The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), at the weekend, added freight haulage to its passenger services bouquet. But, despite the billions of naira already spent to resuscitate the railway system, there is still a long walk to modern rail system, reports YINKA ADERIBIGBE
The screech was deafening. The train was ending a 30-hour journey from Kano to Lagos. Passengers, fatigued from the long hours of travel, crawled out from the yellow, green and white carriages. The snail-like walk was not unconnected to the fact that they just travelled 1,126km (700 miles) at an average speed of less than 50km an hour and had to stop on many an occasion to address one challenge or the other. But, the low fare, which is about N2,000, encouraged many to endure and enjoy the pain.
The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) has the arduous task of making the rail lines work well to aid the economy, among other reasons.
About a month ago, the NRC launched the third Lagos-Kano-Lagos intercity passenger train service with fanfare. At the ceremony, the Corporation’s Board Chairman, Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje, urged Nigerians to be patient with the Federal Government so as to deliver a modern train service.
The flag-off increases the number of passenger train services on the Lagos-Kano-Lagos line to thrice a week, and has pushed weekly passenger carriage to 5,500 from 3, 500. The freight services will begin on Thursday.
For Baraje, the train service, the third since the corporation resumed passenger transport on December 21, last year, following the completion of the rehabilitation on the 1026km West line, known as the Lagos-Kano track route, a year earlier, is enough assurance that the Goodluck Jonathan administration is committed to making train service the backbone of mass transportation.
The Presidency directed the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) Office to invest in the rehabilitation of the West Line.
SURE-P is also spearheading the rehabilitation of the Eastern Line on which, NRC sources claimed, work has reached an advanced stage. The Eastern Line, which is known as the Lagos-Enugu-Port Harcourt axis, will be inaugurated before December and services are expected to begin on the route almost immediately.
Baraje said the railway had not only returned to the tracks, but grown its services to include the Lagos-Ilorin-Lagos (thrice weekly), Lagos Mass Transit Train Services, which offers 16 shuttles, and carry no fewer than 20,000 passengers daily between Iddo/Apapa and Agbado/Ijoko and the Kaduna City Mass Transit Train shuttle.
While Nigerians admit that there has been appreciable improvement in the NRC’s services, critics, however, said the slow pace of the train service remains a major drawback and an impediment to its return as a favoured alternative means of transportation.
They held that the lengthy hours spent inside the train on the Lagos-Kano route is a distraction to the emerging middle class, the business class and the youths.
A transportation expert, Mr. Timothy Anakuru, said: “I do not see any business executive or any youth with an eye on the value of time, who would decide to be holed up inside the train for upwards of 18 hours just because he wanted a cheaper means of transportation between Lagos and Kano,”
Anakuru, who said he used to commute with the train between Jos and Zaria when he was growing up in the early 70s, said the NRC must find a solution to the poor turn-around time.
He said: “I have no doubt in my mind that even the NRC’s Board or its chairman would not risk going back to the North via Kano by train, despite their trumpeted return to the tracks. Can the NRC afford to put President Jonathan or even the Minister of Transportation, Senator Idris Umar, on the Lagos-Kano train? They will never do such a thing because they know the value of time to these leaders, yet, the grassroots commuters are offered the short end of the stick in a you-do-not-have-an-option manner.”
Another expert, Mr. Ayoade Boade, said it was sad Nigeria allowed the NRC to go to rot. He wondered what new thing today’s leaders were adding to the NRC that could make the desired changes come.
An old-time train user, Mr Joseph Andrew, said: “The railway corporation has become like the tiger that cannot change its paws. This is because the NRC needs a huge budget for it to become something we can be proud of and I do not see any such commitment coming from the Federal Government. The tracks remains the same old narrow thing and the coaches being put to use are the same derelict carcasses that were worn and would have been consigned to the museum in some other climes. Yet, this is after spending billions of naira. The NRC management needs to do more to convince Nigerians that they mean business beyond mere refurbishing and repainting of worn out coaches.”
However, Baraje said despite the slow pace, the Federal Government was in a hurry to bring Nigeria up-to-date in train transportation.
He said: “It is not possible for something that has gone into coma for over 30 years to come back on stream all at once overnight. The truth is that government does not have such huge funds.
“We are currently rehabilitating our old single track lines and upon the completion of that, we began to run the equally refurbished locomotive engines and coaches. It is instructive that the NRC has been running using the old engines and coaches, which were put back in shape by our team of local engineers. This was the first phase and we are happy to report to Nigerians that that phase is working well.
“From this, we intend to go the next phase, which is the modernisation stage of our services. Under this, we are going to put in place the standard gauge and about 14 routes have already been identified where the standard gauge could be constructed. Simultaneously, we would move into providing the fast trains but these are contingent on a more stable power supply and other variables that are beyond the boundary of the NRC.
“We shall soon take delivery of new engines and coaches and when this happen later in the year, we would be able to cover more ground and enhance our carrying capacity.”
Minister of Transportation Alhaji Idris Umar, while inaugurating the freight services from the from the IMPL terminal at Apapa to the Inland Cargo Terminals in Kaduna and Kano, said the corporation would take delivery of no fewer than 200 locomotive wagons before December.
Umar, represented by Baraje at the event, said the inauguration of four new 1800 HP locomotives and two telescopic cranes at Apapa was to further underscore government’s investment in the sector.
He said the corporation was better equipped to respond to emergencies with the two new 100 tonnes railway cranes and the four HP powered locomotive engines, which has the speed capacity of 100 kmph.
NRC’s Managing Director Prince Adeseyi Sijuwade said never again would the NRC slip backwards to the era of total neglect.
According to him, the scope of the corporation’s operations have increased to include 16 Lagos intra city train service per day, moving about 16,000 passengers daily, 10 Kaduna intra city service moving about 10, 000 passengers daily, Offa-Kano-Offa service once a week, which moves about 2, 000 passengers weekly; the thrice per week Minna-Kaduna-Minna service, which moves about 3, 500 passengers weekly; and the twice per week Kano-Nguru train service, which moves 1,000 passengers and 20 tonnes of luggage and parcels per week.
Sijuwade said the corporation has refurbished about 350 wagons and 120 coaches, while it procured 20 oil tank wagons last year, with an order for an additional 20 oil tank wagons to be delivered later this year to beef up its capacity to haul oil from Lagos to Kano and other parts of the country.
Sijuwade listed as on-going the Port Harcourt-Makurdi line, the Makurdi-Kuru line, and the upgrading of the Eastern line which is now designed to be fixed with modern signalling and telecommunications system.
Others are the Zaria-Kaura Namoda and the Kuru-Maiduguri line, adding that most of these routes face similar challenges of human obstruction, among others.
He said the standard gauge, one of the modernisation programmes of the corporation has taken off and has reached 70 per cent completion in the Ajaokuta-Itakpe-Warri line, while the Abuja-Kaduna line is about 40 per cent complete. The construction of the Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge line has been awarded while feasibility studies are still on-going to identify new lines and prepare same for contract award.
He said the Federal Government would amend with the NRC Act to remove it from the exclusive list.
The corporation, he said, is going with the Public Private Partnership (PPP) in the funding of the rail sector.
Under the arrangement, the private sector will be encouraged to be players in the train service delivery.
He said: “By 2014, we expect that all the legal bottlenecks to the involvement of the private sector operators would have been removed and we would begin to see the injection of fresh funds from operators who would be interested to improve services along with the best global practices and this is expected to have exponential growth on the patronage of train services by Nigerians.”
