The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has revealed that the Lagos-Ibadan and the Abuja-Kaduna train services could be stopped as a result of COVID-19 cases.
Amaechi stated this on Monday, January 11, while featuring on NTA Good Morning Nigeria.
He said that the train services will be stopped should there be any case of Covid-19 detected among passengers.
The minister said, “If we see that we are conveying passengers who have Covid from Lagos to Ibadan and Ibadan to Lagos, we will stop it just like we are threatened to stop the one from Kaduna to Abuja if people don’t comply with the Covid protocols.
“Don’t forget that on Kaduna-Abuja, we convey 4,000 passengers in a day. Imagine that about 20 per cent have Covid, they can transmit Covid to the entire passengers. The rate of transmission will be high. The same is applicable to Lagos. Everybody must comply with the Covid protocols, wear your masks till the end of the journey.”
The minister also added that the $1.6bn Lagos-Ibadan railway project which would be completed this month would be inaugurated virtually by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).
Meanwhile, according to Business day, the Minister had last year informed that they will be increase in coaches for effectively run train services on the Abuja-Kano axis of passenger train services.
Amaechi said this while reacting to complains concerning the high cost of the newly introduced train fare of N3,000 on the Lagos-Ibadan train services.
He said, “When there was no train there was road. There are three forms of transportation from Lagos to Ibadan, there is flight, please use flight if you can, you can come by road which you said is cheaper, or you come by train’’.
“As we are talking today, we are under pressure to increase coaches to get more coaches to Kaduna-Abuja. The pressure is heavy. They broke our social distancing rules, that those seats that we kept to create social distancing, we started using them such that passengers had to take a position that I must go and announce that they must maintain social distancing with face masks or we shut down the train, because we are again overrun by the number of passengers. Do not worry when we start we will be overrun by passengers here.”