The partnership, between the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) and the South West Development Commission (SWDC), couldn’t have been smarter and more mutually beneficial.
The resultant deal: securing the South West operating licence on NRC tracks, for a regional rail network, linking cargo and passengers to the region’s many industrial clusters. This network, from the Lagos Port Complex at Apapa, has the allure of powering logistics; and pushing heavy bulk to the region’s interior.
By partnering with the Odua Investment Company (the region’s commercial arm) and the Development Agenda of Western Nigeria (DAWN) Commission (the regional think-tank); and the NRC on the other hand, the SWDC is evolving a rail template fit for emulation by other five regional development commissions.
Rail means bulk. Bulk means economy of scale, of passenger and cargo. Economy of scale means cheaper shuttle costs all round. Lower transport should translate into lower costs of production and cheaper goods and services. That means lower inflation.
Lower inflation should scale up ventures; creating more jobs, faster economic growth, more even development all-round and putative mass prosperity, other things being equal, along the complex chain.
These are the prospects of the Odu’a rail network!
Indeed, the network is blessed with two rail lines – the new upgrade: Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge (the south-westernmost leg of the evolving Lagos-Abuja-Kano rail); and the rebounding narrow-gauge: the historic rail that links the region to other parts of the country.
The narrow gauge is much slower. But its appeal lies in heavy industrial cargo, for which speed seldom factors. That appeal is crashing costs.
But either standard or narrow gauge, the Odu’a network targets 44 specific cities and towns and their industrial clusters, spread across the component six states, with Lagos as the inevitable bridge head.
On the standard gauge are key industrial clusters: Agege and Alagbado (Lagos), Papalanto, Ewekoro (the famous cement towns) and Abeokuta (Ogun), Omi-Adio and Moniya (both in Ibadan, Oyo State). The standard gauge terminates in Moniya for now. But it starts from the Apapa Port. That underscores its potentials for penetrative industrial cargo, aside from tourism, with its more passenger-friendly coaches and faster tracks.
But the narrow gauge logs its own benefits. Aside from linking the northern parts of the country to Western Nigeria, being part of the NRC western line, its network links many more towns and cities in the South West, up to Osogbo in Osun, and Offa, in Kwara, though in North Central.
That makes the narrow gauge a bargain for cost-effective movement of bulk agricultural produce, ready and steady freight from farming clusters to urban markets, transporting the prized mineral, gypsum; and also timber and lumber, thus giving the roads a breather. Indeed, that explains why SWDC is near-dedicating this line to its SW-RAIL (South West Rail, Agro-Industrial and Logistics) platform.
All this should do for now.
While the SWDC has earned due applause for its nimble thinking and its penchant to sniff and ace developmental opportunities from far off, the ruling era of the All Progressives Congress (APC) should also be commended for fleeing that sterile, if rabid, territoriality of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) era.
That mutual antagonism over national assets has changed to partnerships. Hitherto, the PDP Federal Government barked at any mutual Abuja-states cooperation in rail, flashing its constitutional monopoly.
Now, the APC Federal Government is embracing mutual partnerships. That is delivering the NRC-SWDC cooperation. It’s just beautiful!
Besides, rail is now on the concurrent constitutional list, from the hitherto exclusive list, in which only the central government could play.
With that constitutional change, it must be clear to SWDC that ultimate South West rail penetration can’t be achieved without investing in secondary rail lines, connected to as many settlements as are necessary. That is imperative to make the Nigerian South West a rail hub in agriculture, industry, commerce, tourism and routine daily shuttles.
Now that the track licensing is done with NRC, it’s time to think along this new line. It’s perfectly doable, and the South West economy should take a leap from it.