The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) has started working on measures to prevent unscrupulous people from riding on roof tops of trains, to dodge paying fares.
TBI Africa said Mr Christian Madza, Lagos District Superintendent of the corporation made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Lagos.
According to him, the corporation is working tirelessly to ensure that roof top riders are prevented from climbing moving trains.
“We put some efforts in place recently by adding slippery objects on the train but they find other means of getting over it.
“Very soon the menace the hoodlums constitute on the train will be a thing of the past,’’ he said but did not mention the water-tight measures.
Madza said the company’s management had recently mobilised law enforcement agencies to curb the number of hoodlums on the train to ensure that genuine passengers got pleasure from their ride.
“Our officers now ensure that passengers without valid ticket are not permitted to board the train from the stations.
“If the train is crowded, you can wait for the next trip. We are running six to eight trips on daily basis from Ijoko to Apapa-Iddo.
“What we don’t encourage is roof top riders and we are very much interested because it is suicidal and we don’t want to be associated with it,” Madza said.
On Nov. 16, the NRC charged 36 people court out of 105 people arrested for hanging on roof top of moving trains.
The Lagos District Manager of the NRC, Mr Jerry Oche, revealed that people found guilty of the offence were made to pay N25, 000 fine.
He said that the corporation would increase the fine to N50, 000 and N100, 000, to deter people from committing the offence.
“The fine is just a way to discourage people from riding on the roof tops of trains.
“We charged 36 out of over 100 suspects to court recently and the clampdown will continue.”
Oche said that the offenders were arrested by a combined team of the Railway Police, Lagos State Police Command, NRC Task Force and Man-o-War operatives.
He lamented that miscreants had constituted a nuisance to the corporation’s mass transit shuttle service in Lagos and Ogun States, causing harm and injuries to passengers.
The manager said that the raids would continue and that the corporation would increase its police posts and security personnel to ensure the safety of passengers.
