The Nigerian railways sector has been witnessing a flurry of activities, lately. In what looks like a renewed bid to get the countrys rail services back on track, some of the decrepit tracks that had been abandoned for years have suddenly come alive with the resumption of passenger and freight services on the routes. According to reports, the Minister of Transport, Idris Umar, was on hand recently to oversee the resumption of passenger services between Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, and Iddo in Lagos, following an earlier commencement of cement haulage from Ewekoro in Ogun State to Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, and Osogbo in Osun State. According to the District Manager of the Nigeria Railways Corporation, Ibadan District, Rasheed Gbadamosi, three weeks after rail services resumed on the Lagos-Ilorin route, the number of passengers on each of the weekly train trips reached the 2,000 mark, up from the 800 that made the maiden trip. Gbadamosi, who was upbeat about the prospect of a rapid increase in train patronage, also explained that over 3,000 passengers were on board the train for the Lagos-Ilorin trip during the Eid-el-Kabir festival held in November. The NRC, which operates the countrys railways, is one of the largest loss-making corporations among Nigerias public sector enterprises, despite being a monopoly.For a mode of transport that had become moribund, the modest gain so far recorded in the resuscitation bid could have been described as heartwarming. But this is hardly the dream railway system that Nigerians deserve in this day and age. At a time when the developed and emergent economies are already enjoying the full benefits of modern rail facilities as a veritable means of mass movement of goods and people, Nigerians rail system is still backward and inefficient, more than a century after the construction of the first track started in 1898. Yet, Nigerias dream of becoming one of the worlds top 20 economies will remain a mirage without a functional rail system. This fact was fully appreciated even by the British colonial masters when they conceived the idea of a rail system to evacuate agricultural produce from Kano and Zungeru in the Northern parts of the country to the port cities of Lagos and Port Harcourt in the South, which also explains the high esteem in which the sector was held until Nigerias independence in 1960. Such was the state of the rail system in Nigeria that the visiting head of the British Empire, Queen Elizabeth II, reportedly enjoyed a ride in the train in 1956 from Lagos to Ibadan.This was to change, however, with the coming into prominence of oil as the countrys principal income earner and the shift of emphasis from the movement of rapidly disappearing cash crops from the North to the South. The parlous state of the rail system in Nigeria has been fuelled by a deliberate government policy of neglect which began to emphasise other means of transport. For instance, records show that while the total length of the road network in Nigeria increased from 72,000 kilometres in 1962 to about 150,000km in the 1980s, and the number of airports shot up from two to 16 in 1990, the rail network has remained at 3,505km since 1964. It is also on record that the railways under the management of the NRC ferried 15.11 million passengers and generated N29 million in 1984 - at a time one United States dollar exchanged for 80 kobo. By 1993, the number of passengers had dipped to 1.5 million, while the revenue generated was less than N15 million, at the exchange rate of over N70 to a US dollar. According to a former Acting Managing Director of the NRC, Jetson Nwankwo, the corporation, at its peak of between 1954 and 1975, employed about 45,000 workers, a figure that fell to just 6,516 workers two years ago.Rather than bring relief to the movement of goods and persons from one section of the country to the other, the switch from the rail system has come with an increased dependence on roads, while the rapidly expanding road network has also suffered from lack of adequate maintenance and overuse. The replacement of rail with articulated vehicles for long distance freight has also led to congestion on the roads, sometimes resulting in accidents and wanton loss of human lives. As the country strives towards industrialisation, it has become obvious that the NRC can no longer be relied on to turn the fortunes of the rail system around, as a few trips between Lagos and Ilorin will not be enough to convince Nigerians or make an impact on the movement of goods. Past initiatives by the government to revive the sector had ended up gulping billions of dollars with little or nothing to show for it. For instance, on December 9, 1995, the Sani Abacha-led government signed a $528 million contract with the China Civil Engineering Construction Company for the rehabilitation of the railways, including the supply of 620 locomotives. Another contract of $2.5 billion from a loan taken from the Chinese government was awarded to the same CCECC for further rehabilitation. The biggest contract of $8.3 billion was awarded by the then President Olusegun Obasanjo, again to CCECC, under what was then known as a 25-year railway master plan. It was later cancelled by the late President Umaru YarAdua who then awarded two others worth $81.3 million and N12.2 billion to CCECC and Costain West Africa Plc respectively. The Federal Government should return to the reform package, which aims to improve the financial viability, productivity, and effectiveness of railway operations. It is time the government monopoly, the NRC, set up in 1921, threw in the towel so that the private sector can come into the railway business. The 1955 Nigerian Railway Act should be repealed immediately so that foreign concerns and local interests could help to breathe new life into a very important sector of the nations transport system.
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