Bandit Attacks: Amaechi blames those blocking ‘sincere requests’ for projects

Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi said he foresaw the security situation on the railways across the nation, and demanded digital equipment to monitor the system, but his demand fell on deaf ears.

“Let me just stop here so I don’t hurt so many people,” he said Tuesday when he visited the Kaduna rail track where bandits killed and kidnapped passengers after planting explosives that went off and derailed an Abuja-bound train on Sunday.

“But I heard the president has given a directive that the procurement must be done straight away.”

According to him, if the equipment are on the tracks, it will be easy to see the entire track.

“Now lives were lost. Eight persons dead and 25 persons in the hospital. We don’t know how many people have been kidnapped. And the cost of the equipment is just N3bn. The cost of what we have lost is more than N3bn,” he said.

“To fix the damages will cost more than N3bn. To imagine that we just said give us the approval and not even the money. At the time we asked for it, Dollar was N400, and now it’s about N500. When you come with sincerity to government and people are stopping you, it is annoying.”

Amaechi has always hit the brickwall at the National Assembly where most lawmakers believe his borrowing is from China has swamped generation in a debt morass.

On the post-attack effort, he said that Kaduna state government and the Nigerian Railway Corporation are all trying to make contact with those on the manifest.

The bandits stormed the VIP coach when the train derailed, kidnapping as many as they could in the van they brought.