The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, on Tuesday said he predicted the Monday attack on the Kaduna-bound train coming, lamenting that he had requested digital security apparatus to forestall such incident.
“I am devastated and I honestly don’t know what to tell Nigerians anymore; the process of procuring the integrated security surveillance and monitoring solution has been tedious, if the processes were shortened, we would have saved lives,” Mr Amaechi wrote on his verified Facebook page.
The visibly angry Amaechi during a visit to Kaduna State told reporters that the att@ck would have been foiled if the procurement of the N3 billion high capacity rail track cameras and sensors was not blocked. He said the equipment would eliminate all blind spots on the train corridors across the country.
The minister, who spoke during a visit to the scene of the attack, also said eight persons d#ed in the terr#rist att@ck while 25 persons were inj#res and hospitalised. He added that 398 passengers were on board.
He said, “We knew what the problems will be. We know we needed to have digital security equipment on the corridors. We applied for it. Let me just stop here so I don’t hurt so many people. But I heard the president has given a directive that the procurement must be completed immediately.
If we had those equipment on the tracks, you will see the entire track. And we warned that lives would be lost. Now lives were lost. Eight persons de@d and 25 persons in the hospital. We don’t know how many people have been kidnapped. And the cost of those equipment is just N3bn. The cost of what we have lost is more than N3bn.
We have lost track. We have lost locomotives and coaches. We have lost human beings. And the equipment is just N3bn. To fix the d@mages will cost more than N3bn. To imagine that we just said give us the approval and not even the money. At the time we asked for it, Dollar was N400, and now its about N500. When you come with sincerity to government and people are stopping you, it is annoying.”
