“From Rigasa, the next station is Kakau, then Dutse, then Rijana,” says Ade, driver of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC). Wear green and corporate yellow and wear a reflective protective vest when exercising part of Rigasa. in Kaduna, northwest nigeria, whose final destination is the country’s capital, Abuja.
Rigasa, a densely populated urban slum, is the main railway terminal along the 186 km (115. 6 mile) Kaduna-Abuja railway line.
The Chinese construction exercise has a bright white and sky blue interior and features 10 clean, air-conditioned cars with comfortable plastic seats covered with green cotton blankets. social distance to the spread of COVID-19, in contrast to overbooking exercises, with passengers trapped in the corridors, which existed before the pandemic.
“Three stops, then you get off at Rijana,” Ade repeats later in the hallway to check passengers’ tickets, making two holes in each. “The exercise stops only briefly at each of the seasons. expects a lot, ” he warns.
Poor transport infrastructure has long been a major impediment to Nigeria’s economic development. The railway line, opened by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2016, is the first of the country’s standard rail upgrades, which can accommodate high-speed rail lines. revitalize Africa’s largest economy as railways return after decades of neglect.
The British colonial government completed Nigeria’s first rail infrastructure more than a hundred years ago to facilitate the movement of agricultural products from the northern region to the southern ports. The service began to decline in the 1970s due to declining agricultural exports, mismanagement and government negligence. In 2009, the annual number of passenger train trips to Nigeria increased from 11 million in the golden age of 1963 to just one million.
The new popular hole line built as a component of the China Strip and Route Initiative [TJ Benson / Al Jazeera] The new popular hole line, The world’s most widely used high-speed rail line connects Abuja with nigeria’s former northern capital, Kaduna, as a component of the $1 trillion Strip and Route (BRI) Initiative presented across China in 2013. La Population of Nigeria of 200 million is a market in a position for Chinese exports and technology. It is also a lucrative gateway to West Africa and the rest of the continent for Chinese exporters.
Matthew T Page, an associate member of the Africa program at Chatham House, the London-based foreign affairs expert group, says China’s strategic interest in Nigeria is the African country’s prestige as an emerging global power, with huge unmet demand for infrastructure. .
“It’s a very herbal connection, ” he said. Rail projects financed through low-interest Chinese loans allow Chinese business elegance in the diaspora to be identified in Nigeria, Africa’s largest customer market with massive demand for Chinese exports. incredibly expensive. “
The Kaduna railway line began operations in July 2016 with the aim of enabling faster movement of goods and people, reducing road traffic congestion and selling the economic progression of villages along the route.
The railway line with its nine new stations opened in 2016 [TJ Benson / Al Jazeera] In the rite of opening the railway with its nine new stations, President Buhari announced that the service would provide a maritime link of indispensable choice between the two cities. The main terminal of Idu Station in Abuja is a giant grey building. Substations along the line are similar, albeit smaller, cream-colored buildings.
But while the railway had about one million passengers in its first two years of operation, it did not produce the economic seasoning expected by the communities that had the substations. Residents say that collecting exercise tickets is prohibitive and substations are difficult to access. .
After a 40-minute journey from the landscapes of Rigasa’s green savannah, the exercise arrives at Rijana Station, an agrarian village and pastures along the explicit road.
As you leave an exercise at Rijana Station, you may find yourser in the middle of two tracks, interspersed between two exercises [TJ Benson / Al Jazeera]. When the exercise doors open, the photographer and I jumped and we’re not on a platform yet. in the middle of two tracks, sandwiched between two locomotives, one in the direction of Kaduna and the other, the one from which we have just left, towards Abuja. The noise of the exercises, which occur at speeds of more than one hundred km / h (62 mph) – is deafening.
At the front of Rijana station, a station manager frowning, flanked by four other members, 3 men and a woman, wonders why we stopped at the station. Looks like he’s over fifty years old and dressed in a fluid blue caftan and a classic blue cap. He despises our jokes.
“Did you buy a price-price ticket from Rijana?” he asks. If you bought a price-price ticket from Abuja, why are you going here?”. We have to prevent in the substations between Kaduna and Abuja and ask to buy a price ticket from Rijana to the next station in Jere, an adventure of about 40 minutes.
Rijana Station has only one platform through the track [TJ Benson / Al Jazeera] There are only 4 round trips that coincide with Kaduna Day to Abuja. Passengers can only purchase one-time round-trip tickets up to two hours before departure from Kaduna, with the date and main departure and arrival points posted on them. Passengers were expected to make several stops along the line.
The station manager informs us that passengers can only physically purchase their tickets at departure stations and that substations no longer sell them. He can’t explain why, but he says it’s a directive from the Nigerian Railway Corporation. We took an advertising taxi that drives from Kaduna to Abuja on the road and left for Jere, which is less than an hour’s drive away.
Our attempts to call NRC at the phone numbers posted on its online page, to get help buying a new price ticket, proved fruitless because neither of us remains unanswered.
Rijana Train Station is surrounded by lush farmland. The city of Rijana is a 15-minute walk through farmland [TJ Benson / Al Jazeera] Rijana Station consists of a platform for singles on the edge of the track and a modern building of the train station; Its red roof stands out against a background of surrounding farmland. Inside, there is a price ticketing area with barricades, a waiting room and offices. From the station it takes 15 minutes to walk along a path through the trees and farmland to the main highway that leads to the village of Rijana.
Rijana is reputed to be a center for banditry and kidnapping by rescue, any of which has a common position on Kaduna-Abuja Road and other parts of northern Nigeria. At its peak in November 2019, nearly 10 kidnappings a day occurred in this bachelor. section of road, according to Nigerian Police Intelligence Response Brigade (IRT) commander Abba Kyari.
Thick rows of trees serve as armed gangs that jump, brandish firearms, unsuspecting travelers, taking them out of their vehicles.
They kidnap rich and poor, not easy ransoms of between $ 1,000 and $ 150,000, depending on the wealth of those affected and their families. Approximately $ 11 million was extorted in this way between January 2016 and March 2020. exercise to avoid the threat of hijacking, however, not everyone can do the exercise and with so few exercises in service, many passengers still do not have options to threaten the road.
A few days before our trip, the Nigerian Air Force claimed that an airstrike had killed armed bandits in the forests surrounding Rijana.
Ali Abubakar in his small shop in Rijana. Il says exercise is too expensive for villagers and market investors like him [TJ Benson / Al Jazeera] In a mini market on the Abuja-Kaduna highway, a 20-minute walk from Rijana Station, we find Ali AbubakarArray, a 45-year-old merchant, dressed in a blue caftan with a cap, sells comfortable drinks, food and family items in his shop, which can only accommodate 3 other people at a time.
I buy a can of milkt drink and with it on an outdoor wooden bench from the store. He tells me that he believes that the same seven substations located in the towns and villages between Kaduna and Abuja are too far from the cities and that the value of the exercise is too high to serve as an appropriate option for road transport for villagers and investors like him.
“If it’s for cities and towns with substations, it shouldn’t be that expensive,” he says. Abubakar travels to Kaduna by road at least once a week on business, a distance of less than 60 km (37 miles), at a charge of about 300 naira ($ 0. 78) for an advertising bus trip.
When Abuja-Kaduna’s rail service began operating, economy class tickets cost six hundred nairas (about $1. 50), while VIP buses charge 900 nars ($2. 35). First Elegance running shoes have an indoor bar, extra legroom and a table to eat or read.
Towards the start of the pandemic, the government suspended advertising rail facilities. They resumed 4 months later, but with reduced capacity to allow social estjournment [TJ Benson / AL Jazeera] In April 2020, the federal government suspended advertising facilities due to the pandemic But operations resumed 4 months later, in July, with a fee increase approved by President Buhari. Now, an economy class price ticket between Kaduna and Abuja costs 3,000 nars ($8), while the VIP price ticket costs 6,000 nars ($16). On the other hand, traveling in taxis or advertising buses costs around 1,500 nars ($4). Nearly a portion of Nigeria’s population lives in poverty and earns less than a dollar a day.
“With the existing hijackings that occur every day on this road, only the rich can protect the train,” Abubakar says.
“But for someone like me, I can’t take the train, so I have to stick to the road and hope my luck doesn’t run out. When you’re unlucky and they [the kidnappers] catch you, your circle of relatives has to locate cash for their ransom, and if they don’t meet the deadline, no one listens to you again,” he adds.
“Some of my own friends and neighbors have disappeared because of this situation. It’s possible that the ransoms will just be paid and never returned.
Kabiru Salisu says he never went to the substation, which is a 15-minute walk from his farm, and he doesn’t think it will do him any good [TJ Benson / Al Jazeera] Kabiru Salisu, a 57-year-old merchant, wears a flowing kaftan and With multiple prints, he has been promoting sugar cane for more than 40 years, which he grows on a small farm in Rijana, he has never been to the station, which is less than 15 minutes from his farm since it opened in 2016.
“I don’t get any of it. I don’t take any credit for it. What will lead me to this?” question, providing us with sugar cane sticks. “In all my life, I’ve never set foot in Abuja, so why do I want the train?
But for those who can, exercise offers a safer way to travel between the two cities.
Most travelers are public officials who paint in Abuja, but due to the maximum rental rate in the capital, they leave Kaduna where accommodation is cheaper. These weekly trips between Kaduna and Abuja are the main targets of bandits and kidnappers.
Most travelers are public officials who paint in Abuja but cannot live there due to the maximum cost of housing [TJ Benson / Al Jazeera] Before the start of the pandemic and the advent of social distance measures, passengers bought status after completing seats for the two-hour exercise trip, for the same value as a seat. They leaned on chairs or sneaked down the aisles, making the exercises crowded and regularly expanding the exercise capacity of their 1,000 seats to nearly 4,000 passengers at a time.
When we started our holiday in Kaduna, we met Maryam Ahmad, a 22-year-old who works for a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Kaduna and uses the exercise service to stop her sister in Abuja on weekends. From your seat, take your phone to take selfies and record videos with the cream-colored interior of the bottom car, post them on Instagram, where you have thousands of followers, it is a popular activity among many young people. documenting their exercise on their social media accounts.
“Exercise is the safest option right now, however, the fuss about getting a price ticket can be stressful,” he says as the exercise begins to move and adjusts his position to take a selfie. to physically buy price tickets. In addition, some passengers accused exercise officials of accumulating price tickets and promoting them just before the exercise departed at inflated prices.
“It is also difficult to get to Rigasa Station. It’s a long way from Kaduna city center,” he says. “If the road were safer, I would have taken a taxi to Abuja, it’s much less complicated and stressful. “-free. It’s fun to exercise, but car parks are more available than the exercise station, whether in Kaduna and Abuja.
For another passenger, Nafisa Abubakar, a 27-year-old businessman and Abuja resident, the ticket charge is also a concern. “At all times I get into the VIP segment for my circular vacation when I travel through the exercise, but I can no longer, it’s too expensive,” he says. “So I had to sacrifice the convenience of the VIP segment for economical elegance because staying on the road is not an option for me. It is higher to pay 3000 naRs in the exercise than to stick to the road and be kidnapped.
On the other side of the Kaduna-Abuja road in Rijana, we stop a Volkswagen pickup truck to Abuja. There are seven other tight passengers in the vehicle. It costs 400 nars ($1) to return to Jere, a distance of approximately 50 km (31 miles) and close to the city with an exercise station after Rijana.
The direction of the motorcycle from the city of Jere to Jere station [Sada Malumfashi / Al Jazeera] In Jere, an organization of advertising motorcyclists waits at the edge of the road as passengers get off the bus. We are taken through the hills and farmland exercise station, a 10-minute drive away.
This is the peak of the rainy season and the road to Jere Station is watered and inaccessible to cars larger than our motorcycle. No passenger symptoms waiting at the station; the only other people here are the corn farmers who grow their neighboring farmland.
The road to Jere station is watery and inaccessible to larger cars infrequently in the rainy season. Residents of the communities surrounding the railway have complained that the stations are located too far from the cities [TJ Benson / Al Jazeera] Unlike the manager of Rijana station, Jere’s manager tells us that the exercise to Kaduna from Abuja can determine that we travel from Jere Station for 1100 nares ($2. 9). There is no explanation as to why the stage is another here and the tickets you provide us are official. NRC tickets with “departure from: Jere” and “destination: Rigasa” published on them. This will be the last exercise of the day, after which the station will close, so we made the decision to return to Kaduna.
When the Kaduna-Abuja railway link ended in 2016, there was a buzz of anticipation in the hope that this would have a positive domino effect on the economies of satellite cities such as Rijana and Jere.
Tolu Ogunlesi, Special Assistant to the Nigerian President in Virtual and New Media, a previous blog this year on how rail projects would “open” cities.
Abdulaziz Halliru, father of two children in his thirties, lives in a new apartment 10 minutes from Jere Station. He works as a real estate agent and raises goats and sheep nearby.
Halliru, who wears a pink Juventus blouse and a grey tracksuit, says he has never used exercise because of his limited hours, but still hopes he can bring positive economic advances to his city, especially in real estate.
“The station here can serve as a railway hub for travelers in the southern component of Kaduna and the state of Niger and, if used correctly, can make Jere an economic hub,” he says. “I am satisfied that the railway is crossing this city. “
He is sitting in the trunk of the exercise since all available seats are taken. Others have to be left empty due to social distancing protocols [TJ Benson / Al Jazeera] When we tackle the exercise in Jere to return to Kaduna, we cannot locate the seats as all the coaches have been partially filled and the other seats are remaining empty due to social distancing protocols. Alternate seats are marked with red duct tape and exercise drivers keep certain passengers out of them.
We sneak into the area at the end of the exercise between the luggage racks and him and stay there for the one-hour adventure to Rigasa Station, the last impediment in Kaduna.
Two price ticket agents in the exercise took pictures of the price tickets we bought in Jere – surprised that we were going to buy them. They repeat what Rijana’s staff told us – that substations do not sell price tickets.
Later, when I can contact NRC, I am told that tickets are no longer meant to be sold in substations, due to lack of call, but that the station manager, Jere, may not have yet won this message due to a “communication problem. “
Back at Rigasa Station, we are greeted through the view of fast food stalls, street vendors promoting masks, peanuts, soft drinks and phone chargers, among others, in stark contrast to the empty substations we visited on our trip.
A sign at Rigasa station, through which thousands of travelers pass each and every day [TJ Benson / Al Jazeera] to the notorious gangs of hijackers on the Kaduna-Abuja road, thousands of travelers arrive each and every day in Rigasa to board the exercise to Abuja. As a result, Rigasa’s business is booming, with a new grocery shopping mall across the street from the exercise station and genuine real estate investors are emerging new properties.
The state government has also built a new two-lane highway to connect the station to central Kaduna to facilitate the station.
Haruna Salisu, 16, works as a pay collector at one of the many common car parking lots near the exercise station. Passengers travelling to Abuja can leave their car here to be monitored for 500 nars ($1. 3) per day. There are more than 50 cars parked there when we arrived and Salisu explains how he now makes enough money to ask his parents.
Despite this, Kaduna’s exercise trip to Abuja is nothing more than a dream for a local like him. “I would walk to Abuja who would pay 6,000 nars [$16] for a ticket,” he says, directing a driving force from the outdoor parking lot.
Kaduna-Abuja’s last exercise leaves Rigasa Station at 6pm [TJ Benson / Al Jazeera] When the sun starts to recede on the Rigasa skyline, the fourth and final exercise of the day bound for Abuja is to depart. On a bridge over the slopes, young people run to have a look.
Aisha Badamasi, 14, who sells corn through the look of the road, crosses the bridge to say goodbye to the train.
“I don’t know where Abuja is, but I know that’s where the exercise is going,” she says. “Perhaps one day I will also do the exercise and see the city where President Buhari lives. Maybe,” he laughs shyly, as the exercise disappears from view.
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