During his first official tour of the rail route on Tuesday, the Minister of Transportation, Saidu Alkali, inaugurated the first cargo movement from the Lagos-Ibadan rail corridor.
The minister began his trip at the Ebute Meta station before travelling to Apapa for the launch and then to Ibadan over the 157-kilometer rail track.
As the maiden freight movement began, three coaches of 30 waggons were loaded.
The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) said it would start with three 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 percent of Nigeria’s total exports and 60.77 percent of imports through the facility in the first quarter of 2022 (Q1’22).