The minister of transportation Rotimi Amaechi, says the Abuja-Kaduna rail line cannot got faster than 90 kilometres per hour because the ministry does not want locomotives killing cows.
Amaechi highlighted the complications the federal government has had to deal with in making rail concessions, stating that the concession with General Electric (GE) fell apart after the company was sold its rail business.
The minister, who spoke about local problems being faced by the rail system said Nigeria has more than enough to transport via rail, before stating restrictions caused by cows.
His words: “The reason why we want to go back to narrow gauge is because between Lagos and Kano, we have 30 million tonnes of cargo. Even if you do three rail lines, it cannot be enough,” Amaechi said.
“It took us 14 days to move coaches from Lagos to Abuja; everyday we go and ask, how far, they say we are near Ogun state… 14 days.
“But if it were rail, the same day, it will get to Abuja. The kind of construction we are doing is 120 kilometres per hour (Km/h), it is a speed train.
“We are doing 90km/h with Abuja to Kaduna, the reason we are doing 90km/h is because there are cows everywhere, and we don’t want to kill cows. The other day they tried 100 and they killed how many cows, and they said ‘you people should replace the cows you killed.
“From that day, I have said let us maintain the 90km/h; at 120km/h you get to Kaduna in one hour. You can work in Kaduna and live in Abuja. It was initially one, but now, we have done four locomotives with 14 coaches,” he added.
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