Abuja-Kaduna highway safer under Tinubu — Dogara

President Bola Tinubu Photo: State House

Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, said on Thursday that insecurity in the Middle Belt region has recorded a remarkable decline under President Bola Tinubu’s administration, citing the improved safety of the Abuja-Kaduna highway as evidence of measurable progress.

Dogara spoke to State House correspondents after joining a delegation to a meeting with Tinubu at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja.

The delegation was led by a former Defence Minister and elder statesman, Theophilus Danjuma.

“To travel from here to Kaduna, everybody knows what it was. At the point, they even brought down a moving train, but right now, some of those crises are not there,” Dogara said, referring to the March 2022 attack on the Abuja-Kaduna train in which scores of passengers were killed, and others abducted.

“There has been remarkable improvement. Short of declaring victory, but there has been remarkable improvement,” he added.

The former Speaker attributed the gains to what he described as the strategic placement of Plateau indigenes within the Federal Government, saying their leadership had contributed to addressing the region’s longstanding security challenges.

Dogara, who represented Bogoro, Dass and Tafawa Balewa federal constituency in Bauchi State for four terms before serving as Speaker from 2015 to 2019, said the delegation’s visit was also aimed at mobilising political support for the President ahead of the 2027 general elections.

Plateau State Governor Caleb Mutfwang, who was part of the delegation, added that leaders from the state were working to rebuild trust across ethnic and religious divides, and said the effort was beginning to yield results even at the grassroots level.

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“Youth leaders across the divides of faith and ethnicity are beginning to have conversations without even government support,” Mutfwang said, adding, “This is quite encouraging to me that there is light at the end of the tunnel.”

The Abuja-Kaduna corridor was for several years one of the country’s most dangerous inter-state routes, plagued by bandit kidnappings, highway robberies and the attack on the Abuja-Kaduna train in March 2022 in which gunmen killed eight passengers, abducted over 60 others and held some for months before their release.

The PUNCH reports that on March 28, 2022, terrorists planted explosive devices along the rail track, and when the Abuja-Kaduna-bound AK-9 passenger train approached the point, the device exploded, causing the train to derail.

The incident led to the death of eight passengers, while others were kidnapped.

A year after the attack, the Kaduna State Government announced that 16 bags belonging to the attack victims had remained unclaimed.

In May 2024, the Nigeria Police Force announced the arrest of the alleged mastermind of the attack.

The mastermind was identified as Ibrahim Abdullahi, also known by the ominous moniker of Mandi.