CHRISTIAN Aghor, a hotel receptionist working in the Federal Capital Territory, stands at Apo junction in the evening, looking exhausted from a stressful day. He has been waiting for a taxi to take him home, but there is none yet. Several other commuters are also at the bus-stop waiting. The long wait at the bus stop starts in Abuja sometime in November.

“Stress, suffering and maltreatment are what we are going through in this Abuja,” he says.

He describes the day-by-day struggle for transportation to and from his workplace as a new problem.

Other commuters can be seen on long cues in major parks in FCT either waiting tirelessly for public buses or hope that a private car will stop.

But the ‘poor’ have refused to leave the capital city. Now, the authorities seem more determined to show them out of the city. That is the way the Abuja residents who do not own cars describe the new directive.


Passengers waiting to find a taxi to convey them to their destination on a Wednesday Morning at Lugbe road
Speaking to commuters at Apo roundabout, a 43-year-old man who identifies himself as Nathaniel says, “It is a shame that they [government] always comes up with ideas that do not favour the people.”

Residents of the Federal Capital Territory have been encountering this difficulty since a task force team was set up to restrict tricycle riders to estates and rural parts of Abuja. Tricycles also known as KEKE NAPEP is a popular means of transportation because it is cheap and not bound by traffic gridlock.

The decision was first implemented during the administration of the former FCT Minister now Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai who said then in 2007 that ‘Abuja is not for the poor’.

A staff of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Nathaniel describes ‘sad’ event of a woman who accidentally fell while struggling to get a taxi to her home around 8:30 pm one Friday. Some other commuters have fallen to greater harm.

Tricycle Owners and Drivers

Passengers are not the only victims of the new directive by the Abuja authorities; commercial tax riders also are affected. Friday Andrew, 38, a keke rider in Galadimawa shares his frustration with The ICIR.

“Now, I hardly take money home, my wife is complaining, am fed up and I don’t know what next to do.”

Andrew is a 38 years old man with one wife and three children who lives in Dakwo rural area of Abuja with his family.

READ MORE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/we-are-suffering-every-day-abuja-residents-lament-tricycle-restrictions/