Commuters travelling along the Abuja-Kaduna rail corridor have painted a grim picture of a service in distress, describing a journey marred by alleged ticket racketeering, severe overcrowding, and alarming mechanical breakdowns that left hundreds of passengers standing in darkened coaches for over three hours.
Passengers who spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja said the two-hour trip has become a gruelling ordeal, with attendants reportedly seen dousing an overheating locomotive component with buckets of water mid-journey — each incident plunging the coaches into darkness and reducing the train to a crawl.
Solomon Abiona recounted how his troubles began four days before his departure. Unable to secure five tickets on the Nigerian Railway Corporation’s online booking platform — which he said was either frequently down or already showing fully booked — he was referred to an NRC official operating as a tout, who sold him tickets at N6,000 each, well above the official N3,600 fare. The tickets, he noted, bore names that were not his own. On the return leg from Kaduna, he and his companions were handed tickets with no seat numbers at all, forcing them to stand in the aisle for more than three hours when rightful seat holders arrived.
Ibrahim Bulus blamed much of the chaos on a sharp reduction in daily services — from six trips to just two — which he said has made weekends particularly unbearable due to surging passenger demand.
For first-time traveller John Fabunmi, the experience was both frightening and deeply disillusioning. He described watching train officials pour water onto an overheating unit, the lights flickering off each time, and the train slowing to a pace that left him fearful of the very attacks passengers were trying to avoid by shunning the road. “This was my first experience on the service, and I have vowed not to use the train again until there are improvements,” he said.
Wusi Lawrence drew stark comparisons with rail networks in South Africa, Kenya, and developed nations, lamenting that Nigeria remains far behind at a time when other countries are operating high-speed trains exceeding 360 kilometres per hour.
Responding to the allegations, Abubakar Bunma, media aide to NRC Managing Director Kayode Opeifa, denied that overbooking was possible, insisting that tickets are tied to passengers’ names and National Identification Numbers. He clarified that it was not the locomotive engine but a power car generator supplying electricity to onboard amenities that had overheated and was temporarily cooled with water. He also maintained that the corporation does not permit passengers to stand on long-distance journeys, and attributed the longer travel time to precautionary measures introduced following a train accident in August 2025. Bunma added that management had finalised plans to increase daily trips from one to three or four to ease congestion.
Despite the corporation’s rebuttals, the accounts of passengers point to a widening gap between official assurances and the reality on the ground. For a rail line that was conceived as a safer, more reliable alternative to a highway notorious for kidnappings and attacks, the growing loss of public confidence poses a serious challenge. Stakeholders say only concrete action — improved ticketing infrastructure, more daily services, tighter staff oversight, and rigorous maintenance standards — can begin to rebuild the trust the Abuja-Kaduna rail was always meant to earn.
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