An Overview of The Rot in Nigeria’s Railway – Photos

Talk of a nation which is blessed with abundant natural resources then Nigeria will be on the list. We are blessed with good weather, a good soil for planting and cultivation, hard-working and intelligent people who strive for excellence in their chosen career as an individual and the list goes on. We are however been saddled with policies and leaders who care less about over commonwealth as a nation.

The Nigerian Railway is one of the nation’s commonwealth which has been left to rot for a long time, due to corruption, bribes, theft and cutting corners, what used to be a mode for conveying cargo goods has been left to decay and the result is left for all to bear the pains, although the minister of transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amechi has vowed to revive the rail system in Nigeria, but mere looking at this rot alone, we wonder how feasible it will.

The Rail system used to be a common mode for transportation in the 80s and early 90s, going through Ebute Metta to Iddo to Nigeria Brewery in Iganmu the all the way to Ijora and Apapa in Marine Beach, the railway was used to converge goods and services. Apapa is known to be neat and tidy before the tankers and trailers took over, to further testify to this fact, the Apapa Local Government in 1999 won the best and neatest local government in Lagos, hence it was called, The Golden Council. Products such as diesel, petroleum, kerosene were transported using the rails, it was made so easy for the depots as they have their depots all within these areas, depots like Total, Forte Oil, NNPC and a host of others are sited at Apapa so the rail is used to convey petroleum products from the depots to other localities, but reserve seems to be the case as the rails are no longer functional, and those that managed to function are more like a death trap.

AutoReportNG was in Apapa axis to access the damages and the rot of our railway system, its an eyesore! What used to be railway track has been turned to stalls where people sell their wares and services, even the rail lines that ought to be used for the upgrading of the lines have been looted and stolen all thanks to the lackadaisical attitude of the administrators in power. We did a tour from Apapa to Iganmu (Nigerian Brewery), the story remains the same, the rot is everywhere. It was so bad that even the rails have become sort of damage, imagine a rail track passing through heaps of rubbish.

While we can blame the government for not being proactive enough in maintaining these rails and also causing the rot in this sector, we can not but wonder at the kind of humans Nigerians are! They endanger their lives by sitting their shops close to the tracks, some even sleep close to this area! We can’t really blame them when they know the railway comes alive once in a blue moon.

These are some of the pictures are able to take along, you can be the judge.