I take responsibility for Abuja Kaduna train accident - NRC Director

The Managing Director of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, Kayode Opeifa, says he takes full responsibility for Tuesday’s derailment of the Abuja-Kaduna train, which occurred along the Kaduna corridor shortly after departure from Abuja.

He said this on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief on Wednesday. He said, “Beyond apologising to Nigerians, I want to state clearly—as the Managing Director and Chief Executive—I take full responsibility.

“When it comes to safety, there is no room for indifference. Once something like this happens, the chief executive must own it—and I do.

“Coming to the fatality and the casualties, there was no fatality. We thank God. That was a near miss because for this kind of accident or incident, you see some level of fatality, but we thank God for this.

‘And for those who were injured, four are serious, and another two or so were discharged immediately, and we will follow up on those that might still be in the hospital.

“I don’t know as of this moment, we’ll follow up. So we’ll also follow up with the remaining 618 people on the train because of the post-traumatic experience. We have the full contacts and we’ll do that.

“I want to assure Nigerians that an incident like this is not expected, is not prayed for, should not be happening, but where it does, it is to bring out the best in us.

“And I assure Nigerians that just as we are doing currently on the Warri-Itakpe, which he (the analyst) also mentioned, we shut down the Warri-Itakpe (route) three weeks ago.

“I ordered the shutdown for safety reasons, and if you see the level of work the men have been doing on the track, cutting it off and replacing it is to make sure things like this don’t happen.

“The Nigerian Air Force and the Nigerian army are all along this corridor, and I think, for the record, we’ve not had any issue of banditry, terrorism attack along that corridor.

“But you can’t wish anything away. The investigation will tell us what happened, and I wouldn’t want to comment because I’m a party to the investigation.

“The first thing that will happen is that the NSIB will determine when the site is open for reconstruction.

“So, from the time they tell us that it’s ready for reconstruction, I don’t see us spending more than 30 days. So it depends on when they declare the site open for reconstruction,” Opeifa stated.