Contrary to the impression that many Nigerians would not be travelling for this year’s Christmas and New Year holidays due to the economic hardship in their country, people are trooping to the bus stations to board vehicles and aircraft to their country homes, but with pains due to astronomical faresThe airports too are getting busy as many families, including those living abroad, are making frantic efforts to take the next available flights to their various states.
Investigations by Vanguard, however, showed that domestic flights for the season have been fully booked by frequent flyers.
Even as the majority of travellers are left with no option than to go by road, they still have to contend with high cost and fear of insecurity on the highway.
Road travellers face high fare
Road transport companies have also doubled their fares. A visit to some of the bus stations in Lagos, such as Yaba, Orile, Oshodi and Maza-Maza by Vanguard revealed that transport fares to the eastern part of the country have increased astronomically for mini and high capacity buses.
While the high capacity buses, usually referred to as luxury buses by Nigerians, which though look rickety, are not considerate with their charges, the mini-buses, including Toyota Sienna, Hiace buses and the likes, are charging almost double the price they were collecting a month ago.
For instance, luxury buses which charged N23,000 a week ago, are now demanding between N33,000 and N40,000 per passenger.
Our investigations revealed further that big transport companies such as Chisco, Okeyson, and The Young Shall Grow charged N40,000 as at December 22, 2024.
It was learnt that most of the buses travel at night, making the journey more scary because of the security situation in the country.Mini bus operators charging N33,000 barely a week ago are now asking for N52,000 to N55,000 and would not accept advanced booking since they are expecting the fare to go up the next day.
Transport companies like Andyriz Motors, GUO Transport, The Young Motors and God is Good as well as Sienna buses loading around the parks are collecting N52,000.
When Vanguard spoke to their ticketing officers, pretending to be a prospective traveller, they disclosed that they could not guarantee that the fare would remain the same the following day..
The transport companies, however, were quick to explain that the reasons for the high fare was the fact that there were hardly passengers to bring back from the eastern and other parts parts of the country during this Christmas season..
They argued that with empty buses returning to Lagos, the transport companies would be operating at a huge loss if they did not increase the fare from Lagos.
Culled from Vanguard
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