Alhaji Aliko Dangote is rightly celebrated for giant strides he has made over the last decade in leading a transformation of the Nigerian, and increasingly, the African cement sector. From just a couple of million tons Nigerian production capacity a decade ago, with imports making up the difference, the nation now boasts of around 40m tons of production capacity with what is surplus to current requirements exported. This has reversed the economically crippling waste of foreign exchange hitherto spent on importation of cement. The celebrations however overlook the cost of this overdue industrial revolution to the environment, communities, road infrastructure and the financial bottom line of Dangote Cement Plc (Dancem) itself. The fly in this otherwise fragrant ointment has been the logistical nightmare of moving about 100,000 tons, 2,500 forty ton, 18 wheeler, truckloads of output daily from the Dancem factories to depots, distributors and end users via Nigeria’s woebegone roads. Dancem’s woes extend well beyond this initial approximate numbers however. When we factor in triplication required to ensure trucks are always available to offtake production output and the trucks required to deliver inputs we should be looking at well over 10,000 massive trucks churning up fragile or tarmac free roads, polluting the environment and inevitably causing mayhem all over the country. Yet it need not be so.

Dancem’s two largest factories at Obajana in Kogi state and Ibese in Ogun state are fortuitously located within 40km and 30km respectively of standard gauge rail lines that are scheduled for completion in 2018. In the case of the Ibese factory there is a moribund narrow gauge Ilaro spur, that hooks up to the Lagos – Ibadan rail line at Ifo, which takes rail within 10km of the Dancem factory while Obajana will have to hook up directly to the Warri – Itakpe line.

My proposal is that Dancem takes over from the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) the Ilaro rail spur that has not been operational for over 30 years now. This comes with an established Right of Way (ROW) up to Ilaro which saves a lot of potential community headache though I expect by now Dancem must have positive community engagement down to a fine art. With additional approval to extend the line to its Ibese factory Dancem should be able to rebuild the whole branch as a standard gauge line that will evacuate virtually 100% of its production to Lagos and the rest of Nigeria. Such a line of roughly 30km length will cost about $150m using the approximately $5m / km cost of the Ethiopia-Djibouti rail line which passes through much tougher terrain and is of course a government project. The Obajana line will be a greenfield line entirely and, with approval secured from the FGN, it should set Dancem back no more than $200m for its around 40km length. These look like large amounts of money but Dancem’s desperation to get out from under the unbearable burden of its unwished-for trucking empire has already led it to set up a $100m truck assembly plant in Lagos. Soon it might have to set up a tyre factory too to provide the more 100,000 truck tyres it requires annually at a cost of about half a million naira each. Yet these merely beg the many questions posed by the deployment of more than 10,000 trucks on Nigeria’s notoriously unmotorable roads.

Whether assembled in Nigeria or imported, these 10,000 trucks cost more than $1b to procure, a significant fraction of another billion dollars to run annually, cause havoc to both environment and communities creating massive bad press for the enterprise, are a significant point of leakage from theft of product and parts to entire vehicles disappearing and require way too much executive time to manage. Like the unreliable gas supplies that have now been supplanted to a large extent by using coal for its kilns and power generation, road haulage is also a significant Achilles heel for Dancem production as major roads nationwide keep deteriorating with vital bridges lost every now and then. These are costs and business risks that Dancem does not have to keep bearing if it deploys its significant resources to charting this alternative logistical course.

If we accept that the switch looks good financially how about the commercial impact? Historically Nigeria’s major markets have been established along the rail lines so setting up depots for Dancem and other Dangote products at Mushin, Oyingbo, Yaba, Agege and similar markets along the rail lines can be executed flawlessly. Beyond such ease of distribution, we should factor in also the extension of the market each cement factory can profitably supply. The constraints of road transport meant that each cement factory could not go beyond around 300km radius in distributing its products but the ease, cheapness and speed of rail transport will enable Dancem to extend its reach to every nook and cranny of Nigeria with the addressable markets of its factories overlapping which should enable it optimize production across its various operations.

The not insignificant challenge of securing FGN approval to take over and extend the Ilaro spur and to build an Itapke – Obajana line can easily be overcome in the current political climate where the FGN is eager for rail development, conscious of its own limited resources and eager for private sector participation in all spheres. This might require the tweaking of the current railway laws of Nigeria but I trust Dancem can make the FGN an offer it cannot refuse. On the proposed Ibese – Ifo line I would expect the governments of Ogun and Lagos states to be fully supportive as such a line will open the western axis of Ogun state up to residential developments that can service and decongest Lagos. In addition, instead of the government of Lagos going all the way to Kebbi state in search of food for its burgeoning population, it can simply revive the legendary ‘oko Idogo’ (Idogo train service) that supplied all the major markets of Lagos with fresh produce twice a day for about 60 years up to the 1970s. Planned townships and agricultural layouts can piggy back on the rail line to supply workers and high quality fresh produce for Lagos as in the days of yore.

Lastly, taking over 10,000 diesel burning trucks off the roads must be worth significant carbon credits that I believe Dancem can bank in addition to the company entering the good books of environmentalists and both host and transit communities that have borne the losses in lives, limbs and possessions even as Dancem juggernauts have rolled across Nigeria’s roads daily for almost ten years now. It is time Dancem closed the book on this chapter of its development before communities become radicalized and start posing a potent threat to its operations.

It is my hope that the relentless focus and ambitions of Alhaji Aliko Dangote and his main enterprise, Dancem, will bring about the realization of this dream that will place their operations on a sustainable path financially and otherwise. When he is done with the refinery and has pocketed Arsenal, it is my hope that he will turn his attention to the possibility and potential of a high speed rail system that connects the whole of West Africa, a part of the world that is soon to be host to almost one billion humans and should be the last major global factory. Now that will be an ambition for me to cheer on.