WorldStage– The Senate has constituted an ad-hoc committee to investigate alleged growing decadence in the operations of Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC).
The development followed the adoption of a point of order raised by Sen. Abdul Ningi (PDP-Bauchi) at plenary on Thursday.
Ningi, citing order 42 (personal explanation) of the senate standing rules, called the attention of his colleagues to what he called the tragic history of the railway situation, particularly, the Kano and Kaduna rail lines.
“Mr President, you will recall, like my colleagues will recall, the Nigerian railway lines between Kano, between Kaduna and Abuja was laid by the then President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015. As he was departing, the rail line was commissioned.
“And subsequently, when the late President Muhammadu Buhari took over in May 2015, he further re-commissioned the lines, with about five heads of cargos and about eight to 10 coaches.
“From 2015, the railway started commuting 10 trenches of movement, five from Abuja to Kaduna and five from Kaduna to Abuja,” he said.
Ningi, however, said that his investigation revealed that NRC was commuting 10,000 passengers in a day as at then.
“Last two weeks, I visited Kaduna with the railway and what I found and discovered was simply a tragic Nigerian story.
“I spoke with leader of the railway, that is the manager, and he rendered these statistics to me.
“First, he told me they were commuting 10,000 passengers and because of the terrible nature of Kaduna-Abuja road, most people come from Kaduna to work and travel back to Kaduna.
“The 10,000 passengers they were doing a day was reduced to about 800 to 900 passengers.
“The 10 shuttling they were doing a day was reduced, Mr. President, to two times a day.
“And I was told that while the railway was working on full capacity, they were, of course, generating a revenue of N1.8 billion monthly,” Ningi said.
He said he was, at some time, a sub chairman of a committee on SURE-P, when the then administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan injected billions of naira into the nation’s railway system.
According to him, Nigeria cannot, as a nation, continue to allow decadence of its infrastructure and scarce resources.
“Mr President, this is very disturbing; it should not only disturb me, it must disturb this senate and Nigerians.
“As it looks, nobody is ready to do anything about it, without any prejudice to Adams Oshiomhole’s committee that is saddled with investigating the decadence of railway system in Nigeria.
“But this particular matter, I have also informed them as the ad hoc committee chairman of the decay,” Ningi explained.
Contributing, Sen. Adamu Alero (APC-Kebbi) said that NRC was facing serious revenue challenge, as the number of its trips had dropped from five to one.
He said that the challenge in operation was also caused by destruction of coaches by bandits, saying that fund had yet to be provided to replace the damaged coaches.
Alero, however, said that the Federal Government was on the matter and would provide fund to revamp the railway services.
The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, who upheld the point of order, urged the ad-hoc committee to turn in its report to plenary in six weeks.
The committee has as Chairman, Sen. Adams Oshiomhole (APC-Edo).
Other members of the committee include: Senators Enyinnaya Abaribe (APGA Abia), Osita Ngwu (PDP-Enugu), Ibrahim Dankwambo (PDP-Gombe), Ede Dafinone (APC-Delta) and Ireti Kingibe (LP-FCT).
