While the railway resumes on December 5th Monday, Fidet Okhiria, managing director, Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC), says the federal government lost about N113 million due to the suspension of Abuja-Kaduna train services for over eight months.
The route was closed for over eight months after terrorists attacked an Abuja-Kaduna passenger train on March 28, 2022. During the attack, about 14 persons were killed and 63 were officially declared abducted.
In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja on Saturday, Dec. 3, Okhiria said asides from the loss to the government, individuals also suffered losses due to the halt of operations on the route.
He said, “The last time we checked that was between the months of February to August. We have lost about N113 million.
“Using what we were earning between Jan and March, so we had to use it as a working document.
“Although, when the train was working, there are a lot of other businesses that were going on.
“There were people selling on the train, there were people selling around the stations, and there were people that had opened shops and people were patronising them because the trains were running.
“So those were indirect benefit and cost that have been lost to the Nigerian economy.
“More so, somebody who would have travelled from Kaduna to Abuja via train for some form of transaction and couldn’t make it because the trains were not running would have also lost something.
“The economic benefits is also lost, so we should not only look at the Naira and kobo that railway would have been able to make from it, but include all other losses by Nigerians.”
FG announced that the Abuja-Kaduna railway rail operations will resume on Monday, Dec. 5.
