Kasim Sumaina in Kaduna

The federal government, through the Ministry of Transportation, has said work is progressing well and in the next 10 days, the damaged section of the Abuja-Kaduna tracks and coaches will be restored.
Minister of Transportation, Senator Said Ahmed Alkali, applauded stakeholders for their untiring efforts to ensure safety of passengers, workers and train facilities during the tragedy which occurred on August 26.
Alkali, who stated this after an on-the-spot inspection of the ongoing clearing of the accident scene in Asham station, Monday in Kaduna, said work was progressing well and in the next 10 days, the tracks would be restored.
He also stated that the staff of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) have been working day and night to ensure that the clearing and repairing of the damaged tracks are done at the earliest possible time.
He said: “Let me start by thanking Mr. President and commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for his support since the incident happened. He has given us support to ensure that we move the locomotive and the coaches and fixed the rail line so that we will be back in operation.
“From what I have seen, I also want to commend the managing director, NRC and his team because they are on site as you can see, day and night trying to restore normalcy after the incident that occurred.
“Actually, the incident occurred at a point where we have two rail lines. Normally, we are running around two trains at a time. So there are points where the two trains will interchange. So normally, we have a point there. That is where the accident occurred. However, I am not in a position now to pre-empt the investigation, to say why the incident happened.
“I am here with the full team from the Ministry of Transportation, Director of Railway and all his engineers and even the committee doing the investigation. The CCECC are here, Civil Rights Organisation, all of us are here. So that we ensure we have done justice to the investigation.”
At the time the accident occurred, he said that the locomotive was carrying eight coaches, stressing that they have successfully moved four out of the place and we’re trying to fix the infrastructure to have a bigger crane to move the coaches and all the locomotives on the site.
“Inshallah, in the next 48 hours, we will be able to move all of them out of the site. And after that, if we don’t have any weather challenge, in the next 10 days, we are going to restore the line.
“As you can see during my tour, the area affected by the accident is about 150 meters. So it’s not something too long. We will be able to fix the sleepers, the pallets and the rail track so that we will be back to operation. It is a cardinal responsibility of the government to provide welfare for its citizens,” the minister posited.

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