Rail transport in Benin: What happens to the tracks?

When will there be direct rail transport from Cotonou to Niamey in Niger? ? The question remains unanswered and risks being so for a long time as the project is blocked by dissensions between the structures identified to carry it out..

While elsewhere, particularly in Europe and Asia, the train is the cheapest means of transport and one of the most used, in west Africa, it still remains an unattainable dream. This while the aim of ECOWAS is to promote links between member states and citizens.. Indeed, one of the founding principles of this organization, one of the most advanced on the continent, is the free movement of goods and people. Nowadays, this principle is not yet fully realized for two fundamental reasons, namely police harassment at the borders and the prohibitive cost of air transport..

However, it should be noted that some countries are already connected by rail, which helped to strengthen relations between populations. These are Senegal and Mali on the one hand and, the other, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso. Thanks to these two rail networks, Burkina and Mali, which are landlocked countries, have the ease of transporting goods from the coast to their capitals.

In Benin, this network exists only on 438 kilometers, either from Cotonou to Parakou in the center. It therefore remains 574 kilometers to complete, i.e. more than half of the route to connect Niger. Both countries agreed, in November 2013, to rehabilitate this very obsolete section and extend the track to Niamey, the capital of Niger.

But in 2020, following the dissolution and liquidation of the OCBN due to certain problems (The reform of the former Ocbn is part of the Rail Loop project which aims to connect 5 West African capitals by rail. But in the Benino-Nigerien component, the States of Benin and Niger have decided to rebuild the Cotonou-Parakou line then build a new one between Parakou and Niamey. Work has started in Niger. In Benin, barely launched, they were suspended following a court decision which dismissed the French group Bolloré from the case towards the end 2015. Subject of a legal saga, the project seems to be at a standstill) which prevented the realization of this project, it was believed that a new important step in the process of establishing a new cooperation framework between Benin and Niger in terms of rail transport was taken. Unfortunately, it is not the case.

Only that the Beninese are still waiting to finally see the train cross the country. Nowadays, nothing seems to be moving even though there are many reasons to justify such a project. Niger is a landlocked country and almost all of its imports by boat pass through the port of Cotonou.. At the same time, there is only one land route that connects the two countries, a route that has become too narrow and dangerous with demographic pressure in neighboring communities.

Today, only a political decision can unblock the situation and, finally, to realize one of the dreams underlying the creation of ECOWAS.

Damien TOLOMISSI