Lagos-Ibadan free train ride: After days of low patronage, passengers besiege Iju Station

After days of low patronage recorded on the Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge free train service between Monday and Wednesday, passengers besieged Iju Station on Thursday to enjoy the ride to Ibadan.

A correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria who monitored the train service on Thursday observed that the number of passengers outnumbered available seats in the train.

NAN reports that a sizeable number of intending passengers had been waiting since 11.00 a.m for the train billed to depart Lagos for Ibadan at 4:00 p.m.

Before 3:00 p.m., a huge crowd of intending passengers had gathered at the station and filled all the available seats in the train with two executive coaches.

Confusion arose when those, who had earlier in the day registered their names to travel on the train, returned a few minutes to 3:00 p.m. to discover that the train had been filled up to capacity.

More intending passengers started to troop into the station and begged the officials of the Nigerian Railway Corporation to allow them to stand in the train.

When the entire station was about to be thrown into confusion, the NRC officials had to bend the rules to accede to the request of those who wanted to stand.

Speaking to NAN on phone on the huge turnout of passengers, the Lagos State Railway District Manager, Mr Jerry Oche, expressed surprise about the sudden turnout of passengers.

Asked if the NRC intended to increase the number of coaches to accommodate more intending passengers, Oche said that the service would increase from December 21.

He said that instead of one return trip daily from Ibadan to Lagos, it would be twice daily.

It was reported that only six passengers turned up for the ride on Monday and Tuesday together in Lagos.

A Senior Station Master at Iju, Mr Sunday Abu, told NAN that people were only just getting to know about the free ride, thus the number of beneficiaries had started improving each day.

According to him, on Wednesday, the train moved 14 passengers to Lagos from Ibadan and returned 31 passengers to Ibadan.

(NAN)