The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) just declared that it plans to transition its rail network to electric-powered trains within five years. An official press release from the NRC, dated November 5, 2025, confirms this is the new policy framework.
The statement, which you can see in a post on X below, was issued after the NRC’s new Managing Director, Dr. Kayode Opeifa, spoke at a major transport conference in Abuja. He laid out a new, aggressive “Vision 2-5-10-20” for the corporation.
But this single 5-year plan, now confirmed in black and white, raises one big question that hovers over the entire country: Where will the power come from?
Let’s be clear about what “transition to electric traction” actually means. It’s not just about buying new, quiet trains. It is a colossal, top-to-bottom infrastructure overhaul.
- What we have now: Our brand-new, modern rail lines (like Lagos-Ibadan and Abuja-Kaduna) run on massive diesel locomotives. They are powerful, self-contained engines that burn diesel fuel to generate electricity, which in turn powers the motors. They are, in effect, their own moving power plants.
- What “electric” means: An electric train gets its power from an external, fixed source. This requires the entire railway line to be electrified, either with overhead lines (catenary) or a “third rail” on the ground.
This means that for this 5-year plan to be real, the NRC isn’t just buying trains. It’s committing to laying hundreds, and eventually thousands, of kilometres of track with a dedicated, high-voltage power grid. And that brings us back to the big question.
The Power Problem and the “Lagos Blue Line” Solution
Nigeria’s national grid is notoriously unreliable. We struggle to power homes and factories. How can we power a 24/7, high-speed, critical transportation network? The answer, and the only successful model in the country, is the Lagos Blue Line. The user’s own text points this out. The Blue Line is the only electric rail in Nigeria. But how is it electric?
It runs on its own Independent Power Plant (IPP).
Lagos State, when building the Blue Line, knew it couldn’t rely on the national grid for a multi-billion-dollar transport system. So, it built its own dedicated power station. The train runs on this private, reliable power, with the national grid only acting as a backup (which itself has backups).
This is the only way the NRC’s 5-year plan makes sense. It’s not just a railway plan; it’s an energy plan. It must involve building a series of dedicated, track-side IPPs along the entire length of the Lagos-Ibadan, Abuja-Kaduna, and Itakpe-Warri corridors.
The “Vision 2-5-10-20”: A Plan to Un-Lock the Rails
This electric dream is the most aggressive part of the NRC’s new Vision 2-5-10-20 framework:
- 2 Years: Optimise all the national rail assets we currently have.
- 5 Years: The big one. Transition to electric traction.
- 10 Years: Double the entire national rail capacity.
- 20 Years: An almost unbelievable leap to 60,000 kilometres of rail network nationwide (up from just a few thousand today).
But how do you pay for all this? The second part of Dr. Opeifa’s announcement gives a clue.
The Federal Government is about to unveil a new National Railway Development Roadmap. The biggest feature? It allows states to access and use the national rail corridors at no extra cost.
This is a game-changer. For decades, rail was on the “exclusive list,” meaning only the Federal Government could touch it. It has now been moved to the “concurrent list.”
This single policy shift unlocks the entire network. A state like Ogun can now run its own “Lagos-Abeokuta” commuter service using the NRC’s tracks. Lagos and Plateau are already working on plans. This “open-access” model allows the NRC to become a “landlord,” collecting fees from states and private operators who want to run their own train services.
This move, combined with the booming freight business (the NRC is already hauling materials for the massive AKK Pipeline Project), creates the revenue streams that could, just maybe, fund the massive ambition of the 5-year electric dream.
