Three years have passed since Vice President Yemi Osinbajo broke ground on the Kajola Railway Open and Covered Wagon Assembly Plant to provide Standard Gauge rolling stock for rail transit.
Alhaji Mua’zu Jaji Sambo, the minister of transportation, has announced that vice-president Yemi Osinbajo will commission the first Rail Wagon Assembly Plant next week, three years after the Kajola Railway Open and Covered Wagon Assembly Plant was established to produce Standard Gauge rolling stocks for rail transit.
Speaking after an official visit to the assembly plant at Kajola in Ogun state, Alex Ekwueme Control Centre in Lagos as well as the train ride from Lagos to Ibadan and back, Sambo added that, apart from reducing the foreign exchange required to import fully built-up wagons into the country, the assembly plant will help promote technology transfer and create job opportunities for many Nigerians.
The movements of trains on the standard gauge railway line between Lagos and Ibadan may be watched and controlled, he said, as well as passenger and employee operations at the Mobolaji Johnson terminal in Lagos.
When Engr. Fidet Okhiria, the corporation’s managing director, showed the minister around the assembly plant and control centre, he made note that, once the manufacturing line was up and running,
He explained further that the centre will soon be connected to the Abuja-Kaduna and Warri-Itakpe standard gauge railway lines for proper monitoring of activities and regulation of train movement at both railway corridors.
Recall that vice president Yemi Osinbajo stated at the groundbreaking ceremony in November 2019 that the Nigerian Rail Wagon Assembly Plant construction will increase socio-economic activities and create roughly 5,000 direct and indirect jobs when finished.
He had said: “the plant which is a private investment to be undertaken by Messers CCECC is central in the production of rolling stock, spare parts and maintenance of equipment needed for the railway modernisation programme being implemented by this administration.
“This ceremony is not just another event, it is a historic turning point. For us, the railway is not only an alternative and comfortable mode of travel.
“It holds the master key to transforming commerce in Nigeria and across the continent. By linking our ports to rail lines and now, building the rolling stock locally, import and export business within, into and out of Africa’s largest market will never be the same.
“When completed, it is expected that the plant would produce some parts of the wagons for the Lagos-Ibadan and Abuja-Kaduna rail lines, but also for the central rail lines and to satisfy the needs of other rail operators within the West- African sub-region.”
