By Rep. Bamidele Salam
This morning, I got on the worlds fastest passenger train, the Shanghai Maglev which has a capacity of travelling 460 kilometres per hour!
The high speed trains has a stability that makes it possible to put an egg on a table without it falling off in the course of travels.
Each time I get on a train, I have some fond memories of childhood. I still remember how I was passed into a passenger train through its windows, probably in the early 70s. It was a packed full cabin and my mother was already inside with her luggage. The family members who accompanied us to the train station bundled me through the windows to avoid the pressing human traffic.
When I was in the secondary school, the Railway provided easier and cheaper commuting option between Osogbo, Ibadan and Jebba in Kwara State where I schooled. A train ride allows you know more places, meet many new people, eat different foods and enjoy the beautiful scenery of the countryside. It was the dream journey for every young man and woman.
The Railways open communities to new opportunities in trade and commerce. Towns like Ede, Mokwa, Nguru, Jebba, Offa, Osogbo, Aba, Kaura Namoda, Enugu and many others benefitted immensely from the train stations they hosted.
As the years passed by unfortunately, our trains and railway became old, rustic and messy. Railway workers could no longer be maintained because the sector was not profitable due to government monopoly, corruption and lack of sustainable investment in modernising the infrastructures.
With new sustained investments coming in, and new corridors opened, the new trains on Abuja-Kaduna; Ibadan-Lagos routes should offer us a hope of a return of the good old days in Nigeria.
Perhaps we will also make a record in rail transportation someday.
Rep. Salam is a member of the House of Representatives representing Ede North, Ede South, Egbedore and Ejigbo Federal Constituency of Osun state. He is the Chairman, Public Accounts Committee of the House
