The Online Ticketing for Abuja-Kaduna Rail Line Is Fake…… Engr Okhiria
Oru Leonard
The Managing Director of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, Engr. Freeborn Okhiria has said that the story circulating that there is online ticketing for Abuja – Kaduna rail line is fake news.
According to him, there is a website circulating on social media for passengers to purchase tickets online saying it’s a fraudulent site and Nigerians should desist from such site.
“It is not true and we have been making efforts to let people know that we have not started. That is a fraudulent website and when we do it, we will tell people.
“ We require it to be very secured, so that people cannot hack into it and do ugly things, so we have not started and Nigerians should know that we have not started the E-ticketing.
“I will appeal to them that they should not patronise a site for ticketing issues, we still sell our tickets in hard copy at the stations,” he said.
Okhiria, stated that by first quarter of 2019, all the processes should be over by ICRC for the automated tickets to commence.
“We have gone very far, we want to partner with private companies so that there will be reliability, it is presently with ICRC so that all due process will be met, I hope by first quarter of 2019, we would have finished the processes.
“We are trying to do PPP arrangements, there are some infrastructure that needs to be put in place so that the stations can have one entry in and one entrance out.
“It is only then that E-ticketing can make sense, not when all the stations are porous, they have to be a control exist point which will have to go through ICRC.”
Also, Mr Paschal Nnorli, Manager, Abuja – Kaduna Train Service has appealed to passengers to desist from fake messages requesting for passengers to buy and reserve tickets online.
He however stated that such messages didn’t emanate from NRC.
“The attention of management of Nigeran Railway Corporation(NRC) has been drawn to a fake online message requesting prospective passengers on Abuja – Kaduna train route to buy or reserve tickets online by visiting a certain website.
“The general public especially our esteem passengers on Abuja – Kaduna Train Sevice (AKTS) are please advised not to patronise any of such calls as they did not emanate from NRC.
“For clarity sake, NRC train tickets for now are obtainable in hard copy only from designated railway stations. Prospective passengers are therefore advised to buy their tickets only from NRC designated ticket offices and not through any other means,” he said.
Recall that earlier the NRC management had said that ticket sales in the Abuja – Kaduna rail line recorded 80 million naira in 2018, which was five times higher than the 2017 sales.
