FG 50% Discount: Road Travelers Grow As Bus Owners Increase Trips

LAGOS – The Association of Luxu­ry Bus Owners of Nigeria (ALBON) has increased the number of scheduled trips on the Lagos-South East and Lagos-South-South routes after the 50 percent discount offered inter-state travellers by the Federal Government. The palliative which started before the Christ­mas is expected to run through the first week of January 2025. ALBON said that the increase in the number of scheduled trips was due to the complaints of insufficient capacity by road users.

This, the body said, would address the up­surge in the number of passengers on the affect­ed routes following imple­mentation of a 50 percent fare slash on inter-state travels approved by Pres­ident Bola Tinubu for the Yuletide. A joint statement by Mr. Nonso Ubajaka and Mr.



Frank Nneji, Presi­dent and Secretary, AL­BON, respectively, said that the Lagos-South East and Lagos-South-South routes had been witness­ing an unprecedented in­crease in passengers since the implementation of the presidential palliative commenced. Investigation by Daily Independent showed that there had been a sharp rise in the frequencies of luxury bus departures from the popular Termi­nal 1 Inter-state Public Motor Park at Oshodi in Lagos, as Lagosians take advantage of Tinubu’s 50 percent fare palliative to travel to various destina­tions for the yuletide. Checks by our corre­spondent over the week­end, also indicated that more people preferred to travel with the night bus­es as passengers thronged the various luxury bus transport companies’ booths to obtain their tickets at half the current fares.

Our reporter witnessed a huge crowd of travellers at the Oshodi Transport Interchange who jostled and queued to obtain the rebate tickets, even as oth­ers positioned their lug­gage for loading ahead of boarding. The buses offering the special fares bore banners with bold inscriptions in­forming travellers that the gesture was a ‘Presi­dential Palliative’ passed through the luxury bus owners umbrella body. It was, however, ob­served that despite large presence of intending passengers at the termi­nal, there was no stam­pede or breakdown of law and order as earlier reported by some online fake news platforms.

Checks at the various booths on Sunday, showed that a discounted fare of N23,500, which is half of the current N47,000 being collected from the intend­ing passengers for trips to eastern destinations like Onitsha, Owerri and Umuahia. The high demand for the cheaper tickets has led to a situation where in­tending travellers throng the terminal hours ahead of night departures, while many others spend the night there to be able to pay for the discounted fare and board the early morning buses. Some of the mem­ber-companies of AL­BON seen selling the rebate tickets at the terminal included Ever­green Express, Okeyson Transport, Ifeanyichuk­wu Transport, Izuchuk­wu Transport, God Bless Ezenwata and Gobison Transport.

Just before departure on Saturday night, some of the passengers on board an Evergreen lux­ury bus bound for Aba who paid N23,500 each, ex­pressed their gratitude to Tinubu for the road fare palliative. One of them who gave his name as Anthony Uba, said, “This is the best Christmas gift anyone can get. I had given up hope of travelling home this sea­son due to the high fares until I heard that the lux­ury bus transporters are partnering with the Fed­eral Government to sell tickets at half the prices.

” Similarly, some Aba-bound passengers on board an Okeyson lux­ury bus, confirmed that they benefited from the 50 percent discount, and commended the President for subsidising Christmas season travels through the luxury bus transporters. While an Izu Chukwu bus was seen departing to Asaba, another one belonging to Ezenwata was seen boarding Aba passengers all of whom were visibly excited that they could benefit from the “Tinubu’s palliative.” However, while express­ing their gratitude to the Federal Government for relieving them of the burden of high transport fares at a time of econom­ic difficulties in Nigeria, most of them appealed for an extension of the January 5, 2025 end date, even as others hoped for a similar gesture during the 2025 Christmas season.

The leadership of AL­BON had last week com­mended President Tinubu for approving the subsidy on Yuletide trips, which, they said, would relieve the travelling public of the burden of high fares occasioned by rising costs of vehicle maintenance..