Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, the Minister of transportation has said that the terrorist attack on the Abuja-Kaduna train would have been avoided if the Federal Government had hearkened to his warning on same. The Minister, following the attack said that he has severally warned of possible attack on the train and rail facilities, but for the insincerity of his colleagues in government who misconstrued his genuine demand for more money.
“When you come with sincerity to government and your colleagues and people are stopping you, it is annoying.”
The minister said that it was imperative to have necessary digital security and crime prevention equipment that could forestall event as was witnessed few days ago where many Nigerians lost their lives and others kidnapped by terrorists.
Addressing journalists after visiting the scene of the incident on Tuesday, the expressed dissatisfaction over the incident, which he claimed, could have been averted with relevant digital security equipment in place.
“We knew what the problem would be. We knew we needed to have digital security equipment. We applied for it. But it was not granted us”.
“Because if we had those equipment, you will see nobody on that track. And I warned that lives will be lost. Now, lives are lost. Eight persons dead, 25 persons in the hospital.
“We don’t know how many persons have been kidnapped. And the cost of that equipment is just N3 billion. The cost of what we’ve lost is more than N3 billion.
The Minister said that to fix it would cost Nigeria more now to get the destroyed facilities fixed, and even to get the digital security instruments, going by the rising cost of dollar.
“All the things on that track now, will cost us more than N3 billion. And now even the things we said give us approval to buy – at the time we asked for it, dollar was N400, now it is N500.