Only recently, the federal government appointed Dr. Kayode Opeifa as the new Managing Director of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC).
Opeifa is not new to transportation. He was Special Adviser and Commissioner for Transportation during the first and second tenures respectively of the Babatunde Fashola administration as Lagos state Governor. He was also Transport Secretary for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) by Buhari.
Before his present appointment, he had served as the Vice-Chairman of the Presidential Task Team (PTT) to free Apapa gridlock by former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
He is now saddled with the enormous responsibility of moving the NRC, an over a century old organization, forward.
He needs to tackle the fundamental issue of staff welfare, as it is an open secret that staff of the NRC are poorly paid with very little welfare packages. The human resource remains key to move any organization in the right direction.
Opeifa should also be concerned about the ongoing modernization of the railways promoted by his predecessors. He needs to take it to the next level.
The vexed issue of NRC quarters has lingered for very long with litigations and counter-litigations. If Opeifa is able to resolve this, it will leave a lasting impression.
There is also the issue of NRC landed properties being encroached upon in different parts of the country. Though there is an NRC Property company in charge of this, the NRC MD, being the Chairman of the board, cannot go without blame if things do not go right with the huge properties nation-wide.
The continuous vandalism and theft of NRC infrastructure is also an issue that Opeifa needs to worry about. The needs to think out of the box and deploy measures to stop this.
Opeifa has an opportunity to write his name in gold, if he is able to within his four years (or more) tenure, turn around the NRC and make it more accessible and affordable to majority of Nigerians.
