"Rail is a uniting force on multiple levels, not just in closing the gaps between places, but also in bringing rich and poor together. At the moment, rich Nigerians conquer vast distances strictly by air, while the less privileged have no other option than to travel by road. Rail stands somewhere in the middle, providing much greater comfort than the roads and an affordability that air travel is not designed to provide."

1. OCTOBER 30, 2019 7
W
ith more than a third of
the world’s refugees and
internally displaced peo-
ple, forcible displacement
is a challenge facing Afri-
ca. The long-lasting partnership between the
African Union (AU) and the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
has led to the adoption of crucial treaties on
refugees and internal displacement, as well
as the designation of 2019 at the AU summit
in February as the “Year of Refugees, Return-
ees and Internally Displaced Persons.” The
partnership between both organizations
demonstratestheimportanceofcooperation
in addressing complex problems.
For its part, the AU has continued to
show its commitment towards achieving a
more “integrated, prosperous and peaceful
Africa,” notably by welcoming refugees and
asylum-seekers. For instance, in September,
the Government of Rwanda, UNHCR, and
the AU signed a Memorandum of Under-
standing (MOU) to set up a mechanism to
receive and provide protection to refugees
and asylum-seekers, including children and
at-risk youth, held in detention centers in
Libya. According to a joint statement, while
some will benefit from resettlement to third
countries or even be helped to return to
their home countries if it is safe, others will
be authorized to remain in Rwanda subject
to agreement by competent authorities.
SECURITY IN AFRICA
A promising AU-UN
partnership on refugees
BY EBBA KALONDO
Spokesperson of the African Union
Commission
Africa’s
commitment
towards local
ownership of
development
policies should by
no means justify
indifference by
the international
community.”
The AU has
continued to show
its commitment
towards achieving
a more ‘integrated,
prosperous and
peaceful Africa’.”
Evacuation flights have already begun and
have been carried out in cooperation with
the Rwandan and Libyan authorities.
This MOU is in line with the AU’s com-
mitment to find African solutions to African
problems. In fact, the African Continental
Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), whose
operational phase was launched on July 7
of this year in Niamey, is also an attempt by
African countries to find solutions to this ref-
ugee crisis by enabling the youth to take ad-
vantage of a single African market and work
beyond their respective countries. Africa has
the means and should continue investing
them in finding solutions to the continent’s
most pressing issues. Refugees and asylum-
seekers wanting to migrate to Europe are
living in dire conditions in detention cen-
ters, which prevents African countries from
capitalizing on its biggest resource: human
capital.
The phrase “African solutions to Afri-
can problems” should be a reminder to all
members of the AU of its responsibility, au-
tonomy, and need to continue developing
management capacities for durable solu-
tions. Formulating one’s own solutions to
problems gives one the incentive to see them
work. Africa’s commitment towards local
ownership of development policies should
by no means justify indifference by the inter-
nationalcommunity.Ifanything,thisshould
continue to mirror the collective and collab-
orative approach embodied by the AU-UN
partnership through the AU 2020 theme of
Silencing the Guns in Africa in order to en-
surepeace,security,anddevelopmentonthe
continent.Itiswithoutadoubtthatsolutions
to global inequality will more adequately be
addressed by working together and assum-
ing our shared responsibility.
to Ibadan. It is now nearing completion and
is expected to go into operation next year. It
will be the fastest completed rail project in
modern Nigerian history.
In addition to the Western line, there will
be an Eastern line, from Port Harcourt in the
south to Maiduguri, Borno State, near Chad,
and a Coastal line, from Lagos, to Calabar
in Cross River State, near our southernmost
border with Cameroon. And then there will
be a Central line, linking the Coastal line to
the Federal Capital, Abuja. (Construction ac-
tually started on this Central line in 1987, but
the first passenger trains didn’t start running
until 2018.)
Nigeria is turning to China for the
funding and the expertise to deliver on
these projects. President Buhari has been
very clear about how seriously Nigeria
takes its relations with China. He paid a
state visit to Beijing in April 2016: the first
African leader to be invited after the historic
FOCAC Meeting in Johannesburg in Decem-
ber 2015. Landmark rail agreements between
Nigeria and China have followed in quick
succession.
In October 2019, the Federal Govern-
ment awarded a $3.9 billion contract to a
Chinese firm to complete the Central Line
and to build a brand-new deep-sea Port at its
western terminus.
In the years ahead, emerging generations
of Nigerians will come to take high-speed
rail transport for granted. They will be able
to more easily and comfortably see distant
parts of their country, as well as appreciate
the great beauty and diversity of the land.
Rail is a uniting force on multiple levels,
not just in closing the gaps between places,
but also in bringing rich and poor togeth-
er. At the moment, rich Nigerians conquer
vast distances strictly by air, while the less
privileged have no other option than to
travel by road.
Rail stands somewhere in the middle,
providing much greater comfort than the
roads and an affordability that air travel is
not designed to provide.
It is a future very much worth looking
forward to.
O
ne of the biggest colonial lega-
cies in Nigeria is a network of
more than 3,000 kilometers of
railway lines crisscrossing the
vast landscape.
Granted, the colonialists built it to ease
their mandate of exploiting Nigeria’s nat-
ural resources, ferrying vast quantities of
groundnut, cotton, tin, coal and so on, from
the hinterlands to the ports in Lagos and
Port Harcourt. But, ultimately, that sprawl-
ing network did far more than serve merely
commercial ends; it truly opened up the
country and arguably contributed a great
deal to the fostering of inter-regional and
inter-ethnic unity in Nigeria, especially in
the first half of the 20th century.
The sad decline of Nigerian rail appears
to have started in the 1970s and was com-
plete by the late 1990s. The infrastructure
crumbled, the trains ground to a halt, and a
rail network that once stood tall as a nation-
al icon was in time recast as a metaphor for
seemingly inevitable national decline.
Since democracy returned in 1999, there
have been fitful attempts to revive rail trav-
el in Nigeria. There has been no shortage of
grand plans – but no shortage of floundering
either. Construction work on the first new
standard gauge rail project in a generation
kicked off in 2011, and after a series of delays,
thelineopenedtothepublicin2016.Andthe
first line of the Abuja Rail Mass Transit, West
Africa’s first intra-city light rail system, was
finally completed and launched in 2018.
Indeed, it is in the last three years that
the vision for the revival of rail in Nigeria
has truly taken off. The goal is to connect all
36 states of Nigeria and the Federal Capital
Territory (FCT) by standard gauge rail, an
upgrade in terms of speed and capacity on
thenarrow-gaugetechnologythattheBritish
bequeathed to us a century ago.
The flagship project of this Rail Mod-
ernization Program, as it is known, is the
‘Western’ line; this would connect Lagos, a
coastal city on the southwestern corner of
the country and Nigeria’s commercial hub
with Kano, the economic center of North-
ern Nigeria, a thousand kilometers away.
In 2017 construction began on the first
phase, a 158 kilometers section from Lagos
INVESTMENT & BUSINESS
Rail will be a uniting force
for Nigeria
Nigeria is turning
to China for the
funding and the
expertise to deliver
on these projects.”
BY TOLU OGUNLESI
Special Assistant to President Buhari of
Nigeria