Engr Fidet Okhiria, the Managing Director Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), said recently in an interview that the corporation needed about N61.5 billion to carry out maintenance of its facilities in 2022. This is occasioned by vandalization of critical railway assets by vandals.
These vandals have destroyed and stolen multi-billion naira equipment in at least 66 major attacks on the facilities of the Nigerian Railway Corporation in the last ten months. The items stolen and carted away include railway slippers, tracks, nuts, bolts, cables, racks, weld-shear, rods, puder and other accessories.
These vandalzation, which in most cases force the cancellation of train services in the affected routes, took place across eight states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). These include Nasarawa, Kaduna, Benue, Enugu, Niger, Plateau, Ogun, Delta, the FCT and Rivers State.
The Port Harcourt-Aba rail attack led to the temporary stoppage of train services on the rail line. The attack on the rail line took place caused the train to derail at Umuzohia area of Oyigbo in Rivers State, a situation he said to be “so dangerous” because of the bushy nature of the area.
Data obtained from analysis of reported vandal incidents revealed that these attacks happened between January and September 2021. Most of the vandalized railway property are sold in black markets, making the corporation lose billions in replacement, maintenance and repairs.
Investigation revealed that federal capital authorities was forced to indefinitely suspend the multi-billion Abuja Metro Rail Line after its track was vandalized 48 times. The 42-kilometer standard rail gauge, which is the first rapid transit system in the country and in West Africa and the second such system in sub-saharan Africa (after Addis Ababa Light Rail), was launched on July 12, 2018.
Transportation systems such a railway network facilitate the fast movement of passengers and freight and are crucial for societal and economic welfare. An essential part of modern societies, it is expected by the general public that transport systems operate at all times reliably. For railway networks, an isolated event can lead to the disruption of all traffic in this railway section, cascading and fundamental indirect effects resulting in economic losses are possible
However, the rising ugliness of railway tracks vandalization and attacks on railway tracks in some parts of the country is a surprising, sad and complex situation.
Therefore, the risk management within the railway transportation in Nigeria cannot be handled by NRC employees and police alone. Protecting railway critical assets has to be aligned with public risk management strategies in many places. Because of this, Engr Okhiria has to put on ground strategy to kick-start such partnerships. And vital cooperation between various stakeholders at different levels are needed. Thus the NRC has to cooperate with local governments and settlements along railway tracks, security forces, local hunters, local vigilante people, the National Orientation agency. Then drones should also be deployed to monitor the rail tracks.
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