I never thought or imagined that I would ever travel by rail until some weeks ago when I boarded a Lagos to Kano bound train. Before now, I had crisscrossed the country by air and by land transport but never by rail. Thanks to the rehabilitation of our rail system by the Federal Government that saw the intercity trains return to the tracks on December 21, 2012.
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As a maxim says, travelling is part of education. Curiousity, nothing but curiousity made me to embark on that journey. Do you want to know how long the journey from Lagos to Kano by rail was, the thrills and frills as well as the fun and the frustrations, and what it is like to travel on a Nigerian train? Well, come on board with me. Our take off point was the Iddo terminus in Lagos.
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The Kano bound train was to depart from the terminus at 12:00 pm on Friday. It was the tenth trip since the intercity train service was launched on December 21, 2012 by the Minister of Transport, Senator Idris Umar, in Lagos. I had gone to the terminus as early as 10:00 am to obtain a ticket for the Kano bound train. The terminus was filled with passengers. The passengers flocked around the ticketing office but there was no one to issue tickets to them. The passengers were struggling, jostling in front of the ticketing booth but no one was issuing any tickets
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After a while, a tall black fellow, apparently an NRC officer, came and began to dish out instructions to passengers. He said that passengers should sit down and that ticket sales would commence by 10:00 am, but at the promised time, no one was issued any ticket. People struggled to be on queue but no officer was in sight to issue tickets until 11:00 am.