Nigeria’s minister for Transport, Rotimi Amaechi has revealed that the Abuja-Kaduna rail line cannot run faster than 90Km/hr because the ministry does not want locomotives to kill cows.
Amaechi made this comment while speaking on the complications the Nigerian government faces while making concessions.
He dissected the various problems being faced by the Country’s rail system adding that Nigeria has more than enough to transport via rail.
In 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.
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 kilometers 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.”
