The Railway transportation system in Nigeria under the current administration has had some form of rejuvenation over the past 3 years. on the 9 march 2021 President Muhammed Buhari on Tuesday, flagged off the US$3.2 billion Port Harcourt to Maiduguri narrow gauge railway reconstruction project with new branch lines to Owerri, Imo State and Damaturu, Yobe State. on the 10th of June 2021 the government again commissioned a new railway worth about 1.5 billion dollars ,this investment is primarily meant to reduce concentration of other form of land transportation including buses and cabs and increase supply chain efficiency thus promoting movement of goods and services . The president Buhari stated “This vital line establishes an end-to-end logistic supply chain in railway transport within its short corridor, Lagos-Ibadan, as goods to the hinterland would now be transported by rail directly from the Apapa port Quayside straight to the Inland Container Depot located in Ibadan from where it can be distributed to other parts of the country,” Buhari said
But are there any effects of these investments in return to rail way transportation system ?
has there been any response indicators from these projects ?
has these been increased movement of goods through railway ?
The data visualizations below shows how rail way transportation system has faired in Nigeria
FIG 1.0
FIG 1.0 shows the quantity of passengers from 2020 till the first quarter of 2021 across nigeria ,
- we can notice that there was a spike in number of passengers using railway in 2021 Q1 compared to Q4 2020,
- Q2 2020 has the lowest number of passengers over the time frame
- From Q2 2020 there has been been a consistent increase in number of passengers
- The sharp drop in passengers number in Q1 2020 was largely due of the global pandemic resulting to a drastic recession
FIG 1.1
FIG 1.1
The following can be depicted from FIG 1.1 ;
- In 2020 from Q1 TO Q4 revenue generated from goods and cargo was on an increase
- Q4 2020 TO Q1 2021 there was a sharp fall in revenue derived from cargo railway this was due to the increased insecurity during the first quarter of 2021 and lack of recurrent investment.
EXPECTATIONS
- With current investment in railway system numbers of passengers are expected to increase by second quarter of 2021
- Revenue generated from goods and cargo are also expected to increase irrespective of the current value because investment has a positive correlation with revenue growth
- Revenue generated from cargo is also expected to increase based on the volume of cargo although the figure was not included but as a result government expenditure on railway volume of cargo will rise.
