Many were shocked to wake up to the news of the ban of tricycle operators in the FCT after a long weekend thanks to the public holiday declared by the federal government.
Tricycle commonly called Keke has being an easy and cheap way of transportation for the common man and also a source of employment for those who wouldn't secured the 8-5 job race many private and government workers jostle for.
The Keke napep program when first launched was as a poverty alleviation program aimed at taking much of the bundle of job creation off the different teir of government and on the long run has been employed with many youths fending for themselves paying little or no attention to the government responsibilities to the masses.
The FCT transport sector is a multi million dollar business sector and also a source of revenue to the third tier government with the daily #100-#200 tax placed on the various transporter with a chuck of it coming from the tricycles.
As Nigerians are battling with the rising poverty level, the ban on Keke will lead to a new entrant of people living below the poverty line. This sector benefit both direct and indirect participants such that those who load passengers are paid a token, those who sell AMAC tickets are paid based on the tickets sold and the operators themselves.
Effect of the ban:
There have been a sudden increase in the price of transport by 50%-100% of the normal price. The taxi operators now give a "take it or leave it" grim on their faces. Now students have to trek a distance of about 5-10km to and fro school as seen in the pictures(9am Wednesday morning) attached and no palliative is in place to absorb the shock waves felt across all sector with the people still living on the #18,000 minimum wage and no sight of the #30,000 minimum wage implementation.
Now there's a concern on the return of the infamous one chance criminals who had ab initio being on exile from the city and now a new surging unemployed citizen adding to the already saturated unemployed bracket.
The popular red bus popularly called "El rufia" bus has left the route being operated by the Keke napep for years now and almost moribund only plying long lucrative routes as the Berger nyanya, Berger gwagwalada axis.

Solution:
The FCT administration should bring in more mini buses and have a gradual withdrawal of the Keke operators which might take years to implement but possible and not the forceful implementation.
"El rufia" tried it but wasn't successful because some routes won't have that full bus patronage no matter how hard you try. And also the people using some routes will always out number the buses.

Cc: lalastica