Nigeria has inaugurated a wagon assembly plant at Kajola in Ogun State, the first of its kind in West Africa.
The Nigerian government will buy the first fleet of wagons from Kajola Wagon Assembly, a deal that will expectedly optimise local freight and logistics services.
Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari, reported that the assembly is one of two Corporate Social Responsibility projects of the Chinese government, intending to share knowledge with Nigeria’s rail sub-sector.
Buhari and the Minister of Transport, Mu'azu Jaji Sambo, said the project is a culmination of Executive Order Number 5 they signed to ensure technology transfer between China and Nigeria.
The assembly plant, equipped with a locomotive and rolling depot, can assemble 500 open, container-carrying or boxed wagons annually.
Of the 368 different types of wagons usually created by China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), about 220 of them will be produced by the Kajola Wagon Assembly, pending its development into a full manufacturing plant.
Buhari said it’s expected that the plant will generate huge demand for railway rolling stock not only in Nigeria but elsewhere in Africa.
The deputy managing director of CCECC Nigeria, Jacques Liao, said the project is expected to boost Nigeria as a railway hub in Africa.
"This is the realisation of shared growth that China hoped to cultivate with the Nigerian people, and we are happy that the Buhari administration achieved it in record time," he said.
