The Federal Ministry of Transportation has handed over six operational vehicles equipped with state of the art gadgets to help secure the Abuja-Kaduna rail line.
While handing over the vehicles to the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), the Permanent Secretary, who Dr Magdalene Ajani who represented the Minister, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi disclosed that the government is doing everything possible to secure the country as a whole but, the minister thought about supporting NRC on the security architecture of the Abuja-Kaduna rail track.
She said “Remember this is a project that has long being completed, commissioned and is operational, so this was a project for 2021, at least to improve the security apparatus for the patrolling of that route and so, the ministry has to procure these vehicles to support NRC and the Nigeria Police working on that route to effectively police that route”.
The Permanent Secretary added that “the security apparatus we have for most of the rail track has a number of components into it. We have the local people that are patrolling, the Civil Defence, the police corps of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, and we have locations where stations are, where we need the security men to be able to move from one location to the other in addition to the fact that we are also looking at surveillance applications and fibre optical equipment too but for the movement of the security, we need these vehicles.
“The vehicles are not meant to be plying on the rail tracks, it is to aid what the security agents are doing. If there is an emergency call, they will be able to move from point A to B and it may not necessarily be along the rail track. It is part of the things that they need to do to keep the place safe. ”
She said the vehicles were acquired through a proper procurement process.
Responding, the Managing Director of NRC, Engr. Fidet Okhiria said “this is to show that we have risen up to the challenges we are facing with insecurity and the minister has decided to buy us some vehicles to ease insecurity on the tracks, so that is why we are here today.
In his words “What we are doing is the handing over of the six Hilux vehicles that can be used as patrol vehicles in aiding the security personnel in moving about and ensuring the tracks.”
