Public-Private Partnership and Infrastructural Development in Nigeria: The Rail Transportation Sector in Focus

The global movement for the transformation of governance has brought about sundry innovations in public administration. One of such innovations is the Public-Private Partnership (PPP), which is fast becoming an attractive menu in the list of global best practices. The initiative recognises the potency of the private sector in the good governance project, and therefore seeks to encourage the synergy between the private sector and the public sector for improved service delivery. In Nigeria, the urgent need to arrest the continuing infrastructural decay has compelled the government to key into this approach. Public-private partnership in infrastructure development is expected to improve the state of socio-economic infrastructures and to also provide the much needed enabling environment for productive activities. There is an abiding concern in this paper to examine the viability of this partnership in the Nigerian rail transportation sector. Within the framework of the New Public Management, the paper argues that this initiative in public service delivery is rooted in the system of a mixed economy with emphasis on the use of economic markets as a model for resource mobilisation and utilisation. The paper employed the descriptive/analytical approach to review related literature which serves as basis to generate and discuss findings. The findings revealed that the Nigerian railway is facing both internal and external challenges resulting in poor performance. It prescribes the Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) option of concessioning for the Government in the resuscitation of Kafanchan-Makurdi-Enugu-Port/Harcourt rail track as a means of testing the viability of PPP for the development of infrastructural facilities. The paper outlines the challenges to be addressed by the Government for the successful implementation of the policy some of which include; the development of a robust National Infrastructure Master Plan (NIMP) and a consistent programme of capacity building in the area of manpower development.