The Wuse Market junction, usually crowded with mini cabs painted in green colour, was virtually free of vehicular traffic. It was quite an unusual sight. The pavements of the surrounding roads were crammed with hundreds of pedestrians heading to various destinations within and around the Federal Capital Territory.
At a glance, it seemed as if the people had deliberately decided to trek long distances. But a closer examination showed that most of them were engaged in the exercise against their own will.
Since there were no commuter buses in the city, courtesy of the latest Abuja Masterplan-related policy introduced by the Ministry of the Federal Capital Territory, they had to walk all the way to their destinations.
On January 14, 2013, the FCT Administration started to enforce a ban on green mini buses, popularly known as ‘araba’, within the Abuja metropolis.
If the administration had its way, the commuter buses would only operate in the satellite towns such as Nyanya, Mararaba, Jikwoyi, Masaka, Aleita, Tungamanji, Lugbe, Gwagwa, Gwagwalada, Kuje, Pyakasa, Deidei and Zuba.
The FCT administration believed that restricting the operation of the commercial buses would decongest the city centre.
But until the administration announced a three-week suspension of the policy on Wednesday, January 16, 2013, after an emergency meeting with the officials of the Mini Buses Union, FCT chapters of the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress, as well as the police commissioner and the Director, Department of State Security, it was apparent that the ban did more harm than good to many residents.
There were indications that the policy was not well articulated, as, despite the obvious fact that it would result in severe hardship for a majority of the Abuja residents, particularly those in the satellite towns that had no cars, there were no palliative measures on the ground to cushion its effects.
The policy, as outlined by the FCT authorities, restricts commercial buses to the suburbs, where they would pick commuters and drop them on the periphery of the city centre. From there, government-approved buses would pick and drop them in the city.
But when the implementation of the policy commenced, the promised “government buses” were nowhere to be found to complete the transaction.
Yet, this did not stop the FCT administration from going ahead to enforce the restriction of the commuter buses by deploying security personnel in strategic locations within the city.
The green mini buses picked their passengers in the satellite towns and dropped them at designated points, where the government buses were expected to convey them to the city, for a fee.
In the absence of the government buses, and having no other means of getting to their final destinations, commuters had no option but to walk long distances or wait endlessly for a vehicle.
Most of them were forced to take up the former option, a development that resulted in an unusual scenario in which hundreds of pedestrians grimly made their way on foot in various parts of the city.
The plight of FCT residents that lack personal cars was compounded by the attitude of the operators of the green taxis, who capitalised on the situation to hike their fares.
A regular drops to or from any location within the city centre, such as Wuse, Garki, Maitama, Asokoro, Utako and Jabi costs between N300 and N400 in the past. Now it costs as high as N600 and N700.
Only a few people were able to afford the new fares as many resorted to trekking.
Some operators of commuter buses complained that they were being impoverished by the policy and commuters themselves grumbled that it had unleashed hardship on them. The green taxi operators were disappointed in their expectation of improved earnings in the absence of the green buses.
But, arguably, the traders in Wuse Market were the worst hit.
The popular market, like any other trading place, thrives on its ability to draw crowds, but, with the commuter buses banned from coming close, traders in the market complained of a massive drop in patronage.
Indeed, the Wuse Market looks like an exclusive Government Reservation Area. You can count the number of vehicles that pass through the area. Only a few enter the market.
A trader that sells clothes in the market, who gave his name as Ezenna Njokuike, told our correspondent that customers were staying away because of transportation challenges.
“Customers no longer visit the market as much as they used to do and that has affected our sales. I am not the only one complaining; see how scanty the market is.
“Look at the car park, there are very few cars. Before now customers found it hard to get parking spaces here Njoku told our correspondent.
Frustrated by the development, operators of mini-buses in the Nyanya/Mararaba area staged a protest against the ban. They claimed that the FCT Administration had taken away their means of livelihood. They accused the government of insensitivity and insisted that they must be allowed to continue their normal operations since an alternative employment had not been for them.
When our correspondent visited a bus stop in Nyanya during the protests, one of the protesting bus drivers, who gave his name simply as Bulus, said he was unemployed for several years before he took to the business, through which he has been able to raise a family.
“I feed my family – five children plus my wife – from this business. Do they (FCT administration) want me to steal? How do they want me and my family to survive?” he asked, rhetorically.
Bulus noted that the income of the commuter bus operators diminished significantly in the wake of the policy.
“Some of us who make daily returns to their masters can no longer do that because there is not much work to do again,” he said.
A civil servant who works in the Federal Secretariat, Mr. Emenike, claimed that the FCT administration’s policy was aimed at driving the “common man” out of Abuja.
He linked the development to other “anti-common man” policies like demolition of houses in parts of the FCT, and warned that it would worsen the rate of unemployment in the territory.
“The government will not provide jobs, yet they are taking away jobs from self-employed people. They don’t want the common man in this town (Abuja).
“They have been using demolition and it was not enough. Now they don’t want us to go into the city. They want us to remain in the satellite towns where there is no infrastructure. They don’t want us to come into town to enjoy what they are enjoying. That is the plan,” Emenike said.
Be that as it may, the FCT administration has decided to suspend the for only three weeks. Although he reportedly admitted that some mistakes were made in its implementation, FCT Minister, Sen. Bala Mohammed, has promised to go ahead with the policy.
In a meeting with journalists after declaring open a sensitisation programme on anti-corruption for officers of the FCTA on grade level 17, the minister reportedly said the administration did not create enough awareness before enforcing the ban.
“We made a mistake and we admit we made a mistake because we did not sensitise people that this kind of thing would be happening. So, we have decided to suspend it for three weeks to ensure everybody understands what we are doing,” he explained.
He said the policy was suspended to enable the administration make adjustments to reduce the hardship commuters faced during the ban.
Mohammed said the promised ‘government buses’ were already on the ground, noting that the administration could not risk bringing them out to the road for fear of vandalisation by aggrieved mini bus operators.
“Drivers of mini-buses are not helping matters; we will see how we can provide some succour in the form of higher-purchase as a way of sustaining their families.
“We have over 700 hi-capacity buses in the FCT, the Abuja Urban Mass Transit Company has about 300, the NURTW has about 200, and other licensed operators have about 200,” he said.
He suggested that the ban on the mini buses was partly to enable the operators of the approved buses make reasonable profit in their venture, saying, “But the mini buses will not allow them to work seriously. You only work on the basis of profitability. You will see the hi-capacity buses burning their gas without any passenger because the mini-bus people will not give them any breathing space. Moreover, they are reckless and undisciplined.
“So, we want to get a minimal cavity of monopoly for the hi-capacity buses and routes have been designated for both categories of buses. This will decongest the traffic gridlock being experienced in the city. We have many buses but we are scared of bringing them out because of the araba boys who throw stones at them.
“But now that we have met and discussed with them, we will make arrangements such that the high capacity buses can operate alongside the mini-buses as well as taxis,” he said.
Punch Nigeria
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