About two weeks after being a subject of attack and kidnapping of some passengers and two staff of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, NRC, at the Tom Ikimi train station in Igueben, Edo State, on January 7, 2023, same train derailed and left passengers stranded inside Kogi forest.
The train, plying the Warri-Itakpe route, reportedly derailed in what is feared to be sabotage, forcing many passengers to flee on foot for fear of being abducted.
It was gathered that the train left Warri early Sunday and got derailed at around 12pm inside the forest between Ajaokuta and Itakpe.
The Delta and Kogi State police commands could not immediately confirm the incident, however, the Manager, Warri/Itakpe railway, told our correspondent he was just on his way to the scene and would give the details later.
According to a staff member of the Nigerian Railway Corporation at the Itakpe Station, the incident took place at about 20km from the destination of the train.
The source also said some of the NRC workers got vehicles that evacuated the passengers from the forest where the incident took place.
“The place is not far from the last bus stop, so some of our staff members called cab from the station at Itakpe to evacuate all of them.
“It’s not far just 20km from the incident scene. Nobody was injured,” a source was quoted as saying.
Speaking on what caused the train to derail, he said, “We can’t access the cause now, our engineer went there to check, just that the locomotive dropped from the track.”
Confirming the incident, another source within the NRC said, “it’s today in the morning, at Kogi Station, it’s a station where passengers don’t stop; they closed the station. It’s like somebody tampered with the track and when the train reached there, it derailed; almost four coaches derailed they almost capsized,” the source said.
