Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja
The federal government yesterday disclosed that the Abuja- Kaduna train service would resume operation this month.
The Minister of Transportation, Muazu Jaji Sambo, disclosed this during the PMB’s Administration Scorecard 2015-2023 organised by the Ministry of Information and Culture.
The services were suspended on March 28, 2022, after terrorists bombed the rail track, killed some passengers and abducted several others.
The minister urged the passengers enjoying the train service to start warming up, saying the security agencies have taken measures to secure the route.
“In this month of November, we shall resume that rail service. Remember I told reporters from the State House that we will not resume the service until every Nigerian held in captivity was reunited with their families.
“That has been made possible by security agencies and the leadership of Mr. President and it is now history. Not one of them was injured or harmed. People, enjoying that service should start warming up,” Sambo said.
He described the bombing of the railway in Katari, Kaduna State, where eight passengers were killed, and 62 persons abducted as a very sad one.
He assured that the country shall not witness that type of mishap again because the federal government had learned hard lessons that would be put in use and taken deliberate steps to ensure constant surveillance of the track.
“There will constant surveillance –24/7 and round the clock. The minister should be able to see in his office and look at the rail corridor to see what is happening there. My President will be able to do that, the DG DSS should be able to do that.
“These are the measures we are going to put in place. No more again will they shave our hair behind our back,” he said.
He also denounced the insinuation that the federal government has a deliberate agenda to restrict the South-east to the narrow gauge insisting whatever the country will derive from standard gauge will also benefit from the narrow gauge.
He noted that the only fundamental difference between the narrow gauge and standard gauge was the speed as the narrow gauge goes about 100km per hour while the other goes 120- 140 per hour.
He added that Dala Inland Port in Kano was about 70 per cent completed and has been linked to the rail lines, while following a presidential directive, the litigation delaying the dredging of Calabar Port was being resolved to pave way for the dredging to begin.
In his opening remarks, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed flayed the opposition for bandying about that the Buhari Administration has nothing to campaign with in the run-up to the 2023 general elections.
He described as a cruel irony that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that presided over the affairs of the country in a time of plenty could not complete a single modern rail line and was the one accusing an administration that had completed at least three standard gauge rail-lines of lacking in achievements.
“They are quick to point to some economic indices like the naira exchange rate and inflation, but the truth is that if they were the ones confronted with having to fight a once-in-a-century pandemic, two economic recessions and low oil prices, Nigeria would have had no economy to even talk about!” Mohammed said.
