The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) says herders and traders can soon move their cows from northern Nigeria to the country’s southern region using rail services.
NRC Managing Director, Fidet Okhiria, disclosed this on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief breakfast show on Wednesday, hours after President Bola Tinubu announced the creation of a new ministry for livestock development.
He said the movement of cows and other goods would resume with the Warri-Itakpe route. The NRC, famous for passenger traffic, had in 2017 suspended the movement of cattle by train following technical hitches.
However, Okhiria said in a matter of one or two months, herders would be able to move their cattle on the Warri-Itakpe train services. Itakpe is a town in Kogi State in North Central Nigeria while Warri is located in Delta State in the South-South geopolitical zone of the country.
He said the NRC would modernise the movement of goods in the country “so that when they come by road from the north, they can move them by rail to South-South Warri”.
Okhiria said the NRC has brought in some wagons that can mobilise livestock and they are being assembled in the Kajola area of Oyo State in the South-West.
“We’ve built 15 wagons for livestock and maybe in the next month or two months, they would be deployed from Itakpe to Warri to drive the economy,” the NRC boss stated.
He said investment in railways should be for the social and economic benefits of the people and not profit-oriented in naira and kobo.
“You are not developing transportation because you want to make profit in terms of naira and kobo but the profit will come indirectly if we can move goods and link cities,” he said.
According to him, the indirect earnings might not be directly to the government but it would flow into the economy.
Okhiria said investment in rail infrastructure should be for the public good and to make lives comfortable for the masses to have a robust and vibrant economy.
