Two years after it became operational, the federal government has inaugurated the freight services on the Lagos-Ibadan rail corridor.
The inauguration was performed by the Minister of Transportation, Saidu Alkali, during his first official tour of the rail corridor on Tuesday.
Alkali started the tour at the Ebute Meta station before proceeding to Apapa for the launch, then travelled to Ibadan using the 157km rail corridor.
Three coaches of 30 wagons were loaded as the inaugural cargo movement commenced.
The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) said it would start with 3 coaches per day with its Managing Director (MD) noting that the corporation had the capacity to scale up the numbers.
This effort is expected to decongest the Apapa port as shippers moved 92.28 per cent of Nigeria’s total exports and 60.77 percent of imports through the facility in the first quarter of 2022 (Q1’22).
