The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) says it is deploying e-ticketing along two key routes this month, after a viral video exposed employees of the service collecting cash from passengers without official tickets.
In a viral video that surfaced online, NRC officials were seen collecting cash from passengers after the latter were made to skip official payment counters, a development that caused revenue leakages on the Lagos-Abeokuta route where the incident was recorded.
The Railway service will now deploy electronic ticketing otherwise called e-ticketing on the route, to check the malpractice, Yakub Mahmood, NRC Deputy Director, Public Relations, says in a statement in the wake of the viral video.
“The Management of NRC wishes to use this medium to enjoin all our intending passengers on LITS and other train corridors to insist and demand for boarding ticket(s) after making appropriate payment at the designated stations or book online appropriately. Please note that the Electronic ticketing system is being deployed and will be available on both the Lagos-Ibadan Train Service and the Warri – Itakpe Train Service (WITS) by the end of October 2023,” according to the NRC spokesman.
NRC’s Mahmood says the service is embracing the technology option of e-ticketing after the viral video “that has been trending on various social media platforms vividly showing Railway Staff negotiating with our esteemed passengers on-board Lagos-Ibadan Train Service (LITS) to pay without obtaining official boarding ticket….”
Accordingly, the “general public is invited to note that the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) seriously condemn such act of misconduct which is a flagrant disobedience to laid down rules and utter betrayal of the confidence reposed on such workers especially at this time that the Federal Government is making all efforts at revitalising and modernising the Corporation,” the Railways management says.
“This misconduct is regrettable and unacceptable as it negates the tenets and norms of the Corporation. The Corporation has therefore placed the identified erring officers on immediate suspension pending the outcome of the in-depth investigation already on-going by the Management Committee set up to look into the issue.”
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