11 November 2011, Sweetcrude, Lagos – US firm, General Electric (GE), has indicated interest in setting up a locomotive manufacturing firm in Lagos.
Disclosing this in Lagos, Mr. Freeborn Okhiria, Director, Mechanical, Electrical, Signal and Telecommunication Department at the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), said a GE team was in Nigeria two weeks ago to assess the current state of facilities at the NRC loco workshop at Ebute-Meta.
GE recently supplied 25 locomotive engines to the NRC to drive the Nigerian government’s plan to resuscitate the nation’s ailing railway transport system.
Okhiria said the American company and the corporation were excited by the prospect of having a locomotive factory in Nigeria.
He said: “They (GE) are ready to bring in the necessary workshop equipment to assemble locomotives in Nigeria, which will make the NRC workshop the hub of its West African market.
“But they may not bring in the investment if we cannot guarantee that we will consistently buy the locos from them for the next five years.”
The NRC, established in 1898, used to be the hub of engineering practice in the country before the rot, which almost grounded its operations, set in more than three decades ago.
