Minister of Transport, Senator Idris Umar, has said that rail transport services would soon begin between Port-Harcourt and Gombe, as a measure to curtail the difficulties faced in the transportation of goods and services.
The minister disclosed this at the weekend in Bauchi while on an inspection tour of the on-going rail track rehabilitation in the North-East axis, saying about 3,505 km had been successfully completed.
“What we are doing is to ensure that by December, 2014, rail transport services would commence from Port-Harcourt to Gombe, and hopefully by the time the current security challenges are over, the minister would extend the same service to Maiduguri. But for now, we are restricted to stop at Bajoga in Gombe State,” Umar said.
The minister expressed delight with the level of the work carried out by the contractor, a job which, according to him, is in tandem with the contractual agreement.
He said the Federal Government would not relent in its commitment to revamping rail transport in the country.
Rail services, Umar stressed, when upgraded, would restore the economic value of the affected states.
Her regretted that road transport had been responsible for untimely deaths among Nigerians and attributed the slow pace of work on the rehabilitation of railway lines in the North-East to the insecurity bedeviling the region.
The minister said even though the rehabilitation work had recorded progress in other parts of the country, the same could not be said of the North-East.
Also speaking to journalists, the Director-General of Nigeria Railway Corporation, NRC, Engr. AdeseyiSijuwade, said already, the rehabilitation work from Kuru in Plateau State to Bajoga in Gombe State was in final stages aimed at boosting rail services.
The director-general added that in order to curb the menace of crime and robbery, the corporation had involves the police and other security agencies in accompanying train cargoes to various destinations and to ensure the safety of passengers.
