The Nigerian government has said train services along the Abuja-Kaduna route would start up again in November. Mu’azu Sambo, the minister of transportation, stated this while presenting his ministry’s scorecard, on Monday in Abuja.
He said that sufficient security had been put in place to assure passenger safety, but he made no mention of a definite start date.
Following the terrorist attack by Boko Haram on a moving passenger train in Kaduna on March 28, 2022, the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) halted rail operations along the route.
Over 60 people were kidnapped and some of them were killed when the insurgents blew up the rail track and blasted the moving train. Outrage had been generated both nationally and internationally by the unusual attack.
The last captive was released on October 5, 2022, by the terrorists that assaulted the train near Kaduna. Family members who were distraught had repeatedly protested for the release of their loved ones.
The Abuja-Kaduna rail line, according to Sambo, won’t reopen until all of the people who were abducted by bandits in March have been freed and reunited with their families.
Tukur Mamu, a terrorist negotiator, was detained on September 6, 2022, in Cairo, Egypt, while en route to Saudi Arabia. He was released the next day and returned to Nigeria.
The Department of State Services (DSS) had claimed that Mamu, who allegedly brokered deals between terrorists and the families of kidnap victims, was a member of a global terrorist organisation who carried out his atrocities under the guise of journalism.
Mamu’s assistant, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, a well-known Islamic cleric with roots in Kaduna, has criticised the detention of Mamu.
If the security agency had any proof against Mamu, Gumi had requested that it charge Mamu in court rather than keep him in detention.