(1) This week, we finally managed to upgrade the Lagos to Abeokuta railway line which the British built in 1898

(2) At the time, the British wanted to get cocoa to port, so built a line linking Lagos with Abeokuta and Ibadan. They did not even have the time or care about extending it to other major cocoa producing towns like Idanre, Ondo, Owena, Akure or Ado Ekiti

(3) Because speed was not an issue, the exploitative and colonising British only built a narrow gauge track on which trains could run at a snail speed if 45km an hour. On October 3, 1912 the Lagos Government Railway and the Baro-Kano Railway were amalgamated, giving us the slowest national railway in the world

(4) Now, Lagos to Abeokuta is 79km and in 2019, we are only just linking the two cities up with a standard gauge railway line. They have told us that when complete this new line will run at a speed of 150km per hour.

(5) Let us see how it pans out but alas, South Africa is already using high speed rail. Do you know that the Durban to Johannesburg bullet train runs at a speed of 300km per hour?

(6) As we speak, Morocco and Algeria are both building high speed railway networks too

(7) We all saw the Alake of Egbaland on that train this week. Do you know that in 1898, the British did the same thing with his predecessor. They made the Alake travel in a carriage to show off this wonderful railway. It just reminds me of how Adolf Hitler made the French sign an armistice after conquering them in 1940 in the same railway carriage in which they made Germany sign a surrender at the end of World War One on 1918. It is called de ja vu

(8) Those locomotives I saw transporting Ibikunle Amosun and Rotimi Amaechi yesterday were highly embarrassing but alas, we celebrated it like some landmark achievement. In 2019, no progressive or sane people use locomotives to run their trains!

(9) Apart from speed, how do we intend to run a railway network if we do not manufacture carriages and wagons? Do you know that the average age of British passenger trains is 21? So how will we replace these new trains come 2039?

(10) We need to manufacture tracks, carriages, engines, etc if we are serious about running a railway network. The technology changes so frequently so we need the capacity to adapt and upgrade on a daily basis. This is how we start things and they then fall into a state of disrepair because they are not part of a long term programme. Just think of National Stadium, Surulere; National Theatre, Iganmu; Ajaokuta Steel Rolling Mill, etc. Hmmmmmm.