The Federal Government has said that the Abuja-Kaduna rail corridor will resume operations in November.
The Minister of Transportation, Mu’azu Sambo, made the revelation while making a presentation on the performance of President Muhammadu Buhari in the Transportation Sector from 2015 to 2022 in Abuja on Monday.
The Federal Government suspended the operations of the Abuja-Kaduna Train service following the March 28 Terrorists attack of an Abuja bound train from Kaduna on March 28, 2022.
The terrorists abducted large number of passengers as hostages and released them in bits after extorting human amount of money from family members.
The last batch of the victims of the train attack of March 28 were released after over six months in captivity on October 5, 2022.
The Government promised to resume rail service operations after putting in place adequate security measures to prevent any future occurrence.
The Minister said that lessons have been learnt and precautionary measures put in place to ensure resumed operations in November.
He said that with the new security measures, he should be able to watch the corridor from his office with 24 hour’s surveillance operations on the route.
He said, “The Abuja Kaduna mishap was indeed a very sad one. And by the grace of God, we shall not witness anything like that again.
“Not only because we have committed that to prayer but we have also deliberately taken steps.
“Like you said, yes, indeed, lessons have been learned. And these lessons will be put into place.
“What are the lessons, safety, and security surveillance, constant monitoring 24/7 and 7 days a week, 12 months a year, all around the clock.
“The minister should be able to sit in his office and look at the rail corridor and see what is happening there.
“The president should be able to do that. The director-general of the State Security Service (SSS) should be able to do that and so on and all other security agencies.
“These are the measures we have put in place. Nobody will again shave our heads behind our backs.
“This month of November, we shall resume that service. Remember, I told you for those of you who are reporters from the State House that we will not resume this service until every Nigerian held in captivity was reunited with their families.
“God has made that possible, the security agencies in this country under the able leadership and support of Mr President have made that possible.
“And it is now history. Not one of them ( hostages) was injured. Not one of them was hurt.”
