The Federal Government is set to release a new National Railway Development Roadmap that will extend rail connectivity to all States of the federation, officials of the Nigerian Railway Corporation have said.
The Managing Director of the Corporation, Dr Kayode Opeifa, told participants at the Seventh National Transport Conference of the Chartered Institute of Transport Administration in Abuja that the new roadmap is designed to give all states access to national rail corridors at no additional cost.
He said the policy is enabled by recent amendments that place railway development on the concurrent legislative list. He explained that Lagos and Plateau States are already using the opportunity, while other states have been urged to join.
According to him, national corridors such as the Lagos to Kano line are open for state level operations wherever applicable. He said the Corporation is ready to work with any state that is prepared to utilise available rail assets.
Opeifa said Ogun and Oyo have both narrow and standard gauge lines that can be deployed immediately while Edo, Delta, Kogi, Kaduna, Kano and Niger States can link directly to existing national lines.
He also said freight movement on the national rail system has increased, with rising volumes of container cargo, gypsum, soda ash, cement, metal coil and materials for the AKK Pipeline Project.
On the Corporation’s long term plan, tagged Vision 2-5-10-20, Opeifa said the projection is to optimise rail assets within two years, introduce electric traction within five years, double the country’s rail capacity within ten years and develop not less than sixty thousand kilometres of track within twenty years.
