Lagos–Ibadan railway
The Managing Director, NRC, Fidet Okhiria, who disclosed this during a media chat in Lagos, called for public support to secure the rail lines.
Okhiria stated that between 2022 and 2023 over 50,000 clips each had been vandalised between Lagos – Ibadan, Warri – Itakpe and Abuja-Kaduna standard gauge tracks.
He added that the corporation had been actively engaging in constant sensitisation exercises with communities where vandalism had occurred to make them understand the serious implications of such acts on the growth of rail networking in the country.
“The major issue we have now is vandalism of the tracks, which is a big problem. When we replace the tracks, they will come back to vandalize the track again.
“Just before the Christmas, the hoodlums vandalised over 200 clips between Mushin -Oshodi area and we had to replace them three days after the vandalism,” Okhiria said.
“We are looking for a way to protect the clips. We will also continue to discuss it at the management meeting where we will have to engage a special person to guide our position,” Okhiria added.
The managing director pointed out that despite constant efforts to prevent vandalism, the corporation still experienced incidents of clips being vandalised from time to time.
He, therefore, suggested that the only solution to stop this recurring issue was to increase train surveillance and occupy the trains on a daily basis.
