In an exclusive interview with The Quest Times, Mr Akin Osinowo, the Deputy Director (Operations), Nigeria Railways Corporation, speaks to Matthew Tabe on security, manpower and overall service of the train station after the 8 months of trauma of the attacks along Abuja-Kaduna passenger train on March 28, 2022, in which about 14 persons were killed and 63 officially declared abducted.
Excerpts:
Sir, can you give an overview of the technical facilities put in place to avoid the unwholesome attack incident being repeated as you commence the Abuja-Kaduna train routes?
We kickstarted the Rail Service from Idu, Abuja to Kaduna as you can see. Part of the reason why it’s taking us this long is that we are making sure that we do the needful to ensure a level of comfort and security is restored for passengers to have confidence in our Service. We have made a lot of effort and work has been done in terms of revamping our own security apparatus and also in terms of revamping our operational processes and protocols to make sure that we’re closing all gaps and customers feel safer. In terms of security, we have injected a lot of technologies into our processing, and we have also injected a lot of personnel especially intelligent gathering into our processes. Right now, I can say we have eyes and ears throughout our entire network in every station and also our trains. We know where every train is at any point in time and we can communicate with the train. The Inspector General of Police also promised us his men and he had delivered.
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Can you tell us more about the security gadgets you have installed?
You can see some of our gadgets here they are made to profile our passengers to identify them using the National Identity Number (NIN) to get the full bio-data of our clients. So, we can trace anybody that goes into our train. We have also put a lot of restrictions on places where people can access and what kind of personnel can access where? If you’re not a passenger and you’re not working here you can’t even get into the departure lounge. And every single person that has anything to do with the railway up to the Porters, cleaners and people providing food services are being profiled now.
How many passengers were onboarding the first train that left this morning?
It is difficult to tell you for sure how many passengers entirely were onboard today because we were taking passengers from three points. We have passengers coming from Rigasa, Kubwa and Idu here. So, it is still a kind of living theatre because the passengers that came from Kubwa now I won’t have their figures but the only thing I can say is that we have around about 100 passengers from Idu alone. And similar figure from that end. Though the number might look small it’s very impressive for the service that has gone through so much trauma and has been suspended for about 8 months and coming back the first day. And remember today is Monday which is one of our lowest days and by the weekend we see a lot of passengers.
What preparation is putting in regarding the Christmas festive period to avoid passengers being stranded?
You can understand we are being off for a long time and we have resumed putting in a lot of processes, a lot of new technologies that need sometimes for getting used to and perfecting them. Though we have been properly trained we need a few days to get acquitted to them. We’re not going to have the same number that we use to have before but we intend to run up service during this festive period. Certainly, I can say we’re speeding the service to catch up with the yeltitude. We’re also looking at the figure for passengers by the end of the week it will give us an idea that how many more Services we need to add. We’re fully prepared just that we’re allowing our system to begin, the processes and technology to be grounded.
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What is your appeal to Nigerians because people still have negative perceptions of the train Service regarding the attack incident?
Definitely, that attack trauma is a huge one that the whole nation went into and the prolonged time before resumption. It is expected even our staff were apprehensive by the time the same the amount of effort that has gone into making sure that life and properties are given priority in terms of safety and security. My advice to Nigerians is to speak to passengers that have boarded the train to hear positive feedback from them as the Operations went smoothly, and the process was effortless. The train left and arrived on time and people could see the number of personnel that we were both on the ground and in the train and a lot of technical activities happening behind the train as far as it is humanly possible that the federal government through the Ministry of Transportation has put everything in place to ensure safety, not the Service.