SAHARA REPORTERS
Despite listing it as one of the five companies approved by President Bola Tinubu’s administration for the implementation of its 50 per cent reduction in interstate transport fares and free train rides for Nigerians travelling between December 21, 2023, and January 4, 2024, the management of the God Is Good (GIG) has yet to reduce the price for online booking on their official website.
SaharaReporters discovered that the fares for the inter-states journey were still higher than what was paid for similar trips a few weeks ago. For instance, Abuja to Lagos which was about N25,000 a few weeks ago was pegged at N52,000 when SaharaReporters checked on Thursday.
The fare for a journey from Lagos to Imo was also pegged at N42,300 by the same firm on its official website. The company also fixed N45,000 as the fare for a trip from Lagos to Rivers State.
When contacted via their official phone line listed on their website for their reaction, the company did not answer SaharaReporters’ calls and had yet to reply to our e-mail and a WhatsApp message sent to seek clarifications.
GIG via its X explained that the only terminals they had started the initiative were Jibowu and Ajah in Lagos, revealing that “other terminals would be announced in the coming days.”
The four other firms in the initiative are Chisco Transport, Young Shall Grow, God Bless Ezenwata and Area Motor.
Efforts made by SaharaReporters to check if the other four firms had complied with the initiative were hampered by their poor online presence.
For instance, Chisco Transport’s online booking site only accommodates trips from Lagos to neighbouring West African countries such as Ghana and Togo.
SaharaReporters gathered that a lot of Nigerians who had thought the announcement of a 50% reduction in fares would take effect immediately had been stranded.
For instance, an X user, Izu Bright said, “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.”
“Chisco and GIG at UTAKO says the 50% discount is not effective in Abuja for now,” another X user, Tee_Why said.
All efforts to get the reaction of Chisco Transport were futile as all their available official phone lines could not be reached for comment.
Another X, @lecomtephyn also said there should have been proper information on the passenger capacity of all the five firms involved for each trip.
He said, “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.”
