Prominent Nigerians, including serving senior military officers and politicians have been forced to take trains to Kaduna for fear of being abducted b
Prominent Nigerians, including serving senior military officers and politicians have been forced to take trains to Kaduna for fear of being abducted by the notorious kidnappers operating along the Kaduna-Abuja Expressway.
According to Punch, dignitaries, who hitherto snubbed the train service, had now resorted to patronising it following the rising cases of kidnapping on the Kaduna route. The spate of insecurity on the road prompted the acting Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, to inaugurate ‘Operation Puff Adder’ on Friday to address the challenge which was becoming embarrassing to the government.
The trains which run four round trips daily, has four coaches with the capacity to sit 88 passengers and an unlimited number of people that were willing to stand in the aisle. A private security guard at the station, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said many influential Nigerians, including senior police and military officers, had been patronising the trains since security deteriorated on the Kaduna highway.
A businessman, Alhaji Abu Muhammed, decried the failure of the security agencies to curb the activities of the hoodlums terrorising commuters on Kaduna road, alleging that it might be a deliberate move by the government to force the people to patronise the trains.
