By Oluwatosin Maliki
Following the recent announcement of the Federal Government reducing transport fare by 50 per cent, lists of transport companies in partnership with the government were released, however findings showed that the management of the God Is Good (GIG) has yet to reduce the price for online booking on their official website.
On Wednesday, the Presidency announced the yuletide 50 per cent reduction in interstate transport fares and free train rides for Nigerians travelling between December 21, 2023, and January 4, 2024.
Quest Times gathered that the fares for the inter-state journey were increased, which was more than what was paid for few weeks ago.
Checks on GIG’s website, on Thursday, showed that it fixed transport fare for travellers commuting from Abuja to Lagos at N52,000, but few weeks ago the price was at N25,000.
Similarly, passengers traveling from Lagos to Imo would have to pay N42,300, while those commuting from Lagos to Rivers State would pay N42,300 for the trip.
Consequently, GIG was reportedly contacted by newsmen through their website for their reaction. However, the company did not respond to calls and messages sent via WhatsApp and Gmail for clarifications.
Although GIG shared a post on its X page, the company explained that the only terminals they had implemented the initiative was at Jibowu and Ajah in Lagos, revealing that “other terminals would be announced in the coming days.”
Asides from GIG, four other companies listed in the initiative are; Chisco Transport, Young Shall Grow, God Bless Ezenwata and Area Motor.
Also, the four companies were reportedly reached to verify if they had complied with the initiative, but all efforts failed as communication was hampered by their poor online presence.
It was learnt that Chisco Transport’s online booking site only conveys passengers taking trips from Lagos to neighbouring West African countries like Ghana and Togo.
The slow compliance of the firms have left some Nigerians stranded as they hoped that the announcement of the 50% reduction in fares would take immediate effect.
Some Nigerians have taken to social media to express their displeasure over the situation.
An X user, Izu Bright wrote, “Just last night I was at Young Shall Grow Maza-Maza to do a waybill, I noticed travellers were so much, inquisitively I asked the manager who I was dealing with about the 50% price reduction from the Federal Government and he told me verbatim that there’s nothing like that.”
Another X user, Tee_Why said, “Chisco and GIG at UTAKO says the 50% discount is not effective in Abuja for now”.
@lecomtephyn said, there should have been proper information on the passenger capacity of all the five firms involved for each trip.
He stated, “We will like to know how 51 seater bus these companies has.. and how many runs daily… if they can’t dispatch 5 each from each moving point then na play… cuz they have other routes also that will fetch them more money.”