Updated: Railway MD confirms vandals not bandits attacked Abuja-Kaduna track

The Managing Director of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, Mr Fidet Okhiria, has reacted to reports of bandits attacks on the Abuja-Kaduna train, which was said to have occurred on Thursday morning .

Although Okhiria said on Thursday that part of the rail track was destroyed by suspected vandals, he could not confirm the reported terrorist attack on the train.

“It’s true our rail track was damaged,” he said, adding that investigation to unravel what happened was ongoing.

The NRC boss said the track was destroyed by suspected vandals as vandalism of the rail facilities had been on the increase in recent times.

“So we have issues with the track and we are fixing it. We are working to resume train services and by today’s (Thursday) evening, we should run if possible. We operated a train from Kaduna to Abuja this morning (Thursday) but we had to suspend operations due to the damaged track until we fix it,” he said.

A former Kaduna senator, Shehu Sani, had stated via his Twitter handle that an Abuja-Kaduna which he took on Thursday morning was attacked with explosives by hoodlums suspected to be bandits, adding he and other passengers had a miraculous escape.

In a tweet on Thursday, Sani said it “took a miracle” for him and other passengers on the train to escape.

“Yesterday, terrorists attacked the Kaduna Abuja railway with an explosive & opened fire on the train, targeting the Engine Driver & the Tank,” he tweeted.

“This morning, I was on board when our train ran over another explosive [and it] damaged [the] rail. It took a miracle for us to escape.”

But it was learnt that Sani’s account is different from the Wednesday’s incident. The train was said to have broken down around 8pm after its engine collapsed.

No reports of gunfire or attackers invading the train after it came to a halt, it was learnt. A backup train reportedly got to the passengers around 12.15am and safely took all on board to Kaduna.