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From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Smarting from the recent attack on the Abuja-Kaduna rail track which led to suspension of service by the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), the federal government has vowed to deploy a digital security system to forestall future occurrence.
Minister of Transportation, Hon. Chibuike Amaechi, made the disclosure during an unscheduled assessment tour of the train service to ascertain the level of damage caused on the tracks by bandits with explosives.
He further disclosed that the ministry will re-present the proposal for digital security system to Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting to get approval and proceed with the installation.
The Minister explained that the essence of the digital security system is to enable the ministry know when there is an impact on the rail, reassured Nigerians that there will be improved security on the Abuja-Kaduna route.
“We want to assure the public that beyond the physical presence of Police and the Military along this track, we will get a rail bus to patrol regularly so that we can see what is happening even before the train takes off, and it will be end-to-end.
“Apart from this, there have not been any security challenges on this track. What this has done to us is that we would fasten the procurement process of the digital security system that we planned to put in place. It went to the Cabinet two weeks ago and it was returned. So, we will re-present it to the Cabinet to ensure that we get approval for the installation.
“The essence of the digital security system is to enable us to know when there’s an impact on the rail to forestall this kind of attack. We will get the Police involved so that they will be here before the installation of the digital facility,” he said.
The former governor of Rivers State also noted that though he was unhappy over the attack, it has, however, shown that Nigerian Engineers are now capable of constructing their own railway.
“I am not happy that the security breach took place, but what it has done is to show that we actually have the capacity to fix our rail. The essence of this is to make sure that by the time the Chinese leaves we should start the gradual process of constructing our own railway. The repair was done by our own Nigerian Engineers in record time and by tomorrow (Saturday) we will run the first train,” he promised.
Similarly, Managing Director NRA, Fidet Okhiria noted that the NRC will run more trains on the corridor so as to keep vandals away.
“It’s better to run more trains as running more trains would not give people the opportunity to tamper/interfere with the tracks, because a train passed from Abuja to Kaduna in not up to 30 minutes when the explosions were executed and planted.
“If we have all the trains on the track, the people would have to work very hard to be able to plant explosives.
“So, on Saturday, we are running four trips so that we can run from Abuja to Kaduna and balance the train set while we are working on the locomotive that was affected, after fixing the locomotive, we would run our usual ten trips,” he disclosed.
