Train surfing has attained a dangerous dimension in Nigeria with surfers hanging dangerously on rush hour train roofs morning and night. Assistant Life Editor, TERH AGBEDEH, who rode a rush hour train one evening, took the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) up on this subject.
Take a train from the Iddo Terminal of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) in Lagos to the Ijoko station in Ogun State and the roof is crowded with young people jostling for space. At other times, the trains, which now run hourly, are more or less empty.
This is usually the case particularly during the rush hour period morning and night from Monday to Friday. Known locally as ‘staff riding’ the worldwide phenomenon is called train surfing. ‘Staff’ derives from the free rides military person get from commercial vehicles in the city of Lagos, which now extend to off duty conductors.
Although in South Africa people surf trains for the thrill of it, the train surfers in Lagos are said to be doing it to escape payment of the N150 fare for the trip from Iddo to Ijoko or vice versa.
TheNiche spoke with NRC’s Assistant Director, Public Relations, Mr. David Ndakotsu, who, saying it was an illegal activity, explained that NRC was working to end it. He described those involved as hooligans “who don’t want to pay for tickets”.
Our reporter may have met with a crowded train with nowhere to set foot one evening from Iddo to the Iju station, making it difficult even to alight, but Ndakotsu insisted that train surfing was not due to congestion.
“We did our research and found out that the thing has nothing to do with congestion, it is just attitudinal. The average Nigerian would like to abuse any privilege or any public property. These things are made available for them, but instead of them to appreciate it, they will not,” he said.
He pointed to the fact that the fare is very cheap at N150 between Lagos and Ogun states.
“It used to be N100 before, now it is just N150. It is a journey of about almost seven kilometres. So you can imagine,” he explained.
Getting the surfers to comment was the most difficult since most, if not all of them, were suspicious of our reporter’s motive and therefore showed their aggressive selves. However, one evening in March one of the coaches attached to an Ijoko-bound train derailed at the Ikeja, Lagos station making it impossible for the journey to continue that night. Luckily, no one was hurt that evening but the train surfing crowd that spilled from the demobilised train moved to the road to board buses instead. Our reporter observed that most of the surfers could not afford to pay the N200 fare required to take them to Sango Ota in Ogun State. In fact, some of them were seen begging for money from people they perceived could help their case.
But isn’t there something the NRC can do to put an end to the activity? Ndakotsu’s response to that is that the NRC has been doing something for years. In the past five years, for instance, he said, they have been arresting defaulters and charging them to court.
“Apart from that, we do advocacy campaign on radio and television and jingles to enlighten them about the dangers involved in such practice because in case of any eventuality, since you didn’t buy ticket, you will not be covered by insurance. When you buy your ticket, it is written on the reverse side that you must be seated in the train to be covered by insurance,” he said.
Outside the campaigns, Ndakotsu said the NRC has in the last three years increased the frequency of the Lagos mass transit trains from 10 to 16.
“This means each hour there is a train to and fro, so there is no congestion. It is just that they don’t want to pay. They go and smoke their marijuana. They stay on top of the train and smoke and when they see policemen, they stone them, they throw broken bottles at them,” he said.
The public relations director, who agreed that the rush hour trains are the most plagued, said the NRC deploys the full-fledged railway police command headed by a commissioner of police to raid train surfers on a daily bases. He however admitted that there have been cases of offenders who return to the activity after they have been released from detention.
Told that what it means is that it is a helpless situation he refused to agree.
“It is not helpless. That is why I am telling you that we have various strategies. We do advocacy jingles and we also have programmes with the Lagos State Safety Commission, LASTMA (Lagos State Traffic Management Authority) and the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) that organise road shows to enlighten the public about the dangers of such practise,” he explained.
Asked if the NRC has drawn examples from the injuries and even deaths resulting from past accidents in campaigning against the activity, Ndakotsu responded in the affirmative.
“That is what I am telling you. We tell them about the dangers, of which death is there, physical disability, incapacitation is there. So we do all these things. But the whole thing is attitudinal. The average Nigerian does not appreciate whatever has been provided for them, they will rather abuse it and misuse it. We are not sitting on our oars,” he said.
But as this write up is being done, the train surfers are out there riding free and having a field day. One only hopes that no fatal accident will take place anytime soon as this may well be the blow that will get those concerned to end the dangerous pastime. The Lagos District of the NRC is said to be presently moving over 14,000 passengers daily out of which unconfirmed reports said at least two train surfers die every week.
Train services have become more frequent since the beginning of 2013 particularly in Lagos since the refurbishment of the Lagos-Kano rail track, which had been dormant for many years.