Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), has expressing concern over lack of access roads to train stations in the country.
Ishaq Akintola, MURIC Director, said that this is making it difficult for hundreds of passengers who wished to board the train to do so.
Akintola who he and his group members boarded the train from Lagos to Ibadan in order to evaluate rail transportation from Lagos to Ibadan regretted that the access road that leads to the train station along the Moniya-Iseyin road was not motorable.
Addressing journalists at the Moniya Ibadan train station described rail transportation as the safest and most reliable means of transportation, however sobered that many Nigerians are still skeptical about boarding the train.
“A lot of people are still skeptical about boarding the train. People say that rail transportation has been revived in the country, but a lot of people are saying no, they are sceptical.
Read also: Redline rail: Lagos diverts traffic at Yaba
“We decided to embark on this journey so as to interrogate what the government is doing. It is the duty of you journalists, non-governmental organisations and other stakeholders to interrogate what the governments are doing. We all have roles to play to make Nigeria better”.
Akintola, a Professor said, “they have tried within the vicinity of the compound, but outside the terminus, the road to the terminus is rough, it is untarred and people are going to find it difficult to use it particularly during the raining season.
While appealing to both the federal and state governments to fix access roads that lead to the rail stations noted the access roads are important for people to board the trains. But, the access road to this train station is bad. It spoiled the beauty of the whole thing.
“If this road we are seeing remains like this till the next six months, people will not have access to this train station again. They should do something about it.
“The ones that belonged to the states, the state governments should wake up to fix them, the ones that belonged to the federal government, they should also fix them. This is to ensure that more people have access to the train stations, so that when people come here, they leave with smiles, they don’t go with tears and when they come here, they come without difficulties.
