Railway Modernisation. Lagos - Jebba - Kano By Rail. 10 Months Completion Date!

Contract awarded- I am sure some diasporians will scream this is a waste of time and money. 10 months completion date. wow.

Chinese again,what happed to nigerian engineering firms and engineers?

While I will not term it as a waste of money I will definitely term it as a waste of time!

It will also do well if you modify the title to Railway Rehabilitation not Railway Modernisation.

Obj awarded a contract to the Chinese company way back in 2007 before he handed over. The contract was to MODERNIZE the railway via the same routes while giving us standard guage tracks. The project was to last 2 and a half years and if they had started then, would have been completed now. Infact OBJ paid billions of naira upfront to the chinese coy.

Yaradua in his wisdom cancelled the contract. In doing that, we lost the billions OBJ paid upfront as it was non-refundable. Now Yardua also in his wisdom has offered the contract to THE SAME chinese coy but instead of MODERNISING the railway, he is rehabilitating. For those who read the original article in the link given, you will realise that Nigerian Railway is over a hundred years old. In those hundred years, all we have done is Rehabilitate our tracks. With OBJ's effort, we would have had modern, fast trains by now. However, with this new method, we will have the same locomotives we have always had (the Yaradua govt just ordered for new set of locomotives some months back). And not oly that, we are paying the same chinese coy TWICE but this time, they are doing a lesser job!

If not because the ordinary Nigerian on the street will benefit from a working Railway, I would have also termed it a waste of money. The whole world is moving forward, do we have to remain on the same spot and thus seem to be moving backwards to the rest of the world???

@Proudly9ja

Most of your submission are completely false. The money paid b4 is still part of the contract fees for this new one.

If they will actually do it, it will be a good project.
I hope they will work out some kinda maintenance out as well.

As long as it was FG that awarded the contract, they dont care, it is always ways for them to enrich themselves, but let us hope that they will actually make it happy this time, at least that will ease some traffic off the highways.

tosh,

Noone hates Nigeria. Everyone is as frustrated as the next person the way things are being done by our leaders.

You should take a trip to Ghana, not even UK or US, just Ghana and then you will understand how big for nothing we are as a Nation. Do you know your leaders asked the Ghanian Electoral Commission chairman to come and teach them how to hold free and fair elections? Didn't we hold one in June 1993 in our own country?
That is just an aside.

I understand that you want to focus on the good things happening in Nigeria, no problem. However, let us not be deluded by the mediocrity government is selling to us cos we can do better. Recently we just heard how a man was jailed for stealing 84billion naira. The rail contract you are screaming about costs about 20billion. If the 84 billion stolen by that man and billions shared at Aso Rock everyday is expended, we will have one of the best rail systems in the world! However, your leaders know that Nigerians will take anything thrown at them and that is what we should stand up against. I assure you, the only reason they are doing this rehabilitation is because of the elections coming up in 2 years time. What have they been doing since 2007? they were busy cancelling OBJ's contracts and setting up committees to steal money (Elumelu quickly comes to mind).

Finally, please disabuse your mind from this Nigerians in Diaspora, Nigerians in Nigeria rubbish. Its what they throw to us to make us keep fighting within ourselves so we don't speak with one voice the same way they throw the ethnic and tribal bone to us. Its the same blood that flows through us. We are all Nigerians whether I am in Nigeria or Ghana or Russia or the UK or US. It is your money, my money and our collective sweat that they share at Aso Rock and Government ouses all around the federation. It is the future of OUR country that they are mortgaging and thats why we must speak with ONE voice.