 As you'll the breakfast and plus TV Africa and we're heading straight to the second conversation where we will be talking about the fact that the president have announced that there should be free ride for passengers I mean train passengers across the entire Federation but unfortunately that didn't happen and that's supposed to be a Christmas package or a part of world celebrating and the season the spirit of giving and taking we do have the president general of railway railway union workers you know Santa Gigi this morning. Welcome Mr. Gigi. Yeah, good morning. Thanks for joining us and let's start with you know confirming that there you know the the way of course tickets sold during the Christmas holidays is this verified and is this true that tickets were sold and from according to reports even that higher prices. Okay, thank you very much. It will interest you to know that the federal government has made it that there should be a free train ride on 24th December 2nd, January. Yes, and our trains are free both on the standard gauge and the narrow gauge. But however, we discovered that you know hoodlooms and power miners will never stop packaging their art. So we were told that you know if you don't get no normal procedures for booking of tickets are done but it is free of charge. You don't pay for it. So people who think are smart will normally book and when they book they will have like two, three, four, five tickets with them. And when passenger that is not aware that there are free train ride comes around they will catch on him by selling telling him there is no space in the train and the train will soon move and if you want to join the train you can buy this from us. And trust me, these people are not our staff. These are people that are very conversant with the way we book our tickets are being booked. So and it will interest you to know that railway management are not the people manning the affairs of sales of tickets. There's a company that is contracted into doing that. And so tickets are bought online. So those who are conversant with the way you book online are normally the people that are doing this art. And trust me as I talk to you, a race was made in Abuja which of course I am here to confirm how many people were arrested but they are not railway staff. Okay, can you put us through what the process is for getting a ticket? For those who don't get it online, if you walk into the train station there is a place for getting tickets, right? Yes. Okay, so now that the tickets are meant to or the rides are meant to be free what was it meant to, what was meant to be the process? You simply walk straight to the train and take a seat. No, no. You walk to the, if you get to the station you go to the ticket booking office. If you could not buy online, you buy, you get it from the ticket office as usual just like you go and pay before you ride on the train. So and you will be given a ticket and on the ticket it is written free. Okay, and so what you're saying is that there's people who purchase tickets online and unsuspected Nigerians that walk to the train station still did go to the ticketing part but were told that there were no tickets but they can instead buy from other persons. Sorry, there's a little crack, I think that your last few words. So this is what I'm asking. So if I walk to the train station, I get to the tickets in boot. I meant to get a free ticket from there, maybe from Abuja Tokaduna. Yeah. All right, but what you're saying now is if I walked there before I got there maybe someone could have approached me and said that the tickets are finished but you can get a ticket for a certain amount of money. That's what they do. So there's persons that are hovering around the train station. Is that what you're saying? Approaching passengers and telling them that tickets are finished but they can buy? You are very correct, that's what I'm saying. Okay, so these persons, I'm helping you paint the picture. So these persons who fell victim didn't make it to the ticketing boots to get a ticket. Sorry, please, I didn't get that. I'm saying are you saying that the persons who fell victim to these criminals didn't make it all the way to the ticketing boots to get a ticket before they were scammed? Well, you know, because I am not in the station there, I cannot fully answer whether they were at the ticketing boot and they didn't get ticket before they were scammed. But the railway station is normally a place that you have a lot of people going about. And true, you wouldn't even know the difference of railway staff from the one that is not a staff. But if you are smart enough to have a railway worker that sells tickets, they are always on uniform with our bags, is printed railway workers. So if you are smart, you are not supposed to be scammed. Then if your current information is all over the news that our tickets are free from 24th to 2nd of January or 4th of January or so, I'm not too sure about when it will end. So you are not supposed to allow anybody to scam you or you are not supposed to pay before you obtain any ticket. And even if you pay, the ticket, it is clearly written on the ticket that is free. Free ticket. It is everything. So why would you pay and then repeat the free ticket and then you still allow yourself to be cheated? Okay, so now that you have mentioned that these persons who are involved in this fraudulent act have been arrested, are the tickets still free and can passengers go ahead to board the train across without paying any amount of money? Yes, they are not supposed to pay. I'm saying what would be the situation now? Because you mentioned that some persons have been arrested and I'm asking. So now that these persons have been arrested, have you put in measures in place to ensure that these elements who go around or these persons who parade themselves, defrauding passengers will no longer come. The same thing that happened would not happen and that people are free to actually go ahead and take that right for free. You see, when you get to our station, there are announcements being made even where the passengers are, they wait in your room and even inside the train, our public relations officers are enlightening passengers that our train services are free to not allow anybody to collect money from you. So that is for those who try to leave the bus or passengers who are desperate, will not care to wait or will not be patient enough to wait for the next train to shoot. Maybe they mean the first train or the train they intend to follow. So that's why they would mostly be getting their search count by this kind of fraudulent people. So I'm just saying that now that today is the 27th, if I'm not mistaken, do we expect that this would not have repeats itself again? In this scenario where you have people going around the train station to defraud passengers who are trying to board, taking them away from the free ride and extorting them of their money. Have you put measures in place to ensure that this doesn't happen and can people go ahead now and board the free train? Yes, the measures are put in place by the management of railway to ensure that people are not being cheated and that's why announcements are made everywhere. For people to know. So the normal train moves are scheduled, the timetable still remains the same. Mr. Adjiji, just to clarify, the reports and the persons who fell victims, you know, a few of them, there's a person called Deji Adesogon. He says here that the tickets were not free, that the trains tickets at the Idoo train station in Abuja were sold as high as 12,000 Naira for Nigerians. And it doesn't in any way state that these tickets were bought from random individuals. It says that they were bought, you know, at the train station. Those tickets are not bought from artificial boots and they cannot be bought from online. So if any passenger says he bought tickets for 12,000 Naira from Idoo to Kaduna, he has allowed himself to be scammed by people that are not even railway workers because no ticket is expected to be sold within this period of time. But isn't there a way of verifying that the ticket was actually purchased from the boot? If you take a ticket from, just like getting on an airplane, you know, there's different places that you verify your ticket. From when you purchase the ticket to where you check in your luggage and the likes, before you even, when they call for boarding, you know, there's a part where they verify your tickets. And then just before you get on the airplane, there's also a final check over there. You know, so can I simply just take a ticket that maybe isn't stamped or maybe isn't, you know, that wasn't bought at the boot? But isn't there a way that it can be verified that it was actually collected from the tickets in boot? Well, no, there's no way it can be verified because when you are selling your ticket, they normally have your name there. And so when you come with the ticket and it's valid with the ID card you are holding, the name is valid with the ID card you are holding. We are free to pass. But if I buy a ticket from a different person, it should carry a different name, don't you think? And honestly, I can't imagine how they did the margin. Because their name was valid with the ticket, the name on the ID card. So I wonder how they could buy the ticket and then steal from the passenger and the passenger will still use it to travel. Well, Mr. Adjudi, doesn't that seem impossible? Because now you're saying you wonder how they do it, but doesn't it seem impossible that the tickets were bought from random Nigerians and they were able to manipulate the names to fit into the ID card of whoever it is that is buying it? Because if I pay you $10,000 an hour for a ticket, what time do you have to immediately impute my name on that ticket? A name that is the same with the name on my ID card. What time do you have to do that? So Mr. Adjudi, doesn't it seem like it may be these tickets were bought from the ticket in boot? It's not possible for that to be obtained from the ticket in boot. But I am sure those that are doing that must have been doing it with already having an ID card with them that they have perpetrated. That is why it costs them or their passengers to pay as much of $4,000. I can't really understand because we need to wrap up. But I can't really understand what I'm asking. Even if you have a fake ID card, if I approach you at the train station and tell you that I need a ticket and you sold that ticket to me for $12,000 an hour, that ticket you're selling to me very likely wouldn't have my name. It will have a different name. It will have the name of the person who purchased the ticket. So at what point do you then change the name? And so is it possible that if we want to assume that there are criminal elements hanging around the train station, are they working hand in hand with people who sell tickets at the ticket in boot? Or did this ticket come without names on them? Is that what we're saying? No, the ticket comes with names. I want to assure you that they come by online ahead of time. Print ID cards, or maybe they want to print ID cards with the name they want to purchase the ticket with. But how do they know the name? Sorry? How do they know the name of the passenger who is going to approach them and, you know, take a ticket? The passenger can decide to travel with the name that does not belong to him. Even in the airport in Shatni, where you see a passenger taking another person's ticket or maybe taking a ticket that it is not his actual name that is on the ticket, provided he has the name for the ticket and then the name for the ticket. Miss Ajiti, this doesn't really add up, but we're out of time and we hope that we can bring you back to continue this conversation. But thank you anyway for your time this morning and we wish you a very interesting Christmas and New Year celebration. Thank you very much. Absolutely. This is where we, of course, we're wrapping up the conversation. A lot of things don't add up with that explanation, you know, about criminal elements, you know, selling because there's no way that I'm going to be at a train station at a particular time. Even if you're going to fake it, you know, you cannot fake the ID card that I'm bringing, you know, so it just doesn't add up. But anyway, thank you very much for staying with us. We always will wish you a very, very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and we hope that you enjoy, you know, the rest of the celebration and the season along with your family and friends. If you missed out on any part of the conversation. That's all right. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, who are at Plus TV Africa and do subscribe to our YouTube channels at Plus TV Africa Live Style. I am Messi Boko. Do have yourself a happy holiday. And I am Osau Ki, of Moma.