UPDATE: Lagos-bound train breaks down, stranded passengers panic

Travellers on a Lagos-bound train were stranded on Monday after the locomotive developed a fault in the middle of a forest.

A Twitter user, Yinka Seth @inkaseth, who tweeted the incident, claimed that some steel parts of the rail tracks were removed by some hoodlums.

The tweet read, “My first tweet went out about 8:12am. It is now 8:31am and the train has stopped twice. The current explanation is that some steel parts of the rail tracks have been ‘removed’, that is the thing about bad governance and citizenship. Eventually, e go touch everybody.

 “We are less than 5mins from Moniya in Ibadan and the train has grinded to a halt. Judging by the time stamp of the videos I made, we’ve stopped for 10mins without an explanation.

“At 8:29am, we spotted someone holding a stick. Appeared to either be on a video call or making videos of the halted train. Passengers are tense and it is becoming harder to sit still.”

In an interview with our correspondent, Seth said there was a similar incident a day before (Sunday).

He said, “I do not believe a team was sent; that may be due to the fact that my observation only focused on my vantage point. However, I did see two armed police officers on board who were active when the train stopped.”

Efforts to reach the spokesperson for the Nigeria Railway Corporation, Yakubu Mahmood, proved abortive as of the time of filing this report.