The federal government appears dogged in its determination to make the woes of the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) an absolute history. SAMSON ECHENIM looks at the strategic plans by the current management of the NRC to rehabilitate and fund the construction of new railway infrastructures round the country.

In May 2011, the Minister of Transport, Senator Idris Umar was in Lagos, the country’s commercial capital on a two-day visit to familiarise with the rail and marine transport infrastructure and their various stakeholders. At the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) headquarters and premises, rail engines, locomotives, wagons and other heavy equipment and rail facilities lay wasting.

Infrastructural decay and utter state of comatose best described the once celebrated national glory called NRC, leading hearts to weep for dear Nigeria. At the headquarters where the minister inaugurated two rail road recovery vehicles for emergencies on the railway, NRC’s Managing Director, Engr. Adeseyi Sijuade said, “We ordered for five and we have just received two for now. We have trained workers to handle them.”

In one of the large engine rooms, there were rail engines such as the one named after the then second-in-command in the Abacha regime, General Oladipo Diya (Rtd), lying waste for decades. One could observe that it was never moved through the rail lines. The NRC managing director talked of bringing them back to standards so that they could be used. “We will rehabilitate and modernise them for use,” he said, but added, “No plans for them for now.”

At that event, the Minister said, “without the railway, this country is doomed,” adding that he had begun moves to have the Railway Act amended to involve the private sector in funding the infrastructure as budgetary allocations alone were not enough to drive the NRC. “If a facility has been moribund for 40 years and there is a man who is able to rebuild it for 25 years, he definitely deserves applause. But this is a plan. We are competing with other critical infrastructure which equally demand funds, such as the power sector on which we also depend for success in this sector (rail),” the minister explained.

Interestingly, less than two years later, the words of the minister have come to fruition. The days of glory in Nigeria’s railway are now here. The current management of NRC led by Engr. Adeseyi Sijuwade is recording feats after feats in the transformation of the hitherto moribund critical socio-economic infrastructure. It is now one of the government’s major areas of transformation. It is indeed, important that Nigerians are regularly updated with current happenings in Nigeria Railway Corporation.



The Lagos-Kano Railway and other Services

[b]Passenger and freight services on the Lagos-Kano railway line covering 1,126 kilometres on the western corridor were flagged off on December 22 last year. Since then, the services have been unbroken, moving 2,500 passengers weekly. The service now patronised by Nigerian long distance travellers’ demands more from the NRC to increase frequency on the route.

Speaking on the services of the corporation currently running, the corporation’s Director, Operations, Mr Niyi Ali said, “Our operations have increased. We have inter-city mass transit; Lagos mass transit service in which 16 trains move 16,000 passengers on a daily basis and the Kaduna mass transit with 10 trains moving 10,000 passengers daily. There are the intercity passenger services in which about 2,500 passengers are moved weekly from Lagos to Kano. Over 80,000 passengers have been lifted by the Lagos-Kano Train since commencement of operation in December 2012.”

Figures from the corporation show that the Lagos-Ilorin-Lagos train moves 6,200 passengers weekly, while about 2,000 passengers also travel from Offa to Kano and back to Offa every week. There is also the Minna-Kaduna-Minna train which moves some 3,500 people weekly and the Kano-Nguru train going twice a week and moving about 1,000 passengers, 200 tons of luggage and parcels.

“We also have freight services going on currently. Under this service we are moving products for Lafarge Cement from Lagos to Kano carrying about 3,000 tons monthly; the Flour Mills wheat traffic from Lagos to Kano also delivering 500 tons monthly. We move track materials for contractors up to 3000 tons monthly; sand traffic from Oturkpo to Makurdi about 4,000 tons monthly; movement of NRC’s petroleum products from Lagos to Kano and other traffic reaching some 1000 tons on a monthly basis,” Ali said.

In preparation for fuel haulage by rail, the NRC had in February this year imported 20 units of pressurized fuel tanker wagons with a capacity of 40 tons and said it had planned to import additional 50 when the project firms up. With such capacity, the 20 tank wagons have now taken off about 30 trailers from the roads through Lagos-Kano axis as the system began operation December 2012.

With more tanker wagons, the fuel haulage service would be dedicated to major oil marketers, Oando, Agip, Total and a few others, to lift fuel from the seaports to Kano, Kaduna, Zaria and as far as Kafanchan and Maiduguri in the north east Nigeria. Available statistics also show that the railway now render excursion train services, which are highly patronised during festivities.

According the operations director, upcoming train services will include Port-Harcourt - Aba passenger train, Kano MTT service, inland container traffic Nigerian Breweries traffic, CRCC ballast traffic, CCECC ballast and Total Petroleum traffic.

“We are doing a lot more than reaches the awareness of people. We want to make rail major mover of freight in this country and link all international airports, seaports and inland container depots to the rail network,” he said.

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Public Private Partnership In Railway Service

The railway in Nigeria began with private organisational efforts. But in other to make its services accessible to the ordinary man, the government in its good intentions took over the service which was finally established by the 1955 Railway Act, reserving ownership to the government only. Now it is desirable that the private sector has to come in to make the dream come true.

The corporation has a 25-year strategic plan of system transition, modernisation and stabilisation. With the plan it expects the railway to stabilise by 2017 with standard gauge systems in place for faster movement. But stakeholders said for the country to pull the plan through successfully, laws establishing the NRC and its mandate to manage the railway infrastructure must be revisited and amended to incorporate private investment.

“Government has a lot of goals and a lot of infrastructural development seeking attention and the railway is just one of them. Right now, wise government ministries, agencies and corporations are those who channel their energy towards private sector participation and so for me, we are ripe enough for that. So, in the next few months you are going to be seeing quite a lot of private sector participation in moving the Nigeria Railway Corporation forward.

“Our strategic direction as at now is about public private partnership as the way forward. I say this because we have reached a point where it has become so glaring that government’s primarily funding alone cannot take us to where we need to be. Under this step therefore, we have forwarded the Railway Bill which has been approved by the National Council on Privatisation and will shortly be presented to the National Assembly for consideration and approval,” the NRC boss explained.

According to a transport sector expert, Mr Simon Anakwe, the future of the country’s railway lies with successful installation of the standard gauge and the rapid rail system, which according to him should now be the main focus. He said, “I am aware that the ministry of transport has taken steps to have the railway laws amended in order to involve private sector investors in the railway transport, but this has to be pursued with great spirit.

“The lawmakers themselves who are now the determinants in this case should not deny Nigerians the opportunities that come with a robust and effective railway transport. In Brazil and China, the railway is a major employer of labour, employing up to 25 million and 75 million in the countries respectively, both directly and indirectly. The same thing can be achieved here and our youths will have jobs. So government, especially the legislature in this case, must learn from these countries,” Anakwe added.

However, the corporation has three steps of the public private partnership (PPP) initiative. Step 1 involves outsourcing to enhance operational efficiency. This include on-board cleaning of passenger trains, cleaning of major train stations, on-board catering and outsourcing plans include facilities management of all major stations, ticketing service and car parks. Under Step 2, the federal government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with General Electric for setting up a locomotive assembly plant in Nigeria. A transaction advisor for that is being selected. Under this step, it has also commenced procurement process for selecting potential logistics service providers to partner with it in the area of design, build, maintain, operate and transfer (DBMOT) of warehouses for storage of goods, services for loading and off-loading of goods supply of coaches and wagons for freight services. Under Step 3, the corporation has finalised the presentation of the OBC for the Western and Eastern lines concessions. It is now moving to the next stage of selecting a transaction advisor.


[b]
The Many Projects Ongoing, Standard Gauge And The Role Of SURE-P

The NRC has awarded quite a lot of projects which are now at various levels of completion. The rehabilitation of the Lagos-Kano Line under Contract 1 & 2 has been completed and the line has become operational since December last year after the corporation spent about N24.4 billion to rehabilitate the 1,126km railway line.

According to the corporation’s managing director, several contracts have been awarded, including for the building of standard gauge facilities on both the western and eastern corridors. According to him, Contract 3, which comprises Port-Harcourt to Makurdi on the Eastern axis is now in progress. The project comprises the Aba gully control, Bridge 18, Bridge 15, which have been done and track works.

He said skeletal train service has begun between Utobe and Makurdi. Contract 4 is the Makurdi to Kuru and Contract 5 involves upgrading of the Eastern Line signaling and telecoms system now in progress. The design has been completed and next stage will be physical installation and configuration starting with four stations. The contract on telecoms and signaling on the Eastern Corridor from Port-Harcourt to Maiduguri, a distance of 1,657km and awarded to Ansaldo A3 and O Ltd at N5.6 billion has reached 18 per cent completion.

Contract 6 is Zaria to Kaura Namoda, where the rate of work on Zaria to Funtua and Funtua to Karazua sections is high, with bridge repairs in progress. Level crossings are almost completed. And of course, we have Contract 7 comprising Kuru to Maiduguri, where serious works are currently in progress. The track contract of the Eastern Line was awarded to two firms, CGGC and Lingo at N48.2 billion.

“We also have the modernisation programme, which for now has in it the completion of Ajaokuta/Itakpe to Warri standard gauge in progress, nearing 70 per cent completion; the construction of Abuja to Kaduna standard gauge now 40 per cent completed; construction of Lagos to Ibadan standard gauge has just been awarded and of course, a number of feasibility studies are on-going for new lines,” said Sijuade.

In the area of rehabilitation and procurement of rolling stock, the corporation has refurbished about 350 wagons, 120 coaches, procured 20 oil tank wagons in 2012 and 20 more to arrive in July (this year); two 100 tons telescopic cranes—one has been fully installed and the other awaiting clearance at the port. It has also procured four 60 tons overhead cranes and they have been fully installed; three rail inspection vehicles and five rail recovery vehicles. Four locomotives are expected to arrive in July, six 68-seater modern coaches to be delivered by December, while two sets of diesel multiple units are also to be delivered in December[/b].



Challenges And The Future

With a determined management of the corporation and personnel with a new orientation on board, the obvious challenges remain those of funding and successful transformation to standard gauge, which are basically NRC’s modernisation projects as well as the challenge with amendment of the Railway Act of 1955 to bring in full private sector participation.

But for now, the NRC boss said, “We have to complete the rehabilitation of the western and eastern lines and continue our modernisation projects. These are project challenges. We also have such challenges with addendum for sidings and loop lines on the Western line, procurement and rehabilitation of locomotives and rolling stock, maintenance equipment and construction of links to sea, river and air ports.

“In the area of operational challenges, we have insufficient locomotives’ coaches and wagon leading to congestion. We also face the challenge of porosity of rail corridors and level crossing. At the moment, we have access to only two seaports and none to any airport. We also need more staff and to create staff incentives.

Undoubtedly, in addition to the power sector, the successful resuscitation of the railway is now considered by Nigerians as another parameter for measuring the success of the present administration and its transformation agenda. Nigerians are least concerned about whom the owners of NRC may be, provided that effective and affordable railway services return to the citizens.

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