…Laments Frustration By Boko Haram Insurgency
SAN FRANCISCO, February 02, (THEWILL) – The Federal Government has assured of its commitment to the full restoration of train services along the Gombe-Maiduguri corridor even as it lamented that the lingering Boko Haram insurgency has frustrated its effort to activate train services in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.
Giving the assurance, weekend, was the Minister of Transport, Alhaji Idris Umar, while speaking at the Gombe railway station at the flag-off of the Gombe-Kafanchan-Port’Harcourt and Gombe-Kafanchan-Kaduna intercity train services.
While calling on the residents of the area to explore the train services to boost their businesses, Umar said the series of such inaugurations in the last few weeks followed the massive transformation of the rail transport system embarked upon by the President Goodluck Jonathan administration.
According to the minister, “As a result of the restoration of the services in the last couple of weeks, a lot of interest and hopes are being rekindled and confidence in the President’s transformation agenda is being heightened.”
Umar also used inaugurated five 68-seater air-conditioned coaches at the ceremony.
In his remark at the occasion, the Gombe State Governor, Ibrahim Dankwambo, praised the Federal Government for restoring the train services, noting that the railway sector could create 7,000 jobs as well as boost economic activities in the state.
He stressed that “The train services will also cut not less than 50 percent cost of transportation of goods and services from the Gombe corridor to other parts of the country.”
The Managing Director of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), Engineer Adeseyi Sijuwade, in his comment at the ceremony, disclosed that with the extension of train services from Port-Harcourt through the Middle-belt to Gombe in the North-East, all the communities and towns from Gombe to Aba and Port-Harcourt are now fully linked by train services.
According to Sijuwade, “By the extension of the train services from Kafanchan to Kaduna, we have linked up the North-East, North-Central, South-East and South-South regions with the North-West and South-West regions by rail.”
