How Kafanchan lost its ‘Railway Town’ tag
Kafanchan railway station was established in 1926 for both passenger and freight purposes. It was a junction which links the North Central to the Middle Belt, South, East, West and the North Central up to the Maiduguri axis. Its construction was completed sometime around 1967. Stretched mainly across four states, Kaduna, Nasarawa, Plateau and Benue, […]
Kafanchan railway station was established in 1926 for both passenger and freight purposes. It was a junction which links the North Central to the Middle Belt, South, East, West and the North Central up to the Maiduguri axis. Its construction was completed sometime around 1967. Stretched mainly across four states, Kaduna, Nasarawa, Plateau and Benue, the rail tracks cover a length of over seven hundred kilometers. Popularly referred to as ‘Kafanchan Junction for Jos’, many describe it as the ‘Station which founded the town, Kafanchan.’ Today, Kafanchan is still pretty much an urban centre but obviously void of the tang from the railway operations it had in the past. Agricultural trade has become mainly an intercity affair.
Recounting with nostalgia the boisterous way in which business in Kafanchan was conducted, Alhaji Adamu Tahir, onetime ardent user of Kafanchan’s rail services from the 1960s to the mid-80s. He is the current Chief Imam of Jema’a Local Government in Kafanchan who used to trade in yam, guinea corn, millet, rice and palm oil, which he would buy from as far as Enugu, Port Harcourt, Makurdi, Gudi and Lafia; all of which were destinations/stops on the Kafanchan route. Alhaji Adamu started trading along with his father since the era of Sir Ahmadu Bello. “I used to go with my father to trade at a time when it cost only fifteen shillings to travel to as far as Port Harcourt and Lagos from Kafanchan. Once a week, I used to take potash which I buy from Nguru; ginger and other crops grown in the North to sell down South because they were scarce there. Sometimes, I would stay one to two weeks before leaving a certain location, depending on how impressive the business was.”
Speaking through an interpreter, the merchant stated that at the time, travelling by road was absolutely out of the question because you could bet on the availability of the trains every day. “You could plan and organise your movement and even forecast events. Profit from my business was what funded my first pilgrimage to Mecca. I also established a block moulding industry, built houses and trained my children. I saved a lot of money going by train, not to talk of the safety. “I did this until Buhari’s regime when the rail system began to collapse. Since I depended on it for its cost and efficiency, I could no longer keep up with the demands of my business and had to quit when it got really bad.”
Having seen different governments come and go with their different unfulfilled promises to revive Nigeria’s railways, the over ninety year-old advised government: “The Railway Corporation should be treated as a ministry of its own so that its affairs can be better handled. I am happy it is coming up but I wished it were faster and better. It is difficult to say if it will serve future generations the way it served mine.” Unable to speak anything but Hausa Language, it was curious to know how Alhaji communicated effectively as a businessman. “That was easy,” he laughed. “If I had a customer who could not speak Hausa, I would beckon on somebody who understood Hausa and also understood the language of my customer. This was how I transacted my business. In those days, people were very honest and we looked out for one another. We educated one another and were happy for each other’s progress.” He quipped.
Hajia Halima Kano a trader in the Kafanchan market who has now settled there for almost thirty four years with her husband lamented in pidgin English that, “In those days, we didn’t suffer from bad roads like we do now because we did not even use them. Road accidents were almost on level zero. People had jobs; there were porters who received tips and stipends from their services. Petty traders sold the cheapest items at the railway stations. I still have items today which I bought from different railway stations I travelled through with my husband.”
Employed into the railway corporation in 1970 as a traffic and commercial officer in a way side station in Jama’a with the responsibility of loading and dispatch of the trains, Anthony Diem described the Kafanchan Rail Transport as the best at the time because it was the cheapest, safest and most convenient for commuters and businesses alike. “We had no less than twenty four trains and twenty wagons conveying cattle from here to Nguru, to Maiduguri to the South and to the East almost once every week.” Unfortunately, he said, the glorious days of the railway turned sour in the 1980s.
Earning about one hundred and fifty naira a month at the time, Diem, who is also the current Chairperson of the Railway Workers Pensioners Association, further explained that at this stage, the Nigerian Railway Corporation took a nosedive and never regained its glory. “It has affected more than the corporation itself. A Junction like Kafanchan was literarily brought to its knees as businesses folded up. The cross country interactions and mingling stopped. Kafanchan became no longer the junction town Nigeria knew it to be. “Abacha brought in the Chinese and Obasanjo continued with them, but they did such a shabby job and brought in substandard locomotives. Our leaders are responsible for the lack of progress in this sector. We were happy when the diesel locomotives were used and the steam ones phased out. Our happiness was short lived though.”
Professor Jenkeri Zachary Okwori disclosed to our reporter how he heard a lot about Kafanchan before actually discovering it. “Those days when I was in secondary school, sojourners in Kaduna used to regale with stories of how the trains snake through rail lines actually singing the names of the various towns that it meanders through. When I got admission into the Ahmadu Bello University, the train was obviously my transport of choice. For one, the tales of the train was true or I configured it. On my first trip from Makurdi, I could hardly sleep as I was busy marching the train sounds with the various stations we passed and I did not want to miss any. It was day break when the train began to sing: Ka-fan-chan! Ka-fan-chan! Ka-fan-chan! Two years later, I was on my way back from school when the sound of Ka-fan-chan eased us once more into the famous station. However, instead of the usual 5-10 minutes wait, the wait dragged into hours and then days. We spent eight whole days before we heard much later that a train had derailed or something like that. In those eight days of sojourn at Kafanchan station, the train was our accommodation, but we could buy food, there was water, even televisions in some of the offices from which we could steal a view through the windows. There was no Nigerian language that I did not hear in my eight days in Kafanchan, a city founded by the railway and killed by the railway.”
Interestingly though, if government’s recent move is anything to go by, the good days of Kafanchan “singing” trains are around the corner. In an attempt to bring the station back to its feet once again, rehabilitation processes have been embarked upon and skeletal services are on.
Regarding train movement in the early days when it was fully operational as against what is obtainable today, Engr. Adekunle Ayeni, the Kafanchan Railway Managing Director said, “Kafanchan is a vital and critical junction which should be treated with high regard. It has a workshop where the rolling stock (locomotive, coaches and wagons) are checked as well as shift for crews are made. Though with minimal operations, accidents have been minimal too.
“Kafanchan now has a three day a week journey schedule which covers Kaduna and has fourteen stops in-between. There is another train that plies between Jos and Kuru on a daily basis. “Here in Kafanchan, we run a weekly trip to Jos and back. There is also a sound traffic run in Makurdi which has been temporarily suspended. With the service workshop situated here, we use that opportunity to capture some of the markets on the route like Manchok and Kagoro markets on Fridays and Sundays respectively. The Kaduna route runs on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays.”
Taking a walk around the premises, thoughts of stepping into remains of any of the trains’ wagons gave one horrifying pictures that made one think against the idea. Just before one of the functional trains departed for Kaduna on Thursday morning, Weekly Trust spoke with some passengers on board.
Visually-impaired Bitrus James was quite excited about riding on a train a second time in the much-talked-about Kafanchan Junction for Jos Station. “Right from when I was growing up in the 80s, I had heard so much about these trains but nobody would let me go by myself or even to play near them. Now I am an adult and they are back again, I am here with my cousin who helps me out. I am from Kwoi. Anytime I want to go to Zonkwa I come here and join it. I liked the first experience and I am enjoying the second one already. It is cheaper for me at N50 against the N120.00 I would have paid to go by road.” Though the trains are gradually returning, would its ‘resurrection’ give Kafanchan its ‘Railway Town’ tag again? Only time will tell.