By Ismail Auwal
The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) has lost over N531 million in estimated ticket revenue on the Abuja-Kaduna Standard Gauge Train service.
The NRC’s Managing Director, Fidet Okhiria, at a media briefing at the corporation’s headquarters on Wednesday in Lagos said the figure was for the five months – between March 28 and August.
Okhiria who regretted that some of the abductees, including four NRC workers, were still being kept by the bandits, assured the nation that the Federal Government was doing everything humanly possible to get them released.
Okhiria said that “The whole essence is not to release these people by force, because that could lead to incurring unwarranted collateral damage. That is why the security agencies are bidding their time to negotiate their freedom.”
Okhiria urged Nigerians to always support the Federal Government to end attacks on railway assets across the country.
According to him, it is a sheer act of wickedness to willfully attack and vandalise the nation’s assets which would reverse all the gains already made to bequeath a befitting railway system to Nigerians.
The NRC boss debunked reports in which the corporation was accused of stopping the Lagos-Ibadan Standard Gauge Train service.
It could be recalled that bandits attacked the Abuja-Kaduna bound train abducting many passengers on March 28, 2022.
Okhiria regretted that the March 28 attack had negatively affected the projection of the corporation that the Abuja-Kaduna train, which ought to have increased to 12 trips per day, while the Lagos-Ibadan ought to have been making 10 trips per day, have not met the targets.
