The Nigeria Government has approved the purchase of additional coaches for use on the Abuja-Kaduna rail line.

The measure is to meet with the additional passengers on the route expected from the planned closure of the Abuja International Airport in March.

The Minister of State for Transportation, Hadi Sirika, who addressed State House correspondents at the end of the meeting of the Federal Executive Council at the Council Chamber, Aso Rock Villa, Abuja, on Wednesday said the meeting approved two memoranda from the ministry.

“One is for the procurement of coaches; two first class coaches, two for baggage and six for long distance economy class to improve upon this Kaduna airport project,” he said.

The minister said the purchases are to “boost rail transportation on the Abuja Kaduna standard gauge railway to improve on passengers and goods and also following the impending closure of the Abuja airport”.

He also said the effort “is to increase our capacity to handle passengers during this airport closure”.

Mr. Sirika said the other memo was for the establishment of joint briefing offices in all 21 federal government airports across the country.

He named the Airports to include those of Lagos, Kano, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Ilorin, Sokoto, Maiduguri, Jos, Yola, Calabar, Enugu, Owerri, Kaduna, Benin, Osubi-Warri, Katsina Zaria, Minna, Bauchi, Ibadan and Akure, adding ” and of course three aerodromes namely; Bonny, Excravos and Eket”.

“These joint briefing offices will include the air automation and would co-locate the track-up projects, the total radar coverage, the air automation system, which include the air automation system and the pilot briefing offices.

“These are prefabricated because during the remodelling exercise of those airports they were tempered with so we thought we should just co-locate them in one area for efficiency and to safeguard against future relocations,” he said.