Breaking News

NRC MD Assures Of Safety On Abuja-Kaduna Railway

The Nigerian Railway Corporation has said that deploying more security surveillance on the Abuja-Kaduna railway will not rule out the possibility of another terrorist attack.

The Managing Director of the Corporation, Freeborn Okhiria, who made the disclosure on Tuesday also said that efforts are being made to deploy security surveillance on the railways as directed by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Okhiria said this while reacting to the recent detonation of an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) on the Kaduna – Abuja train track on Monday.

It was reported that about 398 passengers boarded the ill-fated train where eight people have been reported dead, while others are hospitalized.

Following the incident, the President ordered the “immediate conclusion” of the implementation of the security surveillance and monitoring solution for the rail line.

The embattled rail line cost Nigeria $500m dollar taken as loan from China. So far, only $150m has been repaid.

The NRC boss said, “We rode on the train yesterday. You don’t say somebody ate pounded yam yesterday and died, you won’t eat pounded yam. You don’t say because a plane flew and it crash landed you will not use it.

“Rail is still the safest mode of travel no matter the situation. So, it is for us to now improve on what we are doing. I said we had 18 armed men on that train and we had communication.

“We will install Thuraya so that if the GSM fails and the radio fails, we can resort to Thuraya.

“The issue is that we will restore back and I know we are not giving up. Nigerians don’t give up easily. They will still come back. Somebody who wants to travel has to travel. We will do our best and ensure we let them know what we are doing to make train use secure and safe for use.

“When we have one incident, it doesn’t rule out that there will not be another incident even when we deploy the best of security. But what we should do is to be our brother’s keeper and when you suspect anything that is about to happen, you report it.”

He said there is no embedded security on the trains currently on ground except the CCTV installed in the coaches.

According to him, with the presidential directive, chains of security surveillance will be deployed on the rail lines so that when one fails, there will be a replacement.

He said, “Coaches have CCTV and I can only talk about what happens in the coaches. Security cannot be embedded in the NRC. You have to talk to security and you don’t fly drones without getting relevant approval and there are security contents you have to put in your system that have to get approval. There are licences you need to acquire.

“We want to have maximum security so that once one fails, you can have another that can take over so that we really know that a system has been put in place that is secure so that all cannot fail at once.

“If the drone system fails, the sensors on the track fails, then we will have the satellite to depend on and that is what we are working on.”

About Editor

Check Also

Upscale the Quality of Your Products to Meet global standards, WTO DG charges Shea Producers

The World Trade Organisation, on Tuesday, charged Nigeria and other African countries to improve the …

Leave a Reply