Chaos on Rails: Passengers Expose Ticket Scams, Overcrowding, and Engine Failures on Abuja-Kaduna Train

Passengers who spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja said the two-hour trip has become a gruelling ordeal, with attendants reportedly seen dousing an overheating locomotive component with buckets of water mid-journey — each incident plunging the coaches into darkness and reducing the train to a crawl.

Solomon Abiona recounted how his troubles began four days before his departure. Unable to secure five tickets on the Nigerian Railway Corporation’s online booking platform — which he said was either frequently down or already showing fully booked — he was referred to an NRC official operating as a tout, who sold him tickets at N6,000 each, well above the official N3,600 fare. The tickets, he noted, bore names that were not his own. On the return leg from Kaduna, he and his companions were handed tickets with no seat numbers at all, forcing them to stand in the aisle for more than three hours when rightful seat holders arrived.

For first-time traveller John Fabunmi, the experience was both frightening and deeply disillusioning. He described watching train officials pour water onto an overheating unit, the lights flickering off each time, and the train slowing to a pace that left him fearful of the very attacks passengers were trying to avoid by shunning the road. “This was my first experience on the service, and I have vowed not to use the train again until there are improvements,” he said.