By Peter Obiechina
Three days after Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, apologised to Nigerians over the unexpected breakdown of a Kaduna-Abuja train service, yet another incident has occurred.
This time, a passenger locomotive headed for Abuja from Kaduna broke down in the wee hours of Thursday, November 26, 2020.
It would be the second time, in one month, that such breakdown would occur, leaving the passengers stranded.
In the latest incident, the passengers engaged officials of the train service in a shouting match, wondering why they would put unserviceable coaches on the tracks.
In a video recording of the altercation by a passenger on the ill-fated locomotive, several travellers could be heard berating the officials for wittingly putting their lives at risk.
“This is 2 am, tell us what the problem is. You cannot stop us in the middle of nowhere, in the bush. If the coach is not working, why are they moving it? You are toying with people’s lives, we have families,” the stranded passengers chorused.
On Monday, November 23, Amaechi had stated, “We now have new locomotives and have called the Chinese because we never expected the mechanical fault at this early stages.”
“If this is happening now, then they should bring back our old locomotives, it will just affect turnaround times because we got the new locomotives to increase turnaround time”, the minister said.