigene, was at the station, with his entire family. Though the state according to Adesanmi is calm, he would be happier if his entire family is at home.

He had spent 35 years living in Kano and Jigawa, and was returning home to start life all over again. “With what is happening all over the North, especially with the level of insecurity, I decided along with my two wives to return home and start all over again.

Asked when he would be returning to Jigawa, Adesanmi said not until after the election. “I do not intend to go back until after February 2015 elections. Not until after peace has been restored to the country,” he said. Adesanmi, who has been travelling with the train since 1986, complained of the alleged extortion of passengers by the train officials, adding that he was charged N10,000 for a 24-inch television and table top fridge and four bags.

“What is baffling is that while I was charged N10,000 for my family’s luggage, only N7,000 ticket was given to me. However, I opted for the train because it is safer and the cost is cheaper, though we are going on the second class coach to Osogbo, the Osun State capital.

Adesanmi was not the only one anxious to get down south. Many others who could not secure a space on the train made do with every available space on the gang ways linking the coaches, the engine block, and even on the roof of the coaches. The trend, is described as a “common sight” along the route, especially during festive seasons.

“These sights are common you found passengers, especially students of higher institutions, climbing the roofs of the trains to ensure a ride, especially during festive season, They are aware that they are on a suicide mission and when we pursue them and they return with more force, what can we do”? one of the special squad officials, Mr Audu Lawal, said.

Continuing, he said, since all the coaches were filled up right from Kano, with the train unable to accommodate more passengers that were waiting to board at the other stations, there was no other choice than to risk a ride on the coaches.

Passengers were found crowding the train coaches from Kaduna to Zaria and up to Ilorin, where over 80 percent of the passengers from Kano disembarked.

 

Modern coaches, new challenges

Drivers, loaders, and officials said the management ought to be driven by the desire to make changes in the nation’s train. Many, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, complained that new purchases are done without local designs or recourse to the local needs.

For instance, they held that what the nation needs was not the new air-conditioned coaches, but new locomotive engines. “I doubt whether we have six functional locomotive engines in the whole system. Most of the time, it is one or two that would be rolled out of the mechanic yard and they would be overworked until they also broke down. The locomotive, called Oba of Benin, was just released from the mechanic yard and had been in use ever since. When we overwork the engines, it tells on our system and our men, especially the drivers,” a source said.

Another source said the new deliveries were done without any consideration for passengers and other users’ comfort. “The air-conditioned coaches did not have toilets as the one fitted to it was air-controlled and had to be vacuumed by a pressure valve from the engine and since the old locomotive did not have such facility, the doors of all its toilets are usually shut.”

Even the new Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU) being used for the inter-state shuttle between Apapa and Ijoko had no toilet. “How can such a fine train shuttling over 48 kilometres between Apapa and Ijoko not have any toilet for the convenience of the passengers? Once there was a man who developed a running stomach enroute Ijoko from Apapa on the air-conditioned DMU train. When I noticed how he was behaving, I had to force the driver to stop. The driver had hardly stopped when he ran out and bent down by a roadside gutter right in front of everyone to defecate. That could have been avoided if the train had toilets,” he said.

 

The man who distributes railway diesel

His name is Debo Adebola and he for the last two years have been going round the western line at least once a month to distribute AGO (diesel) fuel to all the districts. A senior stores officer in the Procurement Department of the corporation, Adebola, who joined the railways in 1995, had been penciled down to handle the critical assignment of getting the rolling stocks moving by the Adeseyi Sijuwade-led management following a rigorous integrity test.

“I was picked for this assignment over two years ago when the management decided to cancel the pre-existing practices where each district purchases its fuel. One of the first things that achieved was that there was a reduction in the repair time of our engines as they no longer got spoilt as a result of adulterated fuel.

Then when management discovered that shortages were often recorded in deliveries, they did an internal audit and I was picked to deliver fuel to all our six districts once a month. “Once I take delivery from our suppliers at Apapa, I distribute to the Lagos District, the Western District, with headquarters at Ibadan, and the North/Western District at Minna. I also supply the Northern District, BCK District with headquarters at Bauchi and the North/Central District located at Kafranchan.”

This he did once a month following a gangway coach. Once he discharges his cargoes, he returns to Lagos with passenger train. He said with the take-off of the Port-Harcourt-Enugu line, the Eastern District with headquarters at Enugu has been added.

Adebola said his cargo of over 60,000 litres of fuel up North was the one that derailed that Friday, delaying the Kano-bound train from taking off at Iddo. Despite six of his cargo derailing, he still

had to proceed to the stations up North ending in Kano, and it was from the fuel that the Kano-bound locomotive was being refuelled. He said the locomotive used for the Kano trip has capacity for 3,600 litres of AGO fuel.

“Since I have been assigned this responsibility, I have been on the road at least once a month. It was clear to me that it requires sacrifice. At times, I would not sleep all through the night. Anytime the coaches stop, I would jump out to find out why, monitor the fuel and would not rest until each station takes its stock. It was from what I have just delivered, which was the monthly delivery, that the Kano train would be fuelled to and fro,” Adebola said.