Managing Director of Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC), Dr. Isiak Kayode Opeifa, has been on the driver’s seat for just about eight months, but he has been in the spotlight right now for hosting world stakeholders in the rail transport sector via the 2nd International Railway Conference and Expo in Abuja which ended yesterday. On the sidelines of the conference, he spoke with Chesa Chesa of THE AUTHORITY on some issues around the conference and the recent train derailment in Nigeria, as well as the future of rail transport in the country. Excerpts:
Q: Why did Nigeria offer to host this conference?
A: It is a regular conference, and you need to interact with stakeholders and exchange ideas, benchmark your activities with others and find a way forward.
Q: What exactly does Nigeria stand to gain from it?
A: We stand to gain peer review, more ideas and possibly or definitely, a better way of doing things. Then you you meet new vendors, you discuss innovations, and then you acquire more experiences from the peer review, and then you also give your stakeholders opportunity to contribute in what you are doing.
Q: During the opening ceremony there was so much talk about speed trains in Nigeria. How soon can Nigerians get this experience?
A: It depends on the success of the private sector components, and for us, we have planned that in the next five years, we will be talking about adding the speed rail. The limitations to speed rail in Nigeria, America, Asia are different. In US, their problem is land, because land is people’s own. It’s owned by the people, not by government. In Nigeria, government has a good control of land. In China, the government also controls land, so that’s why we have not seen speed rail that much in the US until recently. But for us, the issue of speed rail is going to be private sector-driven. Government only needs to put in the enabling environment. About two or three companies have shown interest, and they are all pushing their horizons to make sure they get all the necessary approval. But the major issue will be funding. As soon as people are funded, then they can push anything. The regular ones we are running, we are still having huge funding gaps.
Q: Talking about funding and private sector participation, what about the loans Nigeria has been collecting from China and others for the rail sector, how much more is needed to be collected?
A: There is nowhere in the world you don’t collect loan to fundraise, or you use your government funds. We fund roads with loans. We fund the airports with loans. So government budgets in Nigeria for a long time have been by private sector funding, developmental partner funding, and all other debt management instruments. So there is nothing wrong in obtaining loans. The rail is not a sector that runs itself and breaks even that quick. The rail sector is to facilitate trade and then make businesses run at high profit rate, good return on investment. And Nigeria has not defaulted on any of its rail loans.
So I think that’s that’s instructive. When you build rail, people use rail, they pay taxes for the efficiency of their businesses. All those go to government coffers; and I don’t think any of the states that have even gotten loans have defaulted. Federal Capital Territory has about $100 million or $500 million loan for the Abuja rail, mass transit. They are not yet making money from it but they are paying their loans. So because when you have an efficient rail system. You have ease of doing business. You have return of investment enhanced. You have company paying bigger taxes then you have your GDP elevated.
Q: You have ruled out sabotage as the cause of the recent Abuja-Kaduna derailment, based on preliminary report; Is a final report being expected and how soon?
A: No, we have our report, which is basically saying more of a human related cause; and because there are also other people/agencies conducting investigation, you don’t want to come up with such. We are in-house, and we are the one in the eyes of the storm. We can’t be looking ourselves and saying it cannot be this. We are waiting for the other groups too to see what they can come up with. The Ministry has one and I believe it’s concluded. The NSIB has one, it normally takes about 30 days, because they have to also benchmark with global best practices, and they also bring in consultants. So, we already told you what we feel, and we’re only saying that’s our view, and we expect other views too, and we’re open to them, but we have started implementing the recommendation from our own investigation,
Final reports may not come in 30 days, they may not come in two years, may not come in four years in a transport investigation; it’s not final report that you know. What you mean is that interim report is working. It gives you an idea of what went wrong and it will tell you what other things they are looking at.
Q: So how do we prevent something similar happening again?
A: We are already implementing measures. If a person decides to sleep while driving, how do you prevent recurrence? How do you work on your internal systems to make sure that what made that person to do the wrong thing is not given a chance to exist? So what corrects the human resource issue is a systemic solution, and that’s what you put in place. Besides, a press statement will come out telling you the way we are approaching the issue.
Q: Since your appointment last February, what do you consider your biggest challenge and your achievement?
A: Sorry, I don’t see challenge in life. I see opportunity. If I have enough resources, we will do better than what we are doing. The resources voted for rail management are grossly inadequate, and going forward, we are working to make sure that adequate funding is provided; as we are determined to help the country in improving its gross domestic product, ease of doing business, quality of life, and mobility index. For you to achieve all those things, you will need some resources, not just infrastructure. You also need soft resources. You need resources to manage and expand your infrastructure. You need resources to modernize your infrastructure. At least. You need resources before you start expecting private sector to support. So, the major issue before us now is the resources. To get the resources also include to connect the dotted lines of the rails, and then then to make sure you have locomotives to operate.
On achievement — we’ve started our reforms. We have improved the public perceptions. We have improved our customer service relations, and we have improved on our efficiency. We are moving more freight, more goods by freight, than we were moving before, and we are beginning to convince logistics handlers that we are ready for business, and they should adopt trains.
