The National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), FCT chapter has urged passengers to ensure they patronise the parks for safety.
Mr Laurence Fadipe, the Organising Secretary, NURTW, FCT said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Abuja.
According to Fadipe, the parks are safer because they have a union and if there is any issue on the road it will be easy to trace the driver of the vehicle.
”I will advise passengers, who are travelling at this season to ensure they patronise the parks.
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”The day before yesterday, the national union patrol team went all the way to Gwagwalada and we discovered that majority of passengers where on the road.
”And we were surprised because the money they are paying by the roadside is even higher than that which they would have paid in the parks.
”Yet they prefer standing there under the sun, in addition with the security challenges rather than the comfort of the parks and it is worrisome.
”Also what some people don’t know is that even if they don’t have the complete fare, they can talk to the leader of the park and something will be done to help them.” Fadipe said.
He said the union had mandated all its members to ensure to load their vehicles from the parks for security reasons.
Fadipe said that drivers had also been mandated to search passengers luggage before embarking on any trip.
”As a national union, we have a security network which we are implementing.
“People from Abuja to lokoja, have a network of security, then from Lokoja to Akure and from Akure to Ibadan they have their own.
”This goes for every other states of the federation, and so far, this have been working smoothly for us.”
On passenger turnout, Fadipe said the influx reduced and was not as that experienced in 2020.
”You cannot compare this year with last year; you can see the park by yourself and that is the true picture of what we have this year.
”Not more than 10 vehicles have gone out of the park today, being the 24th of December, both the cars and buses and this is very surprising.
”Although, we are still hopeful that the turnout will improve,” he said.
Mr Taiwo Yahaya, the Secretary, NURTW Ibadan unit also decried low turnout of passengers and deplorable roads.
He called on the Federal Government to help the citizens by fixing the roads so as to ensure safety.
A driver, Suleiman Muhammed, also urged the government to work towards alleviating the plight of citizens as many people were suffering and could barely feed, let alone embark on trips.
According to him, if people don’t travel, it will be difficult for the drivers to have money and support their families.
He, however, commended the government for fixing the train to Kaduna as many passengers now travel via that route.
Another driver popularly known as Baba Eba, reiterated that the bad roads on the Nigerian highways had become a major challenge to drivers.
According to him, journey that should ordinarily take two hours, end up becoming four to five hours due to the poor state of the roads.
He also commended the government for ensuring that there were security personnel on the highways to ensure safety of passengers and drivers.
Also, Mr Musa Adamu, said it was due to the hard times which everyone was aware of that the drivers did not increase the cost of fares.
Mr Segun Oyeleye said: ”Passengers turnout have been poor this year probably because of how the economy of the country is.
”Even the people who are here and carrying load can barely pay for the extra luggage. And by right if things where the way it should be, people will not be travelling with food from here to their villages.
“‘The roads are very bad. The route from Abuja to Lagos and about three major roads which we take to Lagos have been abandoned due to their poor state and the only saving grace we have now is that of Ekiti.
”And this would have also gone bad if the state government had not taken measures to ban heavy duty cars from using the roads.
”So we really need government intervention. They should help us fix the roads so people can travel freely and safely. “
NAN observed that there were no stranded passengers at many parks waiting for vehicles at the time of filing this report, unlike what used to be obtainable at such peak periods of the festivity
