 Passengers have been stranded at train stations since the federal government announced free services for them nationwide. And that was from December 24th, 2021 and to end on the 4th of January 2022. Some passengers at a train station in Lagos were seen lamenting that the system was frustrated. Jacinta Obuku has more. At the Babatunde fashion at train station at Gigi, we were greeted by angry passengers who were hustling for their tickets. The train services were scheduled for 6am, 12pm and 4pm for the day. They complained about the process and boarding delay in the system. They disclosed that some passengers who were supposed to board 6am train were yet to get their tickets at 10am when our crew arrived the station. Ticket is free. But the challenge we are having is that the officers are not managing a location of ticket. Surely you understand. The way they are doing it is somehow, you know, they will give you tally. I got here around 7am in the morning. I'm supposed to go with the 4th train and I'm still here. This is like 12 o'clock. From those that enjoyed this thing first when it started, I mean they said a lot of good things about it. But now it seems like there's no free lunch anymore. So it's looking like people have to tip some people to get in and all that. Some people are holding the tickets and all that. I've been here since early in the morning. So if what we want them to do is just to do the certain calculation, but then we got here. Let us know if we can. Because if we are here since 7 o'clock and we unfortunately could not even be able to follow 4 o'clock again, we are going back home. So far it's a bit stressful because, you know, in Nigeria anything that is free cannot be easy. But then I think since it's free, we should be able to endure the process. One of the passengers even stressed that the government shouldn't have approved the free ticket but should have reduced the fare instead. When you are running a business and you give it totally free, you are wasting the resources. You can subsidize not to let it be free. I don't see a nation that will be giving all these these kind of facilities as free for more than a day. You are just starting a real system again and the real system you just started. You are running anyhow. You are running free. It's all good. Some of the passengers alleged that some people are paying their way through the backdoor. However, passengers were warned not to cut corners but to exercise patience. This has been going on for days and citizens are waiting for the next line of action from the authorities. Joining us to discuss the controversial free train services is a public affairs analyst, Victor Okai. Thanks for joining us, Ms Okai. Thank you for having me. All right, of course, if you followed the conversation that one person had mentioned, that it may have been a better idea to subsidize the price of tickets instead of making it completely free, do you think that maybe would have been a better idea since, you know, a scene, you know, how it played out? Well, first of all, I didn't think that government are talking to, when you choose a period, like, since they utilize such a mass, like, across different parts of the court, court, simple economics were telling you that demand would outstrip supply because obviously don't have enough seats to take all the number of people that will be anticipated. And so what I thought the government should have done was sort of to get more people to try to trade. You know, but when you do that, if you try to do it, obviously, like I have tried, you'll find a lot of them, because it's really comfortable and, you know, it's really good what you said, but which things after that, you'll have a couple of market people who don't want you to trade as an alternative. And government do what it does, try to find the people that sit on the use of language and try to appear at the government. Some people have just thought of it as a great idea to win the hands of the masses and try to trade free. You know, of course, what you thought was not totally unexpected, you know, not a lot of success. All right. And still talking about this, Nigeria is slowly, you know, trying to revamp its railway system. You know, we've gone, you know, many decades, you know, without a fully functional railway system. And so, you know, as much as we commend the Nigerian government for the moves that have been made so far, what mistakes do you think we are still making, you know, in this process? You know, transforming, I mean, transporting things and things in the nation, that's really a lot of things. Some names are known that. Yet, as many things as possible, you know, this, I mean, that's what you need to invest in. Another thing is, I don't think by the cabinet, because you're trying to make decisions. And we are, in some of my theories, I know, all these types of things, these types of stuff, these kinds of things. Okay. So, why not a complex private sector, you know, you should get, I mean, if you put trust in open private sectors, you'll find that it isn't the people who want to bring in wagons and all that. I don't care for the services. So, you know, these are things that I expected, I think that you should have done, you know, to make it easier. Some of through it, I've had to use the railway system, buy the trains, and then you'll find that there'll be a certain activity, and there will be, there'll be, the strategy for the road will be a bit more easy, you know, especially at the time like this. So, you agree that there should be a little, you know, the conversation on privatizing certain aspects of the railway system to make it run more effectively? Oh, yes. I think we'll try to concentrate on the rail, and then let the private sector provide the services. Okay. Also, if you watched that report by Jacinta Obuiko, there was also talk about tickets being hoarded and then sold, you know, maybe even at higher prices, and that already showed signs of corruption in the system. How would you suggest that that is completely stamped out? Yeah. Maybe also, you know, more mechanized system, you know, might help, you know, with some of all the, you know, helping out with stamping out corruption in it. But let's also... No, they're not doing it, but they're not doing it. Well, my first friend changed it from selling the line, and they didn't tell me, I have to say that not to do that. When you have to go to an education, at least one hour or so, before they buy the tickets, I'm bought the train. All right. All right, Ms. Okai. Yes, they're doing it, and they're doing it well, until they have reason to have chance to learn to do that. All right. Finally, just, you know, on a broader note, you know, would you, you know, feel like the giant of Africa should have a much better railway system than, you know, neighbouring African countries? But it goes with us for our numbers, the size of our economy, and from every indexes, that's something that this language, you should be learning, that we should be taking the lead. Ms. Okai, thank you so much for your time, and thanks for speaking with us. Thank you for, thank you for having me, as always. Absolutely.