MINISTER of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, says the Federal Government may consider capital punishment for vandalisation of rail tracks in the country.
Amaechi, who disclosed at a Town Hall Meeting on “Protection of Public Infrastructure” yesterday in Abuja, said vandalisation of railway tracks is a capital offense and should be treated as such.
He said: “I am not quantifying the material cost; what I am quantifying is the lives that will be lost.
“Imagine that a railway driver is driving and suddenly bumps into a track that has been severed what happens? It will derail.
“Each coach in Nigeria carries about 85 passengers, sometimes we carry 14 coaches, sometimes 20.
“So imagine you are carrying a train of 14 or 20 coaches with 85 passengers in each coach, if it derails, can you quantify how many passengers that would have died in the course of one man thinking he is making money.
”So, it is not about the cost but the lives that would have been lost because of a few interests.
”Some people have recommended that since these people are killing people, if an accident happens people will die. So we may go back to the National Assembly and pass a law that does not only criminalise the action but consequences should be death.”
