Abuja residents groan under vehicle shortage

Commuters in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have urged the FCT Administration to provide an effective transportation system in order to alleviate their daily hardship on the city’s roads.

The residents lamented that available public to transport them from place to place are inadequate, and the development has been hindering socioeconomic activities in the FCT.

“This is what we normally go through every morning in almost all the junctions of the satellite villages along the Airport Road, due to inadequate high capacity buses,” Charles Emeka, one of the residents, told NAN.

“This situation is becoming frustrating and people sometimes quarrel among themselves in the process of rushing to board the few available vehicles to their various places of work. The situation is most unfortunate because the development sometimes leads to outright fighting among the commuters.”

Hajia Ummul Muhammad, another commuter, remarked that while they find it difficult to reach their various destinations even in the day time, the situation is worse in the early hours of the day.

Muhammad attributed this to non-availability of taxis and buses to transport them to their various places of work.

Mr Tijani Usman, who was seen struggling with other passengers to board a taxi, noted that the passengers had outnumbered the available vehicles. In one of such struggles at Airport Road, he was pushed into a culvert by some passengers who were equally desperate to board a commercial bus.

Also commenting, another commuter, Mrs Angela Amadi, lamented the hike in transport fares from the route to other places within the FCT, blaming it on shortage of government-owned high-capacity buses.

“This development is forcing many workers residing along the route to leave their homes very early, to get transportation to their places of work,” she said.

The commuters urged the FCT administration to tackle the problem, so as to alleviate their suffering and curb loss of man hours.

Alhaji Bala Muhammed, minister of the FCT, reacted to the development by promising that the government will provide about 100 buses. The minister, who disclosed that the buses will be available in May or June 2014, expressed optimism that there would be a boost in the transportation system.