- Announces plan to increase speed to 80km/h, warns pedestrians to avoid rail tracks
By Demilade Aderibigbe
The Nigerian Railway Corporation has set next Tuesday as D-day for the commencement of the long awaited electronic ticketing (e-ticketing) on the remaining two standard gauge networks – Lagos-Ibadan and Itakpe-Warri Standard gauge lines.
Disclosing this on Television Continental (TVC) during an interview with Tolulope Ogunjobi, on Tuesday, the Corporation’s Managing Director Engr. Fidet Okhiria said the last leg of the testing of the platform will be accomplished today, when it is expected to go live to restricted number of people, for last minute check for glitches, before it would be opened to the general public.
According to him, the e-ticketing will put an end to the challenges observed in the present practice where passengers must appear in person at train stations before they can obtain tickets, adding that e-ticketing would ensure that passengers are able to buy their train ticket at least 48 hours to their proposed departure date and this could be done from the comfort of their homes or offices by simply downloading the app on relevant online platforms.
He said: “The e-ticketing is the way to go, it is the way to secure our money and our investments, because as you buy your tickets it goes to the government coffers directly. We have it in Abuja-Kaduna and we are also going to have it at Lagos-Ibadan and Itakpe-Warri. By the end of the month our passengers should start using it.”
Okhiria also disclosed that the disciplinary committee which was sitting on the matter of some of its staff caught on camera collecting fares for a ride in the train in Ibadan, on the Lagos-Ibadan Standard Gauge has been dismissed in accordance with the extant rules of the corporation.
Okhiria also announced that the train speed on the Lagos-Ibadan Standard Gauge will soon be increased from 40 kilomtres per hour to 80 kms per hour. He warned all those trading on the tracks to stop forthwith as the new speed regime has taken immediate effect.
Okhiria explained that the train has operated the Lagos-Ibadan speed train at 40km/hr, since when it was commissioned in 2021 by President Muhammadu Buhari, said the corporation has decided to increase the speed to 80km. He said the designed speed of the track is 150km, adding that the corporation will not continue to shortchange itself by running the tracks at below installed capacity.
He said adequate announcements have will continued to be made at all the train stations at Yaba, Oshodi Agege and all the stations within the Lagos environs to ensure that people are well educated and sensitized to avoid trading, playing or conducting any activity on the train tracks.
“We are going to be increasing our speed especially within Lagos. I’m also using this opportunity to tell our brothers and sisters playing on the tracks to stop it. Right now we are doing 40 kilometres, we are going to be moving to 80 kilometres because the tracks is designed for 150 but we won’t mind going gradually to 120km per hour especially within Lagos. People should be aware of that and those who cross the tracks should be aware of that and they should obey the level crossing lights and obey our signalmen. We have gone out to start making public announcements already at Oshodi, at Yaba at Mushin at Agege, telling them that the speed of the train is going to go up as we cannot continue to shortchange ourselves if the train is designed to run at 150km people should avoid the permanent way, it is not a place trade,” Okhiria said.
On the e-ticketing, Okhiria said: “right now, we are putting to test the e-ticketing on Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge and thereafter, Itakpe-Warri, so that people can buy the tickets from the comfort of their homes and offices from their phones or other devices simply by downloading the applicable app. This will help reduce human interference and ensure that all revenues of the corporation goes strainght into its account with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).”
He said the e-ticketing will reduce the number of people who come to the stations to buy tickets and reduce exposing passengers to staffs who may want to induce them by collecting lower fare rates, thereby robbing the corporation of its revenue.
“We will be going live by Wednesday, but that does not mean it would be released to members of the public yet, but would be open to some people for final testing before finally releasing it to the public. This is for us to ensure that the money goes straight to our CBN account. We have been on this in the last two weeks and we are on the final lap of introducing it to members of the public,” Okhiria said.
Okhiria who chairs the disciplinary committee which sat to review the culpability of the staff caught on the video that went viral last month said the four staff implicated in the video admitted to guilt when confronted with the evidence, but could only say they eventually paid the money into the corporation’s coffer. He said; “what they did was in line with the Corporation’s rule book wrong as no staff is permitted to sell ticket on the train. The only ticket you can sell on the train is the penalty ticket, so they are found guilty and would be summarily dismissed in line with our extant rules to serve as deterrent to other members of staff.’
He further disclosed that seven others who were implicated in the matter have been recommended for demotion and would be also be barred from promotion to serve as deterrent to others.
Speaking on the issue of the “alleged stolen coaches in Borno” Okhiria said there was no truth in the story, adding that the corporation has been moving all coaches from wherever they are stationed to the closest maintenance yard where they could be repaired ahead of their deployment to where they would be needed.
This he said is in line with the need to support the government’s policy by making mass transit trains available to Nigerians to reduce the pains of Nigerians suffering from the removal of fuel subsidy by the government.
He explained that this was what the corporation intended to do by moving some coaches from Maiduguri to the Jos Maintenance Yard for necessary repairs before they would be deployed to wherever they would be needed on the network. “Sadly however, about 20 tyres of the coaches were shot at and destroyed and we are already in touch with the Borno State Government on this and especially to let them know that its officers obtained all the necessary approvals before attempting to move the coaches from Maiduguri.”
Okhiria exressed happiness that more states are already showing interest in providing intra city train services to their people, listing Kano, Kaduna, Plateau and Kwara among states that are already discussing with the corporation for metro train operations. He expressed optimism that the Borno State government will rising from the avoidable disagreement over this removal of the coaches will also key in and introduce train service to her people in Borno State.
He said the corporation has come up with an operational framework, which has been approved by its board which states willing to make use of the national network within their territories could make use of, adding that right now, states and individuals can buy coaches and wagons on the nation’s network and the corporation will be too willing to give such entities the terms of operations.
He said the more the nation’s tracks are kept busy, the more it would be difficult for saboteurs to vandalise them thus drawing the nation back on the march to becoming a rail-friendly nation.
Excerpts from the interview as recorded by Sunrise News:
“Right now we are putting to test the e-ticketing on Lagos-Ibadan and thereafter, Itakpe-Warri, so that people can buy the tickets in the convenience of their homes and that reduces the human interferences at that level. As it is you can buy ticket 48 hour to your journey time and we are extending that also to Abuja-Kaduna. We want to minimize the number of people who come to the station and buy tickets physically. That will reduce instances of people accusing our staff of coming to induce them to pay them. We started serious testing of the e-ticketing platform last week, we would be going live tomorrow (Wednesday) on that testing. That live will not be going to the public yet, so that the money you are paying is going to the right channel. On that issue of inducement, recall that some weeks ago, we saw in a video our staff inducing some passengers to give them lower rate to board the train, we members of the disciplinary committee which is headed by me looked at the video and the person caught on video could not deny it, but was coming up with excuses that they collect the money and remitted it to the corporation but we told him it is against the law to sell tickets on train, what you can only do is to sell penalty tickets. Sorry to say the four of them caught in the act in that video would lose their job, in line with company policy and that will serve as a deterrence The other thing that happened is that we are trying to see how we can put our trains in the service of all nooks and crannies of the country and we are trying to gather our coaches wherever they are to the closest place for maintenance. We have to be on the government path to support the government in bringing relief to Nigerians as a result of the petroleum subsidy removal. We are also lucky that a lot of states are coming up with the idea of intra state train service. We have Plateau, we have Kaduna, we have Kwara coming on board and are also discussing with Kano and the Borno State government. It is good that they partner with us and we have now developed a framework for inter and intra state train access. Individual can buy their train and we just give them the rail access. We have given them the framework to look at the ones convenient for them so that we can begin to do scheduling of the tracks. We have a single track and we need to occupy the track Occupying the tracks will reduce the vandalisation that is happening all over the country because right now Lagos, Abuja, kaduna, we are running two trains because we dot have the trains to run our earlier schedule. We are running one train from Itakpe to Warri, before then we have started doing four trips, 10 trips in Abuja and four trips in Lagos. In order to ensure that we occupy the tracks, we can have a train run every 30 minutes one after the other. When we have that and states having the interest to occupy the national tracks start showing up the framework that we have developed which is already approved by the board would come into full stream and if they buy into it, it can be passed to them and they pay for using the national tracks. The issue that happened in Borno is a good thing because it showed clearly that Nigerians and ou governments are on the lookout for us and will not allow anyone to derail our activities. But on the contrary, it was not an attempt to steal those coaches, it was an attempt to move them to where we can maintain them and deploy them and I believe that the Borno State government would by now be able to understand the workings of the Nigerian Railway Corporation. Those staffs were properly instructed by the management to do that and we mobilised to do that and we put every steps that was necessary in place. I think what happened was due to miscommunication but we are talking and we hope that things will soon be resolved. The only painful thing is that the tyres were shot at. Twenthy tyres were shot at I don’t know why? Windscreens were broken I don’t know why? But we will find a way how the state can ameliorate those issues so that we can move ahead.
Back to the e-ticketing, will it now be introduced on all routes?
The eticketing will be introduced on the three standard gauges of Abuja Kaduna, Lagos Ibadan and Warri Itakpe train corridor. Hopefully by the end of this month. That will cover the standard gauge. We are till looking at how we would do the narrow gauge, you know the narrow gauge stations are not the same as the standard gaugethere is a lot of investments in place first to reference the station. You know if you are doing eticketing the first thing is to ensure that people can access each of the stations on the platform, however, we are committed to introducing eticketing also on the narrow gauge because that is the way to go avoid manipulation. Unlike electronic, when you manipulate, it can be traced. The fact is that it cost us money to print tickets and that cost we can skip if we migrant all ticket payment to the platform. Maybe we do it and concession it. We hope with the advent of eticketing leakages will stop, people will be encouraged to use the train because we discover that the idea of queuing up for tickets at the station is discouraging some people and maybe even when you now come and it almost get to your turn they say no ticket, but when you buy from your home, you know that you can do at your convenience. Those are the things we are looking at and trial runs between Itakpe Warri and Lagos Ibadan is on and I will be with them live to see and thereafter we will take the next decision on when we can open it to members of the public. The NIN is also being intricued so that we can profile our passengers, At the first go we are going to capture your NIN but you will not need it again for subsequent ticket purchases as your profile will already have been on the system.
On the security issues, what are plans being put in place to ensure that train ride is safe and secured for passengers?
Recall that the last time when we came back from the train attack and abduction, we ensured that we deployed technology on the tracks, we can monitor all our trains from our control centre live, on my phone or from the centrol room and the beauty of it is that the trains can be communicated with at any time we have the smart radio that we have deployed both to the security and the staff who are in position to control the train. We also deploy more men military, police, civil defence, vigilantes and I think this is working well because sometimes when there is issue of vandaliation they inform us well ahead so that we don’t run into it. Higher technology is also being discussed and we will find a way to go around it to get fund for it and we are also trying to ensure that as far as the security on the stations are perfect, it will also reflect on the rail, it is not going to be easy to have separate security for rail, for road, for airport, it should be a national robust security architecture. If the tracks and the stations are safe, what of when coming to the station? It should be as it is done in developed world, the security should be one package for everyone, we have technology for that and the response should also be one unit when you have them separated, it brings for some disconnections.
On funding the railways?
I will say we have some good news we have some contracts that are still running and the vice president was able to talk with them and they made some promises. Im not in position to give details, but I know that Nigerians should be hopeful that the renewed hope agenda of Mr President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is working. There is high hope that those that have commenced would be completed and those that are yet to start would be activated.
Whats your projection for the railway industry in the coming year?
We are service providers and the service we provide is part of the larger indices for commerce and economy of the nation You can imagine last month we started moving containers from the port to Moniya, in Ibadan, we have three trains of 30 wagins each and we have also moved exports to the ports but that is not enough because we can move 90 trains a day. The new road that has just been constructed between Lagos and Ibadan will last the design and when you move 30 wagons at a go that is 30 trucks off the road, you know how free that road will be and the accidents you can reduce. Also we are moving cement at Ewekoro cement everyday to Moniya, The only problem we have is double handling. You know before now, Guinness have siding at Ikeja, you can move a train to the siding, the Nigerian Breweries have siding at Ijora, the National Oil has siding both at Apapa and Kaduna and Kano those things we take for BATCO, (British American Tobacco), they also have to come to Moniya to move them to their office. So the double handing is not making train cargo attractive for now, but you can now control the drver because of the shorter distance. We are moving 60 tons per wagon of the cement. We used to move 30 containers we are removing 50 trailers from the road. While you will be monitoring one person, or the assistance and not 52 persons with different charasters. Your question as regards the economy to ensure that we move effectively and effiently, as a person the naira may be there but what do you use the naira for? My take is government is to provide service for the convenience of the people as you have God who has provided the sun, water, air. The next to God is government to arrange it and ensure that people benefit from what God has given us. We will continue to make the personal sacrifices to ensure to make the service reliable and secured to ensure that more people benefit from it. If you have a train from Lagos to Abuja. The last time I travelled and came in through Abuja I had to wait five hours to connet with my flight to Lagos, that five hours could have taken me to Lagos and you will be able to better plan your time and journey. Apart from that when you have rail line connecting everywhere, you are going to engage more people, more people will be employed and you are reducing the avenue for more people to be engaged in banditry and idle person is the devil’s workshop. When I went to China first time in 1996, there was no rail, we are using small small buses, but today, you have the rail and everybody is today talking about the economy of china. The infrastructure came up, the express road was not there then, but you now have the express road. People can move their product and services. Its not a new thing, we should copy from there and improve. What you must put in place for things to happen must be in place there is no magic to development. Nigeria cannot be an exemption. In those days when we are in school, if you are coming from home, you play ball on the road, you see tap water on the road and put your head under it to soak away your stress. Those things have to be in place. Nobody is talking about these things again today.