Herders Can Resume Using Rail Services To Transport Cows Soon – NRC

The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) has said that herders and traders can soon move their cows from northern Nigeria to the country’s southern region using rail services.

The NRC Managing Director, Fidet Okhiria disclosed this on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief breakfast show on Wednesday.

This is coming hours after President Bola Tinubu announced the creation of a new ministry for livestock development.

Okhiria stated that the movement of cows and other goods would resume with the Warri-Itakpe route.

Naija News reports that the NRC in 2017 had suspended the movement of cattle by train following technical hitches.

However, Okhiria said, in a matter of one or two months, herders would be able to move their cattle on the Warri-Itakpe train services.

Itakpe is a town in Kogi State in North Central Nigeria, while Warri is located in Delta State in the South-South geopolitical zone of the country.

He said the NRC would modernise the movement of goods in the country “so that when they come by road from the north, they can move them by rail to South-South Warri”.

Speaking further, he explained that the NRC has brought in some wagons that can mobilise livestock and they are being assembled in the Kajola area of Oyo State in the South-West.

“We’ve built 15 wagons for livestock and maybe in the next month or two months, they would be deployed from Itakpe to Warri to drive the economy,” the NRC boss stated.