PUNCH
Managing Director, Nigeria Railway Corporation, Fidet Okhiria, shares his thoughts with LILIAN UKAGWU on the recent kidnap of train passengers in Edo State and the challenges facing the corporation, among other issues
Do you think there is hope for train service in Nigeria considering the current economic challenges and the level of insecurity in the country?
There is never a time where there won’t be economic challenges. The government has never had enough money. Before we were born, the government did not have enough money. Even in your family, money is never enough; the only thing is that you drive your priority; ‘Will I pay my child’s school fees? Yes! Do I need a room to lay my head? Yes! I want to go here, should I bring out money to go there? Yes!’ Money is never enough; the government can never have enough money and it can never be enough. You only drive the priority and do what is necessary for us to have the basic conveniences of life. Now, this government came and said we want to make sure rail is available and they took the bull by the horns, which was very courageous.
You can see the acceptance of people using rail, and we are not there yet till we start moving freight. That is when people will start to know the benefit of a functional rail. When all the rail freight is organised to come by rail, the road will be safer. Accidents occur on the roads as a result of stress on drivers. You see a driver taking the road from Lagos to Kano to get somewhere to sleep. Some of them don’t know where to stop and sleep. In the developed world, a driver does not take a vehicle for more than four hours without stopping; you must stop and rest, but we don’t have that in Nigeria.
In our train operations, you drive for four hours and the next time, another driver takes over from you, then you rest so that you avoid fatigue. That is what we do on the train services. The train can carry many containers of loads. So, if that is off the road, you know the road will be freer. Traffic will be lighter; accidents that happen on the road will reduce. You may not get the benefits in terms of naira and kobo, but the impact will be on commerce in the country. The right way is to link all our places by rail.
In the United States, you have them all over. That is why their economy is growing; they move more than 100 wagons at once and dangerous chemicals are moved by rail, because you can monitor it properly. Also, you can time yourself when you use the train. For instance, a train is to leave at 8 o’clock, it will leave at 8 o’clock and it will get there at the right time. There is nothing like an operational problem; it is not like air where you will wait for six hours to fly. They will now say operational reason is the cause of the delay. We don’t have that in rail. I think we should talk about whether the economy can withstand development. What the government is doing right now is the right way to go. We borrow for the project; they don’t borrow and keep in the bank and use it for another. Money doesn’t come to the railway; it comes to the Ministry of Finance. Those of us supervising will do the level work and pass it to (Ministry of) finance, then the ministry sends consultants and the institution giving the loan sends their consultants here to ensure that the work is properly done and assesses it before they pay; it is not the loan you take and drop in the Central Bank of Nigeria.
What do you think can be done to ensure a speedy growth of the rail transport sub-sector?
