Take a fresh look at your lifestyle.

(COVER) BUHARI’S RAILWAY BURDEN

...Keeping the trains going sustainably on the rail lines as well as paying back the borrowed funds is a hurdle President Buhari will pass to his successor alongside the assets

Akani Alaka writes on why President Muhammadu Buhari’s investment in rail infrastructure is becoming problematic for the country.

 

Last Friday, President Muhammadu Buhari presented his last budget proposal as the head of the Nigerian government to the National Assembly. The president also used the occasion to recount some of the successes and challenges of his administration ahead of his May 2023 exit date.

While presenting the Bill to the lawmakers, Buhari had also tried to justify some of the actions of his administration in the over seven years he has been in office.

And if there is one area in which most Nigerians had expressed apprehension and demanded justification from the Buhari administration over its seven years in power, it is its seemingly rampant accumulation of debts. According to Debt Management Office (DMO), Nigeria’s debt as of March 2022 stands at N41.6 trillion.

About 85 per cent of the total debt is owed by the Federal Government, accumulated by the Buhari administration in the past seven years. In his budget to the National Assembly, the President had tried to justify the debts with claims that they were necessary to bring Nigeria out of recession, the two times the country suffered the economic reversal under his administration.

READ ALSO: http://2023: Sanwo-Olu begins campaign at Ehingbeti Summit, calls Jandor, others ‘noisemakers’

Furthermore, he added that the borrowed funds were invested in infrastructure spread across the country, including the national railway network.

He said in this area, the Federal Government’s efforts to restore and expand the national railway network had led to the construction or completion of the 156km Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge rail (and its 8.72km extension to Lagos Port); the 186km Abuja-Kaduna standard gauge rail; and 327km Itakpe-Warri standard gauge rail.

In addition to this, the Buhari administration also has ongoing the  Port-Harcourt-Maiduguri, Kano-Maradi (Niger Republic) and Kano-Kaduna standard gauge rail lines, the rehabilitation of the narrow gauge Eastern line connecting Port-Harcourt and Maiduguri and other ancillary projects in the sector.

Also, on 12 July 2018, President Buhari inaugurated with aplomb, the US$824million Abuja Rail Mass Transit, also known as Abuja Light Rail.

The metro line, established to help tackle the transportation problem in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) began operation some days after.

Just like the metro line the Abuja-Kaduna rail project was inherited by the Buhari administration from its predecessor.

On the other hand, the construction of the Itakpe-Ajaokuta-Warri rail line began in 1987 and was originally intended for moving iron ore from the mines in Itakpe to the now-near moribund Ajaokuta steel plant.

“To further open up our communities to economic activities, we have continued to boost our railway infrastructure with the completion of a good number of critical railways and at the same time rehabilitating as well as upgrading obsolete equipment,” President Buhari had boasted during his October 1 Independence Day address.

READ ALSO: http://Flood: Niger Delta varsity Teaching Hospital shut

Supporters of the administration had also pointed out that with the Lagos-Ibadan rail line, the Buhari administration has made history as the first government in the country to begin and complete a railway project. Despite such excitements, questions are being asked over the conceptualizations of the rail projects and, indeed, whether they are worth the funds borrowed to execute them.

Setback By Terrorists

Such questions became relevant following the terrorist attack on the Abuja-Kaduna AK9 Train in Kaduna State on March 28.

Before then, the train route was arguably the most patronized because of insecurity that make many avoid the expressways.

But the rail line has been suspended since the attack in which terrorists who first damaged part of the tracks to force the train to stop abducted 63 of the passengers with several others killed.

The last 23 of the abducted passengers were released after 191 days in captivity last Wednesday.

The hostages returned with horrifying tales of their stay in captivity that may not encourage the return of passengers if the train operations resume.

For example,  one of the freed hostages,  Muhammad Abdullah, a member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), serving in Niger State said he had joined the train on his way back to Kaduna as he believed it was safer than travelling by road.

“Many of the things that happened in the jungle are better imagined because I don’t wish that even my worst enemy would go through such an experience. Because they play with guns there, there was a day one of us was shot as a result of accidental discharge,” he said in an interview.

No Security Plan

However, many blamed the fatal terrorist attack on the failure of the Buhari administration to inculcate adequate security measures in the design of the train when it began operation.

Following the attack, the then minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, claimed that the N3.7 billion contracts proposal he submitted for the installation of security equipment for monitoring the train track was rejected.

But it was later revealed that the contract was rejected by the Federal Executive Council, FEC because the contractor recommended by the minister had no previous experience to undertake the task.

A group which described itself as Kaduna Communities for Social Justice (KCSJ) had called for the sack of the minister in the aftermath of the attack.

The group, in a statement signed by Muhammadu Adamu and Peter Musa, its president and secretary, respectively, noted that Kaduna governor, Nasir el-Rufai had asked the minister to stop operating the trains after 5 pm, based on security reports of a likely attack by terrorists, but he refused.

The group added that the fact that Amaechi put forward the rejected contract was a confirmation that he was also aware of the security threats against the train operation.

The former minister had estimated that it would take over N8 billion to repair the about two kilometres of track, the locomotives as well as one or two of the coaches damaged in the attack.

The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) had also estimated that before its stoppage, the train service was generating over N300 million monthly.

The NRC, which claimed that it had repaired the damages done to the rail track had tried to resume train operations but was stopped following outrage from families of the hostages who were still in the custody of their abductors then. Even, with the release of the last batch of hostages, the multi-billion rail line may still lie fallow for a long time to come.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: http://Sanwo-Olu opens Peace Park in Ketu, commits youths to progress

Why Abuja-Kaduna Train Can’t Resume Now

In an interview, last Thursday,  the Managing Director of NRC Mr Fidet Okhiria said a team set up to come up with measures to protect passengers and railway infrastructure across the country is still busy with its work.

He added that the team is made up of officials from the Office of the Chief of Defense Staff,  the Chief of Army Staff, the I-G, the DSS and the Military Intelligence among others.

”We have broken into committees and while that is going on, those things we need to put in place to help us run safe and secure trains are also being put in place within the NRC.

“We are providing some shields like barracks where the police can feel safe and comfortable to work. We are also going to provide some sort of mobility and safety wears for the security people,” he said while emphasizing that the committee will decide when to resume operations.

AbandonedAbuja Metro Line

In the same boat as the Abuja-Kaduna rail is the US$824million Abuja Metro line abandoned a few months after it was inaugurated.

A recent report indicated that vandals are feasting on facilities of the rail line.

Analysts attributed the lack of patronage of the train to the fact that only the section from the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport to the Metro Station in the Central Business District with an intermediate station at Idu had been completed.

As it is, the train is useless to the majority of people targeted for its patronage with the completion of only one section linking Abuja city centre to the Airport.

Completion of the other lots of the project’s line would have linked the metro line to populous areas of the FCT like Kubwa, Wupa, Idu, Bassanjiwa, Gwagwa, Deidei, Kagini, Gbazango, Nyanya/Karu, Bwari, and Suleja where metro stations were scheduled to be constructed.

“The execution of the rail line was doomed to fail in the first place as it was only a straight route from Idu Station to the Airport and after disembarking at Idu you still need to connect to other parts of Abuja using vehicular transportation.

“The other sections of the project linking areas with people traffic are yet to get off the ground, a mismanaged resource.

“The practicality was in jeopardy already. People just preferred using taxis as it was better and they could get a taxi at any time rather than waiting specifically for the train that had its own time.

“For the workability of the station government should have made provision for a branching network to other parts of the city and ensure easy connections to be made,” said Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo in a recent article.

“The rail should have started from the areas where people live like Kubwa and the likes, rather than the central business district. This is a reflection of poor planning yet the government took loans of about 900 million dollars that it would have to repay.

“The Abuja Metro is another colossal failure and it is indicative of the impetuous thinking that dominates governance in Nigeria. One wonders if any cost-benefit analysis was taken into cognizance and if there were any forms of scenario planning employed in our interventions,” he added.

Further Waste

Following outrage over the looting of the facilities metro line, the Federal Capital Territory Administration had some months ago indicated readiness to go back to the site for the construction of 5.76 kilometres that will extend the train track and fixing of the vandalized areas of the track.

The Mandate Secretary, Transport Secretariat, Alhaji Zakari Dobi, made the promise during the inspection of the vandalized light rail track, and station.

“What we saw was quite bad even though when I assumed office, I had been briefed about the issue of vandalisation. We have the intention to go back to the site for the construction of a 5.76 kilometres rail track in Abuja. The cost of the construction also included the fixing of vandalized areas,” he said.

But rather than the promise to return to the site to construct the remaining part of the rail line, the Minister of FCT,  Muhammed Bello went to FEC in August to request approval for  N718 million for the surveillance of the light rail system.

“They are going to provide security to the entire 45 kilometres of track including 12 stations. And these security services are meant to protect the key infrastructure on the rail tracks, the signalling and communication equipment as well as the electrical system,” he said while confirming that the contract was approved.

Yet, analysts said putting the train to work would have been the best way to protect it from vandalisation.

Too Costly To Run

While the Lagos-Ibadan Train Service is still running, the NRC has been forced to drastically cut the number of trips as a result of a hike in diesel prices.

The NRC had indicated that while it earns about N1.7m per day, it uses about 24,000 litres of diesel daily for the Lagos-Ibadan route, amounting to about N4 million.

This, the Corporation said is not sustainable.

“The Lagos-Ibadan train service is running but we have reduced the number of trips on that route because of the diesel problem. We reduced the number of trips we are running because of the hike in diesel price. We are now doing two return trips as against six, which by now should have gone to 10. So we run just two trips now due to diesel problem,”  Okhiria said.

He added that the NRC had made recommendations for adjustments of fares to the government on the route which has not been approved. But analysts said a further hike in fares will put the train at a more disadvantage when compared with road transportation and reduce its patronage.

Users of the train had complained that the cost of getting to the take-off point in Yaba Lagos as well as getting out of the final stop station in Ibadan is a major disincentive to the patronage of the service.

In the same vein, insecurity has affected the operation of the Warri-Itakpe rail corridor.

The NRC CEO in an interview some weeks ago confessed that the Corporation had been leveraging its other assets to keep the trains running. He added that the attack on the Kaduna-Abuja train reduced the confidence of passengers in the train services and consequently the revenue of NRC.

“We also search for funds from other sources, such as property rents and others. So, we use it to augment what we earn from the train services. See, it has been a serious headache, I won’t lie to you. It has been stressful and the NRC is owing for diesel, but we cannot stop.”.

It was also learnt that the Federal Government was having a problem continuing with the funding of the controversial Kano-Maradi, Niger Republic line. The Corporation said last week that it had developed a model that would enable private operators to use the train with their locomotives. This is an obvious move to ensure that the rail lines are put to more use. However, what is certain is that the rail lines will not be able to generate enough funds to pay back the money borrowed to build them.

Keeping the trains going sustainably on the rail lines as well as paying back the borrowed funds is a hurdle President Buhari will pass to his successor alongside the assets.

 

Comments
Loading...