Former Minister of Transportation, Festus Porbeni, has disclosed that plans had reached an advanced stage to construct an express rail line from Lagos and Abuja, but the short tenure of the regime did not allow the project to materialise.
He commended the President Muhammadu Buhari administration for embarking on rail connectivity across the country, saying that it would have taken two and hours for a trip from Lagos and Abuja if the project had been successfully executed.
He said a Canadian firm had been approached before former President, Abdulsalami Abubakar administrations left office, adding that the idea was for the government to provide the right of way, while the firm was to construct the rail line on a build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis.
“We didn’t have so much time at our disposal. We didn’t want to do a prolonged transition, we were under pressure from the international community to just do the needful and handover immediately.
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“Even though we had a limited time frame to transit from military to civilian administration, we were very conscious of the importance of the rail, especially in the transportation of goods and services.
“Our plan was to encourage evacuation of petroleum products by rail to all parts of the country, but there was a serious resistance on the part of trailer drivers and owners,” he stated
According to Porbeni, the rail projects that were well conceived, but could not be executed included the Coastal Rail Project linking Port Harcourt, Onne, Enugu and Calabar.
He explained that the original idea of the Itakpe-Warri Rail Project was to help evacuate iron ore from Warri to Ajaokuta Steel Company in Kogi State.
Porbeni, however, commended the incumbent Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi for his commitment to the country’s rail sector.
