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Abuja-Kaduna Train Attack
“The gang mined the track forcing the train, carrying 970 passengers, to a stop on Monday evening. Gunmen subsequently surrounded the carriages and opened fire, one passenger told the BBC. An unknown number of passengers were abducted from the train, considered the safest way to get between the cities.” (BBC News)[1]
To clash the narrative, here is another version of the story.
“72 hours after terrorists bombed a Kaduna-bound train killing about nine persons, the Nigerian Railway Corporation, NRC, has dismissed social media reports that about 970 passengers were on board the AK-9 train when tragedy struck.”
“Since the unfortunate incident, the corporation has been inundated with calls to verify the actual number of passengers in the ill-fated train but rather than make the passengers’ manifest public, the NRC aligned its position with that of the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi that only 398 persons bought tickets to board the train.” (The Vanguard Newspaper).[2]
I would not begin to put my mouth in the attack myself because there are still some unclear things surrounding it. The fact is that the train was attacked, and people were killed and also kidnapped.
But the actual number of the kidnapped people and passengers on board and yet to be precisely known. I am not surprised about the data issue.
Chinelo’s Tweet
The Abuja-Kaduna train attack should be a sense-giving incident to us, but the reaction of few Nigerians to Chinelo’s post when she begged for prayer after being shot was very discouraging.
When Dr Chinelo Nwando, suffered the gunshot, she posted on her Twitter handle thus: “I’m in the train. I have been shot please pray for me.”
Of course, it is difficult to believe that someone can tweet after being shot, but does that mean we should create a confusing atmosphere by catching cruise with this ‘sad,’ emotional tweet?
Cruise, as We Say
This is the sad reality in our society. We play with everything that is fundamental. Nigerians dominated the comic realm when Covid-19 broke out, the same thing with other problems facing the country or the world entirely.
Social media platforms are full of skits on fuel scarcity, Covid-19, lack of supply and others. Why all these are creating awareness, they are as well erasing their reality in the minds of the Nigerians, especially now that content creators are more than people that want to laugh.
Chinelo’s death tweet deserved very serious concern even if she had done that for a joke. This is humanity! In the name of catching cruise, we are already out of the world and we’ve been living under the earth. Nigeria is cooking us, we keep on adding salt.
