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Dysfunctional crossbars at several rail intersections across the country is putting at risk the lives of Nigerians. The country’s troubled railway system is struggling to maintain relevance amid poor funding and consequently low patronage. However, government’s attempt to concession the railway to GE is being delayed by bureaucracy and even sabotage from those benefiting from its present dysfunctional state.
Besides the loss of billions of naira that could be earned if the rail system was working at optimal level, its dysfunctional state is beginning put at risk the lives of Nigerians.
Nigerians wake up from time to time to hear the news of lives of pedestrians and motorists being cut short by moving trains at railway crossing due to the negligence of the railway authorities.
The crossbars at most locations are non-functional, BusinessDay has been told while the NRC staff that are supposed to be on duty to monitor the movement of trains or other pedestrians and motorists crossing the rail track abandon their post, exposing those crossing the railway tracks to the dangers of oncoming trains.
Only last Tuesday, Anthony Osae-Brown, editor of BusinessDay Newspaper cheated death by the whiskers only because he stopped for a lady to go across the road. The few minutes stop for the lady was what saved him from running into the front of an oncoming train at the Iganmu area of Lagos, near the National Theatre on his way to work.
‘’The bars at the rail crossing near Nigeria Breweries, Ijora remained open when a train was approaching. A woman carrying something on her head on the other side of the road was waving at me to stop. I stopped, thinking she wanted to go across the road. As soon as she crossed, I decided to move. That was when the train passed. I never knew she was actually warning me about the approaching train. I was a few seconds away from driving in front of the moving train’’.
Osae-Brown lamented that, as has been the standard safety standard, there was no NRC official with a red flag waving to warn motorists that the train was approaching. Meanwhile, the barriers that were supposed to be lowered when a train was coming remained open.
‘’I was close to committing a government induced suicide. The criminal negligence of the NRC and the government that owns them almost cost me my life.”
Later a road safety official told Osae-Brown that the barriers are bad. “The security officials knew that the barriers were bad but they did not care to put someone there to warn motorists of approaching trains.”
People are routinely killed by trains across the country.
In March 2018, a Youth Corp member, Nneka Odili was killed after a train hit her on Ikeja. She was heading home after the monthly clearance exercise at the Ikeja Local Government Secretariat. She apparently walked unto the rail tracks without knowing that the train was approaching. Obviously, there was no NRC official to warn her or stop her from walking on the track.
In February, in Abuja, a grieving father, Francis Idoko, a staff of the National Universities Commission (NUC) , narrated the sad story of how his son was crushed to death by a moving train around Arab area in Kubwa, Abuja. The son had left to go to work that morning only to be crushed to death by a moving train. No one was sure of what happened.
On October 25, 2016, a middle-aged man was run over by a train in Enugu at Ogbete Railway Crossing where people are said to be routinely killed by over-speeding trains. He was killed by a train returning from Port Harcourt during the “rush- hour” in the evening when traders were returning from work.
BusinessDay have been told that beside the non-functional barrier near Nigerian Breweries road, Iganmu; other barriers at Jibowu, Ikeja Along and Illupeju on Agege Motor, are presently non-operational.
Tunde Oni, a Lagos- based businessman, who nearly lost his life while trying to drive pass the railway crossing bars located around the Ikeja Along axis, told our correspondent that it was a good citizen that saved him from being crushed by a moving train wagon.
According to Oni, a stranger jumped in front of his car while trying to navigate from the Agege Motorway into Ikeja, and he suddenly stopped, only for the train to speed pass the track.
“I would have driven in front of a moving train and that would have been the end of me. Usually, when the rail bars were still functional, they would be automatically brought down to barricade the road and prevent vehicles and pedestrians from crossing the track until the wagon passes,” Oni said.
“Today, the story is different because the rail barriers remain open whether the train is passing or not, and usually there is no official of the NRC to flag down vehicles and pedestrians to stop them from crossing.”
Aside the Lagos metropolitan, some terminal operators in the nation’s seaport, have also raised concerns about recklessness of the NRC drivers, who bring in wagons to the ports to evacuate cargo.
They argued that there was an existing working procedure between the NRC and the terminal operators, which stated that the management of NRC must give the terminals about 3-hour notice prior to their wagon coming to the port to lift cargo, but the NRC has not been keeping to the agreement.
The essence of the notice, the terminals said, was to not only prepare cargoes for evacuation, but to also clear the rail track of human activities that could endanger lives and property.
But, according to a CCTV footage shown by management of the Apapa Bulk Terminal (ABTL), during a recent stakeholder engagement organised by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), NRC wagon visited the terminal without notice such that the wagon forcefully pulled down the terminal gate in order to have access into the terminal.
The footage also revealed that the terminal’s gate keeper and a truck driver, whose truck was loading at the point the wagon drove to the ABTL terminal, nearly lost their lives.
Worried by the concerns created by the inefficiency on the part of the (NRC) and lack of synergy between the Corporation and terminal operators in consolidating the gains of moving cargo away from the ports using rail wagons, Vicky Haastrup, executive vice chairman of ENL Consortium, advised NRC to make use of experienced and responsible wagon drivers to avoid man-made accidents in the ports.
Worried by the unnecessary deaths at railway tracks, the House of Representatives recently called on the NRC to provide railway level crossing barriers, highway codes and alarm system arrangements at all railway level crossings across the country.
Akinwunmi Olaitan, APC senator from Lagos called on the federal government to provide modern railway level crossing barriers, bells, railway/road signs, signals and lights to increase the visibility of the level crossings so as to reduce accidents at the crossings.
The federal government has been talks with GE to concession the rail tracks. But the talks have not progressed. Staff at the NRC are said to be holding out for a big pay-out while the federal government is said to be reluctant to grant the required guarantees that would make the concession take off. Making the country’s railway function would significantly boost the economy and safe lives.
MIKE OCHONMA AND AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE
