NBS Puts Nigerian Railway 2025 Passenger Revenue at N7.77bn, 11% Above Target

The Nigerian Railway Corporation carried 3,888,661 passengers in 2025 and took N7.77bn in passenger revenue, according to the National Bureau of Statistics annual rail transportation data. That is roughly 11% above the Federal Government's N7bn passenger revenue target for the year. Freight contributed a further N2.29bn and other operational receipts N606.5m, bringing total rail revenue to about N10.67bn.

The quarterly series shows ridership holding broadly flat through the year while revenue peaked mid-year: 929,553 passengers and N1.95bn in Q1, 989,793 and N2.28bn in Q2, 1,028,839 and N1.94bn in Q3, and 940,476 and N1.60bn in Q4. Q3 carried the most passengers of any quarter but generated less revenue than Q2, and the Q4 revenue figure was the weakest of the year.

Against 2024 the direction is clearly upward. Q1 2025 passenger numbers rose 37.6% year on year, from 675,293 to 929,553, with revenue up 37.4% from N1.42bn to N1.95bn. Freight volume over the same quarter rose from 160,650 tonnes to 181,520 tonnes. Rail's contribution to GDP grew 18.65% in the first quarter.

Two datasets circulate for the same year. An NRC operational fact sheet, reported by Nigerian outlets in March, put 2025 passenger revenue at N7.46bn from 3.58 million passengers; the NBS series used here is the statistical release. The figures do not reconcile, and NRC has not published a consolidated annual account.

Scale matters when reading the percentages. Total 2025 rail revenue of about N10.67bn is the equivalent of roughly $7m at prevailing exchange rates, against a modernisation programme whose individual corridors have been contracted in the billions of dollars. The revenue line measures traffic recovery on the Lagos-Ibadan and Abuja-Kaduna standard gauge corridors; it is not a measure of the network covering its costs.