By  Victor C. Ariole

Professor of French and If only the tool you have is hammer, you treat everything as if it were nail… Abraham Maslow

Nigeria is in a quagmire of having only one tool in tackling (not solving) all of its problem – politics. And Rt. Hon Chibuike Amaechi, Minister of Transport, just turned it to satire as he delivered a public lecture, under the auspices of the Department of Economics, University of Lagos, headed by Professor Wakeel Isola, entitled; The Nigeria’s National Rail Transport Project: “Network, Financing, Challenges and the Way Forward”

The lecture was quite entertaining as Amaechi made a “features” oral delivery of what was contained in a 60 – page booklet distributed to the audience. According to him, the Chinese are even in doubt of what Nigeria intends to do with construction of double-track rail system when for the whole year Nigeria hardly evacuate 30 million tons of cargo. When you compare that to small Kenya of about 53 million people, where every night about 600,000 tons of cargo is evacuated; that is, if sustained, over 200 million tons a year.

With Kenya one could be talking economics, but with Nigeria it is more of politics. And Amaechi reasoned the same way as he feels that the two most viable rail track construction that could be said to be economic are the one Nigerians seem to be opposing leading to Maradi, just 20 kilometers from the last town in Katsina, which was even opposed at Cabinet meeting by the ex-Finance Minister – Kemi, and the unthought-of track that ought to be planned from Port-Harcourt Seaport to Nnewi; Nnewi being a great manufacturing hub. The one leading to Maradi is meant to connect Kano to Lagos so as to generate economically viable cargo output from landlocked Niger Republic to the Lagos port, giving confidence and trust to the people of Niger Republic who feel that using Nigeria’s port is the worst risk to imagine as either Benin Port, Togo Port or Côte d’Ivoire Port are serving them better now. Nigeria is borded by other landlocked countries like Chad and contingently by Burkina Faso, Central Africa Republic  and Mali who could also make use of Lagos or Portharcourt/Calabar Port if indeed rail tracks are made available and safe.

To Amaechi, it is all politics as Nigerians merely think of how the rail gets to their “door-mouth’ instead of its economic benefit to a larger Nigeria, and he re-echoed it as the questions the audience asked him reflected that. Most of the questions were centered on how the rail system could be planned to reach the village of those who asked the questions, and that, even, what delayed the Maradi’s rail was how not to see it as planning a rail track that will get through the “door – mouth” of the President – Daura home.

Humorously, he convinced the President that it could be planned to fly over Daura so as not to read any “abuse of office” in it. It scaled through for a loan when Kemi was out of the Finance Ministry as she had preferred it to be a budget item for her consideration.

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However, the problem is using loan, obtained exorbitantly, in building rail tracks in Nigeria as it could be done using longer tenure bonds or even pension fund investment that goes up to 30 years as against the Chinese EXIM Bank that limits to 15 years, and as Senator Ekweremadu noticed on TV, any failure to pay could amount to seizing Nigeria’s airport. Chinese do not tolerate debt rescheduling nor debt cancellation as requested by the President at the UN forum recently. And I noticed that as I landed in 2018 in Milan Airport and discovered it was manned by the Chinese.

In his satire approach, Amaechi was not able to convince the audience that the money made out of Kaduna – Abuja project will be used to finance Ibadan – Lagos as he claimed. That again is mere politics not economics. The same way he could not convince the audience, especially as he wanted to use it to ridicule a professor of economics, that the intended Eastern narrow gauge railway as against standard gauge railway, is of international “best practice”. In deed most of the countries he reeled out from google search which he did, on the spot, by asking a student to do it, are poor countries in Europe, and even the USA that featured as last, could not be said to be a country that has the best practice approach to rail transportation like France, UK, Japan and Canada. 

The professor was worried that “Narrow Gauge” as against Standard “Gauge” was allocated to the Eastern track. Again, Amaechi saw it as more of personal interest of “door-mouth” track extension than larger Nigeria’s interest intended. And the only Engineering question raised by Professor Ogunye FAEng, as per why Nigerian Engineers are not involved in the rail project, was shelved as Amaechi said that it was better answered “in camera”, hence greatly political.

The truth is that Nigerians are more interested in having a cheaper means of transportation to their different destinations than Amaechi and “his” Chinese counterparts reason aloud. Bullet trains are the in-thing and not the type of outmoded rail system one sees in Nigeria that is gulping huge amount as claimed that Ibadan – Kano could gulp $5.3 billion and Lagos – Ibadan $8.7 billion, respectively. Even when Amaechi insists that the cost of Lagos – Ibadan will be about $1.6 billion, if per km construction is $3million by standard price, it amounts to over $380 million plus interest rate serviceable every year for the 15 – 20 years period; like Nigeria borrowed $3 billion in the eighties and ended up owing $36 billion in the nineties. Yes, infrastructure is very important but balancing it with the attitude and immediate concerns of Nigerians is not out of place.

He himself is worried as he could not say what the next government could make out of it as himself, as a former governor, entered into agreement with Mexicans to produce banana in Rivers State and out office the Mexicans were sent away as Rivers State didn’t mind loosing already $3 billion committed to the project.  Politics derailing Nigeria’s economic isn’t it? And if care is not taken, Chinese Receivership hammer could be visited on Nigeria. Time to rethink to avoid unmanageable derailment of Nigeria’s economy.

Ariole, P.hD is Professor of French and Francophone Studies, University of Lagos