From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The management of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), has urged passengers yearning for rail services to be ready to pay more when it deploys its newly-procured 10 locomotives.
Managing Director of NRC, Engineer Fidet Okhiria, who made the disclosure recently, also confirmed that the training of personnel to handle the locomotives had already commenced, calling passengers to be ready to pay higher for more efficient services.
Giving an update on railway operations, he said: “We have equally ordered for coaches and hopefully will commence operation before the end of this month. We expect the arrival of another seven by November. I don’t know if you are aware that the 10 locomotives designed for the passenger train have arrived Nigeria and currently at the Iddo Station in Lagos.
“Training of personnel will start immediately and we will deploy the locomotives immediately. We will increase the number of round trip we are going to operate and we are going to have a direct express from Rigassa to Abuja non-stop where we will decongest about six stations.
“By the time we do that and imagine if we can run six trips, all those challenges we are facing will fizzle out naturally. We noticed that scarcity was responsible for some of the problems and by the time we have more trains running, it will remove the problems.
“Incidentally, people should be ready for a fare hike by the time we begin to provide better services. But, the irony of the whole thing is that we will not need more hands,” he said.
On the projects the federal government has earmarked for this year, Okhiria said: “The Lagos-Ibadan project has commenced in full force because all the necessary funding has been done. The counterpart funding for the Calabar-Port Harcourt rail has been made available. The funding for Kaduna-Kano has equally been made available.
“We are negotiating for another counterpart funding and by the time we succeed, it will go for Ibadan-Kano and Lagos-Calabar. This year’s budget also accommodates the completion of Itakpe-Warri rail-line which will be delivered hopefully by the second quarter of next year.