Keeping new railway on track

On Tuesday, July 26, 2016, President Muhammadu Buhari flagged off the Abuja-Kaduna train service on the first Standard Gauge Rail Track in Nigeria.   The 186.5 kilometres rail line, which was conceived by former President Olusegun Obasanjo and fast-tracked by former President Goodluck Jonathan, was built at a cost of $1.46 billion. The project was funded […]

On Tuesday, July 26, 2016, President Muhammadu Buhari flagged off the Abuja-Kaduna train service on the first Standard Gauge Rail Track in Nigeria.   The 186.5 kilometres rail line, which was conceived by former President Olusegun Obasanjo and fast-tracked by former President Goodluck Jonathan, was built at a cost of $1.46 billion. The project was funded partially with a seed fund of $500 million from Exim Bank, China.
While commissioning the service, Buhari said, “The Abuja-Kaduna train service will provide the much-needed alternative transport link between the Federal Capital Territory and Kaduna State, a corridor which has a huge potential for industries, agricultural activities and a growing labour force.”
The President also went down memory lane thus: “It is on record that between 1963 and early 1980s, Nigeria had a vibrant rail system which conveyed agricultural and livestock and solid mineral resources to Lagos and Port Harcourt sea ports from where they were exported to other parts of the world. It is our vision and hope that those good old days will soon be back with us and indeed in a more prosperous way with the restoration of rail transport system which today’s occasion symbolizes.”
Though the Abuja-Kaduna train service was conceived in 2009, the project did not commence until 2011, with a completion date of 2014. The delay in its completion was attributed to the Federal Government’s delay in providing the counterpart fund.  Its completion in about a year after the current regime came to power is an indication of Buhari’s commitment to the revival of the railway sector.
However, we had expected that  due credit should have been given to former President Jonathan, especially, during the commissioning ceremony, in a manner that would have forestalled the diatribe between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and  All Progressives Congress (APC) over who should take the glory for the landmark project.
Also, it is not enough to revive the railway sector. Sustaining it is much more important. The president mentioned that last week’s event was the commencement of a 25-Year Strategic Railway Master Plan. There is need, therefore, for the story of the modern railway to change.
It is on record that since 1964, the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) had run under budget deficit. It needed public funds to keep afloat. Civil servants’ perpetual indolence caused the agency’s crash. We ask that government should run the renewed sector as a business enterprise. It must have a proper management that would ensure high-quality of operations. It should institute a maintenance culture that would keep the trains on their tracks without fail.
We call on government to keep watch on the kinds of contracts to be awarded by NRC, because under the failed system, bogus contracts that drained the revenue of the agency were awarded. A lion’s share of those funds found its way into the pockets of the so-called managers of the railway. Fraudulent activities should be forestalled, among them the issuance of fake tickets to passengers, a criminal act that thrived in the past.
Under the new dispensation, we would encourage NRC to incorporate the training of local technicians into the process of maintaining the railway. It will be tragic if government surrenders the technical aspect of the new railway to the Chinese who would certainly leave the project at some point in the future. Without properly grooming Nigerian technicians to take over, the project could be grounded as soon as the Chinese depart. Nigerian engineers should be integrated into the aspects of expansion, modernization and stabilization of this project.
Furthermore, we call on government to, as soon as possible, reposition Ajaokuta Steel Company in Kogi State to enable it produce medium level steel needed to maintain our trains. This would save the huge foreign exchange needed to import spare parts. Reviving Ajaokuta would also create jobs for unemployed youths in the country.
The launch of Abuja-Kaduna train service is a new beginning for Nigeria. But it must be sustained.