By Femi Akinola
The Managing Director of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), Mr. Fidet Okhiria, has disclosed that the corporation is currently assembling 15 wagons purposely for moving herds of cattle from the north to the southern part of the country.
Okhira said this on Wednesday while speaking on a live TV program. He said the movement of the cows and other goods would commence along the Warri-Itakpe route within the next eight weeks.
The NRC boss said the corporation had brought in some wagons that could move livestock adding that they were currently being assembled in the Kajola area of Oyo State, Southwest Nigeria.
He said: ”We’ve built 15 wagons for livestock and may be in the month or two months, they would be deployed from Itakpe to Warri to drive the economy.”
According to him, investment in rail system should not be for profits alone, but for social and economic benefits of the people adding, ”You are not developing transportation because you want to make profit in terms of naira and kobo, but the profit will eventually come indirectly if we can move goods and link cities.”
Ohkira noted that the indirect earnings may not be directly to the government, but will flow in the economy.
He said investment in rail agriculture should also be for public good and to make lives comfortable for the masses as well.
CNG powered vehicles is safe to use, reduces fuel costs by 76% – MD Portland Gas
The Managing Director Portland Gas, Mr. Folajimi Mohammed has allayed the fear that compressed natural gas popularly referred to as CNG is susceptible to catching fire noting that it is safe.
He also said adoption of CNG is inevitable because CNG- powered vehicles reduces fuel costs by 76% in comparison to Premium Motor Spirits (PMS) petrol.
Folajimi noted that ordinarily, the conversion cost of a vehicle that uses petrol to CNG is a little high but he opined that a CNG vehicle owner can recover the cost of conversion from the difference in cost of petrol and CNG within a year.
That aside, he allayed fear that the gas is susceptible to catching fire, nothing that the gas is lighter than air and that its chances of fire outbreak is slim.
Portland Gas boss gave the assurance recently during a stakeholder’s event of the P-CNGI and Portland Gas in partnership with NASENI, in Abuja. The theme of the meeting was – ”Driving Sustainable Transportation: Accelerating CNG Adoption in Nigeria.
He said, ”It is safe. Let us make this understandable. The component of CNG is methane. CH4 is lighter than air. What we mean by lighter than air is that in the event there is any release of it, it goes and expresses into the air.”
Butresing his confidence in safety of CNG, Folajimi agreed that there has been incidents of CNG fire but assured people saying ”chances of fire outbreak in CNG are very narrow.”
In addition, Folajimi noted that since gas cannot be adulterated, it has an excellent combustion compared to any other fuel.