Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, the Minister of Transportation says the federal government might consider death penalty for vandalization of critical railway equipment.
Speaking at a town hall meeting on “protecting public infrastructure” in Abuja, on Monday, said that he not quantifying the material cost; rather he was quantifying the lives that will be lost.
“Imagine that a driver of a rail track is driving and suddenly bumps into a track that has been severed, what happens? It will derail.
“If it derails, can you quantify how many passengers that would have died in the course of one man thinking he is making money?
”Some people have recommended that since these people are killing people, if an accident happens people will die, so we should go back to the National Assembly and pass a law that does not only criminalise the action but consequences should be death.”
He stated further that track vandalism is carried out in collaboration with foreign partners.
”In Jos, they arrested a Chinese company that bought those tracks from them, went to court and found them guilty and fined them N200, 000. So there must be consequences as N200,000 is not enough.
“Lagos and the Western District recorded one, North Western 31, Northern District 10, North Eastern 43, Eastern 36 and North Central 50 incidents of vandalism. Abuja-Kaduna has 13, Warri-Itakpe 2 and Lagos -Ibadan nill.”
