The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) is reaping from its investments in cargo wagons, following patronage by haulage firms, writes ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE
It was a six-paragraph letter; but with a promise of breaking the nation’s dependence on motorised cargo haulage.
The Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), in the September letter, indicated their readiness to have their products hauled across the country by the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC).
Signed by the association’s Executive Secretary, Mr Obafemi Olawore, the letter said members had agreed to explore rail in carrying their products across the country, especially to the North.
Olawore hoped the partnership would be mutually beneficial and also impact on the nation.
Though the meeting requested for by MOMAN to fine-tune the details of the initiative is yet to hold with the NRC board, a source said the haulage may start after the agreement is sealed.
Worried by the increasing accidents of petroleum laden trailers, Olawore, at a forum, expressed MOMAN’s desire to explore means of ensuring safe delivery of products to outlets nationwide.
Admitting that accidents are caused by undue pressure on the roads and the old trailers of independent operators, who he accused of giving their vehicles to inexperienced drivers, Olawore said rail haulage would make the roads safer.
He said MOMAN would remain at the vanguard of finding ways of doing business with the least negative impact on the environment and less danger to other road users.
He said MOMAN was happy that NRC had acquired oil wagons, adding that its patronage would reduce the number of petroleum trailers on the road. If the tank wagons are put to maximum use, the trailers would be left with plying the last mile in the supply chain of the product to retail outlets nationwide, he added.
Olawore said MOMAN would help NRC develop its capacity to respond to increased demand for such services nationwide.
Under the agreement, Mobil, Total, Forte Oil, Oando and Conoil; among others, will take their products to every part of the country.
Esteemed old tradition
Taking on such an assignment is not new to NRC. In fact, about two years ago, Oando blazed the trail and branded some of the corporation’s wagons.
For long, the corporation has been the nation’s transportation flagship, doing business with corporate players.
Business people used with the rail to transport their products across the country. The emergent industrial Nigeria relied heavily on the rail as the answer to their transportation and logistics operations.
From the 1930s to the early 70s, NRC’s narrow gauge track networks filled in the gaps for a nation with a huge road deficit.
Its cargo wagons criss-crossed the country, bringing groundnut and other produce from Kano and other parts of the north to the ports in the south, and taking finished products among them, cement, flour, drinks and others, especially those imported back.
The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) was busy as the rail moved in and out of the terminals, taking containers from the quays to the inter-lands. It was an era when the railway birthed, midwifed and nurtured the NPA.
The corporation also played other significant roles in Nigeria. It once served as the Central Bank and until 1960, its managing director usually served as acting Governor-General of Nigeria, anytime the occupant of the office was on leave.
The NRC was more renowned for its passenger traffic. It was the gateway to Nigeria and in its heydays, the saying: “If you want to know Nigeria, ride the railway was popular”.
It was the biggest employer, having over 400,000 Nigerians on its payroll. It also midwifed and played a role in nationalist agitations against colonial government.
Its mass transit platform was the answer to the government’s mass transit initiatives. The Mass Transit Train Service (MTTS) connecting Lagos’ to the agrarian suburb of Ogun State, was much sought after by traders and artisans.
The MTSS was also replicated in Ilorin-Offa, Mokwa-Jebba, Zaria-Kaduna and Kaduna -Kano, with these shuttles recording high patronage. The second arterial line known as Port-Harcourt- Maiduguri lane meant to link the East with the North was added. The corporation recorded peak traffic on all routes until its fortunes began to dwindle.
Return of old glory
The Federal Government’s sustained investment in NRC is now yielding results.
NRC Managing Director, Adeseyi Sijuwade said the corporation is determined to ensure that train is visible in the economy.
He said: “Our first major assignment was to rehabilitate the tracks. This ensured that the trains were back on track. The completion of that phase saw us introducing the long shuttle trains and the revival of the Lagos-Kano line in 2012. Last year, the success of the Lagos-Kano line led to the reactivation of the Port-Harcourt-Maiduguri line, with the successful take-off of the Port-Harcourt-Enugu-Gombe mixed train.”
Sijuwade added that the success of passenger trains, gave management, the confidence to reactivate its cargo carriage capability. In 2012 and 2013, it acquired 40 oil tank wagons, in addition to its old rolling stock. With a storage capacity of 120,000 litres of fuel, the train as at today, has the capacity to haul about 4.8 million litres of petroleum products to the depots nationwide, especially in the North.
This will mean 40 petroleum trailers taken off Lagos roads.
Strategic partnership is also going on, The Nation learnt in other sectors of the economy.
NRC’s Deputy Director of Public Relations, Mr Abdulrauf Akinwoye said some organisations, among them Lafarge-Wapco Cement and Nigeria Flour Mills (NFM) Plc, have been patronising the railway.
Many terminal operators are also taking their containers by rail to their inland depots nationwide.
Giving an insight into the traffic profile, Apapa Train Station Manager Mrs Ngozi Umoh, said no fewer than 750 Very Important Persons used the Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU) train service in the last four months; 230 used the economy class daily.
According to her, 328,000 bags (about 10,500 tonnes of flour), produced by the NFM have been carried to Kano by train in the last five months; two container trains also leave Lagos Terminals for Kano weekly.
The NFM also uses the rail in the carriage of wheat. Five train loads leave Lagos for Kano monthly.
Mrs Umoh said the major impediment to higher patronage is the poor state of the tracks. She said the tracks, which aged, are affecting the efficiency of cargo trains.
Presently, NRC takes Lafarge-Wapco Cement from Ewekoro to the North.
The Chief Executive Officer of Connect Rail Services Limited, Mr. Edeme Kelikume said: “Bags of cement are loaded into covered and open wagons after they are palletised. We load three wagons at once within an hour and at peak efficiency, we can complete the haulage of the wagon within four hours, because you have to give some time for the shanty against 12 hours and the open wagons is even faster. We can load the whole 12 wagons within three hours at full efficiency for the open wagons.”
He said soon, Lafarge-Wapco would be taking its product from Ewekoro to Lagos by rail. When this eventually happens, it would reduce the pressure on the roads as the trucks would be limited to last mile shuttle, distributing from the rail station to our warehouse and other depots. “This is the model we are driving at across the country,” Kelikume added.
Lafarge-Wapco, he said, would be carrying 100 million tonnes of cement by train. “Presently, the train is hardly doing 200 tonnes of goods, which is not even up to one percent. The rest we are transporting by road,” Kelikume said.
“We have the capacity of shipping two trains daily to Lagos, because it is not far. This means you will be taking away almost 50 trucks from the roads. Some of our prized customers in Lagos have also agreed to patronise the trains.
“Through this, an estimate of 100 trucks would be taken off Lagos roads daily. This is an initiative that ought to have begun in November. Presently, we move Cement by train to Ilorin, Minna, Kaduna, Kano.”
Conclusion
Sijuwade said the presence of trains does not mean that trucks will be off the roads. Rather, the trains are to make them more efficient. He said trains have the key to unlock the gridlock at Apapa and other congested roads in the city.
For instance, the truck’s turn-around time would be enhanced, with the wear and tear of the road and the truck reduced. The driver and the vehicle would be safe, and nobody would have to sit down for long hours inside gridlock.
With more investment aimed at boosting the train’s capacity, he hopes the country would hit the one-billion cargo tonnage club soon, adding that countries that roll out a billion tonnage rail cargo yearly, such as China, Russia, India, and United States also have the highest truck counts.
The snag is that the rail lines are still century old and may not be compliant.
Experts are happy that the government is focusing on transportation. They, however, want the government to focus on taking the rail tracks to the Lagos seaports.
“We have been clamouring for inter-modal transport where some cargoes will be moved by the road and others by the rail. In fact, more than 50 per cent of the containers and other cargoes ought to be moved by rail,” said August Ibechukwu, an accountant at a leading terminal in Tin Can Island Port, Lagos.
