TheCable

The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) says passengers will be required to provide their National Identity Number (NIN) before boarding trains for improved profiling from May. 

Fidet Okhiria, managing director of the NRC, said this in a statement on Thursday, adding that the NIN would be required to improve passenger profile.

Okhiria advised passengers who plan to travel by train to get their NIN ready. 

This, he emphasised, would also improve rail riders’ safety and security.

“The process of linking passengers to their NIN for improved profiling is ongoing. This layer of passenger screening will commence by May,” he said. 

He said the Abuja-Kaduna Train Service (AKTS) would resume as soon as possible with additional security measures put in place.

The corporation had suspended the Abuja-Kaduna train operations following an attack on passengers by gunmen.

President Muhammadu Buhari had directed the “immediate conclusion” of the implementation of the security surveillance and monitoring solution for the rail line.

For security reasons, the federal government recently asked NRC to hand over tickets and passengers’ identification to Secure ID, the company in charge of the E-ticketing platform for the Abuja-Kaduna rail service.