Dr Freeborn Okhiria, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, has urged the three tiers of government and the private sector to invest in railway infrastructure.
He also said that care must be taken to ensure that rail networks would conform to safety standards.
Okhiria said this at the Professorial Chair on Transport and Logistics Guest Lecture organised by the School of Transport and Logistics, Lagos State University, on Wednesday.
The lecture was entitled: “From Exclusive Clause to Concurrent List: Potency for Sustainable Rail Infrastructure in Nigeria and the Lagos State Example”.
Okhiria said that uniformity for seamless connectivity with other networks and the national grid should be in order so as not to jeopardise investment or cause superfluity.
“The opening up of the railway sector is a positive development in addressing intra-state and inter-state travel challenges, especially in states with high population and commercial activities such as Lagos.
“We are committed to helping and guiding state governments in constructing their railways to the universally-accepted standards.
“We will ensure that care for safety operations is in order to safeguard lives and property,” Okhiria said.
He said that NRC was one of the oldest contemporary and modern transport organisations and had the vision to be a world-class rail transport organisation by providing affordable and customer-oriented services.
“Railway development in Nigeria was initiated by private interest. This was later taken over by the then colonial government.
“The problem we often have is that when a government comes in, its want to start and complete a project in its tenure but rail is not like that; it has to be done in bits
“If you have a deliberate policy of doing 20km every year and you add it to your budget, if other governments come in and continue from where you stopped, in 10 years, you will have about 200km railway,” Okhiria said.
Mr Oluwaseun Osiyemi, Lagos State Commissioner for Transportation, said that Lagos State Government would continue to develop the transport sector holistically, both in the development of infrastructure and education.
Osiyemi said that the government and Lagos residents had benefitted much from the migration of rail transport from the exclusive clause to the concurrent list.
“The Lagos Rail Mass Transit, Blue and Red Lines, are both testaments to this development.
“Lagos State has commenced partnership talks with its neighbouring state, Ogun, to link the Red Rail Line through Agbado into the state in addition to the existing Mowe Route,” he said.
Prof. Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello, Vice-Chancellor of LASU, said that other states in Nigeria should emulate Lagos State by investing in rail transport to hasten economic prosperity of the country.
Olatunji-Bello, represented by Prof. Adenike Boyo, LASU Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Administration), said that using the Lagos experience, it was safe to say that investment in rail infrastructure would enhance the lives of citizens by reducing their travel time.
“It also helps to be a catalyst for the faster rate of development in the sector and the economy as a whole,” she said.