The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, on Friday directed that Abuja-Kaduna Train Service should resume operations on Saturday.
Amaechi gave the directive after inspecting repairs on the rail tracks between Rijana and Dutse along the route on Friday.
“I Abuja-Kaduna train services resume Saturday our own Nigerian engineers and completed in record time. By tomorrow we expect to run the first train.”
Speaking on security, the Minister said, “What this has done to us is that it will fasten the procurement process of a digital security system that we want to put in place it had gone to cabinet two weeks ago and it was returned so we will represent it to the cabinet to ensure that we get approval, then we can install the digital security network.
“The essence of the digital security system is to enable us to know when there is an impact on the rail. It has a sensor, when people walk across the rail we will be able to know. We will get the police to be involved so that they will be here before we install the security system.“
“I’m happy, what this has done is that it has shown that we actually have the capacity to fix our rail. The essence of this is to make sure that by the time you leave, we should start the gradual process of constructing our own railway.
“You can see the lady engineer, however, she can be able to fix that, she and her colleagues will be able to do more kilometres of track laying and possibly track construction.”
The Minister assured the public that beyond the physical presence of police and deployment of the military along the track, buses would be on patrol regularly to monitor end to end from Abuja-Kaduna as well as Lagos-Ibadan routes.
