Passengers ambush Amaechi at Abuja-Kaduna railway

– The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, carried out a final check on the Abuja-Kaduna railway project

– Passengers at the rail line persuaded theminister to reduce the transport fare from N600 to N500

– The minister gave in to the pleas and reduced the fare

The federal government was ambushed by passengers of Abuja-Kaduna rail line on Thursday, July 21.

This happened when Rotimi Amaechi, the Minister of Transportation, was on an inspection tour of the train from Idu station to Jere station and back to Idu in preparation for the flagging off of the Abuja-Kaduna rail line come Tuesday by President Muhammadu Buhari, Vanguard reports.

The passengers asked Amaechi to reduce the transport fare
The passengers who were in their numbers persuaded the minister to bring down the train fare from N600 to N500 for economy class with first class going for N900.

Amaechi, who was accompanied by the national chairman of his party, All Progressives Congress (APC), John Odigie Oyegun, could not but submit to the plea of the passengers.

Considering their plea, he reduced the train ticket from N600 for economy to N500.

Speaking at the Idu station of the rail line in Abuja, he said: “we are ready to go. From the things we have seen today (yesterday), we are set to go. This test run exercise has been on for over a month. We said it was going to run for two weeks but we allowed it for six weeks so that everybody can use it.”

Amaechi had earlier announced that the test ride of the rail project that started in June was successful, therefore the long-awaited Abuja-Kaduna railway will be inaugurated on July 26 in Idu, Abuja.

Commercial services would reportedly start immediately after the official launch.