Revive the railways

For several reasons that range from socio-economic to safety of lives and property, Nigerians are confronted daily with nostalgic circumstances that compel them to wish for the good old system of rail transportation in the country. Up to the early 1980s, railway remained an efficient means of transporting passengers and goods with much ease and […]

For several reasons that range from socio-economic to safety of lives and property, Nigerians are confronted daily with nostalgic circumstances that compel them to wish for the good old system of rail transportation in the country. Up to the early 1980s, railway remained an efficient means of transporting passengers and goods with much ease and less risks from one part of the country to another.
When rail transportation was functional in Nigeria, petroleum products, farm produce, cement and other heavy equipment or materials were freighted by rail. This was why our roads then lasted long with less need for maintenance. In the good old days of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), less carnage which nowadays is a daily experience was also witnessed on Nigerian roads. Corruption, mismanagement, and neglect regrettably combined to cripple the once-efficient nation’s railways.
The government of former president Olusegun Obasanjo awarded a $8.3 billion contract to a Chinese firm, CCECC; for the rehabilitation and modernisation of the country’s railway system. Nothing, unfortunately, was there at the end to show for the huge sums of money allegedly spent to improve Nigeria’s rail transport system. In 2008, the then chairman of Senate public accounts committee, Ahmed Lawan, decried during a public hearing on Nigerian railways how officials of the ministry of transport claimed the contract job was 80 percent complete with no sign of $8 billion spent on the rail transport sub-sector. More disappointing is how such a scam was allowed to go un-probed.
With the collapse of the rail system, tankers, trailers, pay-loaders, heavy duty trucks and lorries conveniently and completely took over the services of train coaches and wagons. This was not without its negative consequences, particularly on the state of Nigerian highways. The constant pressure brought to bear on our roads by tankers and trailers eventually reduced the life-span of the nation’s highways; increasing the rate at which they required maintenance. The breakdown of the railways also worsened the Nigerian labour market situation. While the NRC employed about 45,000 workers between 1954 and 1975, the current employment figure is less than 7,000.
The total pack up of railways in Nigeria gave birth to traffic gridlocks in some Nigerian towns and cities. The traffic jams, for example, in the commercial area of Lagos (Apapa) where tankers queue to load petroleum products at the major petrol farms near the Tin Can Island port constitute a main source of worry for motorists that pass through the area daily. More worrisome is the accidents they cause on our roads. Accidents involving petrol tankers are recorded daily on Nigerian highways. If the railway transport system were functional, the tragic accident in which a petrol tanker exploded after it rammed into the Asaba Motor Park at Upper Iweka in Onitsha Township couldn’t, Allah knows best, have occurred.
The first rail road in Nigeria was constructed by the British colonial government in 1898. The Lagos Government Railway and the Baro-Kano Railway were amalgamated on October 3, 1912; marking the beginning of a nationwide rail service under the Government Department of Railways. The Nigerian Railways Corporation Act of 1955 gave the company the exclusive legal right to construct and operate rail services in Nigeria. The NRC used to operate a network of 3,505 kilometres of single track lines with 1,067mm (3ft 6inc) gauge. The longest line in NRC’s existing network is the Lagos-Kano route that covers a distance of 1,126 kilometres.
Railway is critical to inter-state commercial activities. Indeed, no other form of transportation moves large quantities of goods and products to market places across the country like railway does. It was this reason, I guess, that prompted the British government to route some of the railway lines to specific regions of the country. The Baro-Minna line was, for example, to facilitate the freight of shea-nut and groundnut from the hinterland just as the Zaria-Kaura Namoda and Kano-Nguru lines were meant to ease the transportation of cotton from those regions to the coast. Railways facilitate economic growth in an efficient and environmentally friendly way.
A well-organised rail system creates jobs in factories and other businesses served by rail. As an economic engine, rail transportation further creates business expansion opportunities. As one of the most cost-effective modes of transportation, companies are at vantage to move their products at highly reduced cost to different parts of the country. Besides, Nigeria as a developing country needs the railways to build its infrastructures. Great industrial nations like the United States, Britain, Japan and China built their industrial empires on the back of rail tracks.
In the good old days of the rail system, students who had railways close to their towns and villages patronised trains to travel home and return to school after vacation because it was cheaper than travelling by Bedford wagons, Leyland trucks, and 911 lorries, which at that time, were the main passenger vehicles  in our part of the country. To report as a form one student in 1974 at Government Arabic Teachers’ College (GATC), Minna (now CAILS), I along with others joined, at Badeggi, the economy class of the train called ‘woro-woro’ on the Baro-Minna route with only 30 kobo. For the five years we spent at GATC, we always took the ‘woro-woro’ train at Badeggi to travel to and from Minna. In my forms four and five, I used to pay 90 kobo to enjoy the ‘comfort’ of first class coach on the train from Badeggi to Minna.
I remember it was all the time hectic for ticket checkers each day students were returning to school by train. The few names I can recall that used to be on the train on our route during our days as students include Saga-Bega, Bazooka, Achi-Balago, Ogaga, etc. I didn’t know them by their proper names because students were more popular then with nick-names (or guy-names) than with their real names, which in the 1970s, was the social trend among post-primary school students.
As the cheapest and safest means of land transportation, it is time for government to bring back the railways. It would, at least, reduce the hazards caused by tankers and trailers on Nigerian highways in addition to providing employment opportunities. May Allah (SWT) guide the government in power to revive the Nigerian rail system, amin.