- The Nigerian Railway Corporation had announced the commencement of the free train ride on Thursday, December 21, 2023 for all its passenger services, following the directive of President Bola Tinubu
The Federal Government has extended the free rides for commuters on all train services to Sunday, January 7, 2024.
The Nigerian Railway Corporation had announced the commencement of the free train ride on Thursday, December 21, 2023 for all its passenger services, following the directive of President Bola Tinubu.
The announcement indicated that the free ride services would end on Thursday, January 4, 2024.
This followed the announcement by the Federal Government of 50 per cent waiver on interstate round transport and free train rides as part of moves to cushion the impact of the high cost of living in the country, especially during Yuletide.
Meanwhile, NRC has concluded plans to launch night operations before the second quarter of 2024.
The Managing Director of NRC, Fidet Okhiria, disclosed this during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Monday.
He started, “What is limiting us is the night operations, and that is not the way trains should operate. The train is meant to operate at all times. People may like to travel in the evening, but because of the security situation in the country, we limit ourselves to the daytime.
“We intend to bring back passenger and freight trains from Port-Harcourt to Aba, Lagos to Kano, and Kaduna because of the dry ports,” Okhiria said.
According to the NRC DG, this simply means that the corporation will begin six train trips daily on the standard gauge train across the board.
He said, “We are going to increase the number of train trips to six on Lagos-Ibadan, Warri-Itakpe, and Abuja-Kaduna, which means the trips will be three times to and three times fro, making six trips in a day.
“The trips will commence before the second quarter of 2024. Right now, they are running four trips—two up and two down across the board.