It is unfortunate that the Eastern leg of the Nigerian railways network system has continued to suffer neglect, over 15 years since efforts to revitalise the Western subnetwork started.

Successive regimes since that of Olusegun Obasanjo, who started the railway revitalisation programme, have concentrated their efforts on the Western line which runs from Lagos through some South-West states and North-Western  states. A brand-new railway line from Abuja to Kaduna has also been completed, while former President Muhammadu Buhari, in a spectacular display of extreme selfishness, built a rail line from Kano to Maradi, his father’s home town in Niger Republic.

Despite the fact that former President Goodluck Jonathan and former Transportation Minister, Chibuike Amaechi, were from the Eastern part of the country, they failed to see to it that the Eastern railways were brought back to life.

The British colonial masters configured the original Nigerian railways network for three principal reasons. These were to foster integration and the development of new commercial centres. The third was to move people and goods cost cost-effectively. The railways were made to ensure that goods from the deep hinterland were brought to the ports in Lagos and Port Harcourt for export. Those were the days when Nigeria depended mainly on agricultural produce for foreign exchange earnings.

The apparent bias against the Eastern railways is historically based on the events before and after the civil war, whereby the East, especially the South-East, was relegated in Nigeria’s political and economic affairs. The Eastern rails started being perceived as those of the South-East alone, whereas the network spans from Rivers State in South-South through the South-East to the North-Central and the North-East terminus at Potiskum in Yobe State.

Funny enough, only people from the South-East have cared to raise their voices for the revitalisation of this network. Even at the Senate, it was Senators Victor Umeh and Enyinnaya Abaribe who championed it at a recent plenary.

It is unfortunate matters of national development such as railway services have not been given the attention it deserves. This is the attitude of our political elite that has not fostered love for Nigeria. Rather, it is mainly responsible for growing state of failure.

The Eastern railway network should be fully and speedily revived with standard gauge, ensuring that all the four geopolitical zones are reconnected. It will give the people of the North-East access to the Eastern ports for the export of their agricultural goods and freight of petroleum products to those parts when the refineries in Port Harcourt resume operation.

It will also redress the massive pattern of migrations westwards.