KLM Announces Return To Nigeria In December

On its website, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines announced it would be resuming flights to Nigeria. The airline will fly from Amsterdam to Nigeria starting in December. Nigeria suspended all international flights in March and has slowly been allowing airlines back into its airspace. Nigeria previously banned KLM and seven other major airlines from resuming operations.

Reciprocal bans

In September, the Nigerian Government announced several retaliatory bans against eight airlines. The bans prevented Air France, KLM Royal Dutch, Lufthansa, Royal Air Maroc, Air Namibia, Etihad Airways, and TAAG Angola from operating flights into Nigeria. Additionally, nationals from each airline’s home nation could not travel into Nigeria using another airline.

The ban came in response to several Nigerian nationals traveling on tourist visas being denied entry into other countries amid the ongoing pandemic. Nigeria made it very clear that its airspace would only be open to those who would reciprocate the agreement.

However, the ban seems to have been lifted for KLM as it announced flights would resume in December. Minister of Aviation Hadi Sirika confirmed the news with a tweet stating that Air France and Lufthansa have also been given the go-ahead to resume flights to Nigeria. The Nigerian government also approved Qatar Airways for flights to Abuja.

Reopening Airports

As well as granting permission to Air France, KLM and Lufthansa, Nigeria is working hard to open other airports in the country and strengthen its international operations. The government shut down all airports in March to prevent the spread of COVID-19, except for humanitarian aid and repatriation flights. In July, the country opened up all airports for domestic routes but only opened Lagos and Abuja airports for international operations.

Now, Nigeria is looking to reopen its other airports, including Kano, Port Harcourt, and Enugu, for international routes. In a briefing at the end of last week, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority director, Musa Nuhu, said that opening other airports is now crucial to help decongest Lagos and Abuja airports.

Ongoing problems

However, a lack of staff members and several infrastructure issues prevent the airports from reopening immediately. Nigeria’s Coalition Against COVID-19 is working with the aviation authorities to fix issues and provide manpower. Because of the ongoing problems, there is no set date for when the airports will reopen.

Part of the issues stem from the ground handling operations in Nigeria. According to local media, two major companies in Nigeria, Skyway Aviation Handling Company Plc (SAHCO) and the Nigerian Aviation Handling Company Plc (NAHCO), have suffered since the outbreak of COVID-19 and the closure of airports.

Both ground handling companies have let people go since the start of the pandemic in attempts to minimize losses. With new, stricter checks and fewer staff on the ground, turnaround times will take longer. Getting an airport up and running again is more complicated than just restarting operations. With social distancing, new testing facilities, restrictions, and staff layoffs, Nigeria, like other countries, has an uphill battle to get all its airports ready for international visitors.

By Emily Derrick

Simple Flying

Nigeria records over 1,000 road accident deaths in Q3

At least 1,076 people were killed in road accidents in Nigeria in the third quarter of 2020, according to the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC).

According to reports of the official News Agency of Nigeria on Wednesday, FRSC spokesperson Bisi Kazeem said a total of 2,656 road crashes were reported between July and September, adding that the road police agency had not relented in its efforts at reducing carnage on the highways.

Also, some 167,783 traffic offenders were arrested within the same period, as most of the offenders were arrested for “overloading, seat belt use violation, riding of a motorcycle without helmets, driving with shattered windscreen, driver’s license violations, among others”.

He attributed most of the road crashes and deaths that occurred along various routes in the country within the period to overspeeding.

Kazeem urged the motoring public to cooperate with the FRSC, saying that it would go a long way in preventing incessant crashes on the roads.

The spokesperson appealed to motorists to desist from buying used or fake tyres and opt for good ones to save lives and properties.

Kazeem encouraged drivers to obey traffic rules, regulations and cooperate with traffic officers, as it was in their best interests and that of other road users.

Deadly road accidents are frequently reported in Nigeria, often caused by overloading, bad condition of roads and reckless driving.

 CGTN

Nigeria’s bus drivers battle thugs, a union and police in Lagos

It is 7pm on a Wednesday in late September. Afeez* has just left a bus park at Iyana Isolo, a small busy road near the popular Ojuwoye street market in the district of Mushin.

In a leased danfo – the privately run yellow and white minibuses that serve as unofficial public transport in Nigerian cities – the 32-year-old plies through the busy streets, breaking off before traffic signals, in a rush to get his passengers to the nearby suburb of Oyingbo.

“I am in a hurry to return to the park and do more trips,” the driver explained. His conversations with passengers are terse; he has no time to listen to their complaints. “I have to deliver [the rental fee] to the owner of the bus tonight.”

The only thing momentarily slowing him down along his route are the agberos – the motor park touts he hands 100 naira ($0.27) bills to every time he passes their junctions. Some run after the bus, demanding their due.

In Yoruba, agbero means “to carry passengers”, but this does not connote what the agberos do. These men, mostly clad in white and green uniforms but sometimes in plain clothes and carrying sticks or canes, collect dues from motorcycle, tricycle, and danfo bus drivers on behalf of the drivers’ union – a toll that allows them to pick up passengers.

The cost of dues can vary. But drivers say they generally pay three types: “booking” is paid so they can start work at the motor parks every morning; before each trip, they pay a “loading” fee, which is usually a sum equal to the fare of two passengers; and “tickets” are undefined charges which are paid once or twice a day depending on the parks they use.

Some drivers told Al Jazeera they hand over about half their daily earnings to the agberos, and altercations sometimes occur if dues are not paid.

“I have had countless fights with them, we fight often,” Afeez said. “It is trouble if you don’t give them money.”

Early in August, he was involved in a brawl with some agberos at Fadeyi, a bus stop along the route he was taking to Oyingbo.

“It was close to noon that day and the particular agbero was asking for afternoon due,” he recalled. “My conductor said it was not afternoon yet … and that we needed to work more before paying.

“I was at the steering wheel and I heard their argument. I told him when we go on one more trip, we would pay. The argument continued and all of a sudden he stabbed my conductor in the face with a key. He wounded him and I could not take it; I came down from the driver’s seat and we fought each other.”

The agbero was joined by his friends and a big fight broke out until they were all separated by other drivers, Afeez explained. “In the end, nothing happened because the chairman … did not get involved, it was just me and their boys,” he added, expressing relief that he did not encounter a union boss at the bus park.

The union

The National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) is an independent union that oversees all danfo bus drivers, commercial motorcycle drivers, and tricycle drivers.

In its own words, it “serves the interests of transport workers in the road transport sector”. But according to many drivers, the union only serves itself.

Unlike regular unions, NURTW is amorphous and without a defined and transparent structure. Its membership mainly comprises people who are not drivers, but rather motor park attendants. They started off as touts, canvassing passengers onto buses and maintaining order at motor parks. But over the years they have assumed total control of Nigeria’s informal transport sector.

The union has now become exclusively for “outsiders who have no business in driving”, drivers told Al Jazeera, at least in part because of what some say is a troubling alliance between union leaders and state officials. One driver who identified himself as only Tunde said the top echelons of the union are people who are rewarded by politicians for their service.

The problems with the union have long been a point of national discussion. In Oyo, another state in southwest Nigeria, Governor Seyi Makinde banned NURTW “to maintain peace and tranquillity in the state in order to engender commercial and human development” following “alleged security breaches and factional clashes of the union member in some areas of Ibadan, the state capital”. Since then, the state government has taken control of the bus parks in Oyo.

Some analysts say the challenges in the transport industry are rooted in the evolution of Nigeria’s socioeconomic landscape, and that the steady rise in unemployment after the country’s gradual economic downturn in the 1980s led to the birth of the agbero phenomenon.

Agbero originally grew out of “area boys”, a slang term usually used to refer to loosely organised groups of teen street gangs. These young male residents of a particular area would casually lay claim to “ownership” of that location, extorting money from passersby and serving as informal security in the hope of some compensation. In later years, the area boys, who were already mostly unemployed, found refuge within the largely unregulated transports system, economists and public policy analysts have said. They have grown into the more sophisticated association known as agbero today.

Nigeria as a whole has no policy that guides the transport sector and in high population density cities like Lagos, with a rising scourge of unemployment and consistent migration from other states, the transport system has become a mine of quick, daily cash for young people without work.

According to Professor Gbadebo Odewumi, the dean of the school of transport at Lagos State University, the public transport system in Lagos has been infiltrated by unskilled, illiterate youths ready to do the bidding of well-known thugs at the helm of the union because the state government has refused to implement standard policy guides that have been drafted by various commissions.

“First of all, there is no policy framework. Sanity can only begin with policies. Without policies, nothing can work,” Odewumi told Al Jazeera. “That is why there is this level of extortion and violence. Do you know how much the government makes per day? There is serious money in transportation. I mean billions.”

Although not formally connected with the government, the union has become one of Lagos’s – and much of the southwest’s – social mainstays as they are a visible presence in the daily experience of millions of commuters.

A Premium Times report in 2019 said that most of the money being generated on the street is disbursed into the pockets of union leaders owing to the informal structure of the financial relations between the union and the government.

Al Jazeera approached some of the union leaders at Oshodi, a transport hub in the state, for their response to these and other claims, but they refused to comment.

“The union leaders just reap from the chaos of the system and enrich themselves,” Odewumi said.

“The relationship is parasitic; each component is taking advantage of the other with the drivers at the base. The government takes advantage of the union and uses them for what they want, like using them to challenge political opponents during elections; the union takes advantage of the drivers.”

‘You are at their mercy’

“As a driver, I am in the union because the union is for those who are transport workers like me,” said Muyideen*, a danfo driver and father-of-three who ferries passengers from motor parks in Mushin and Oshodi every day.

“What is sad is what the union has become.”

The 61-year-old has a diploma in business administration but began working as a driver in 2001 after he could not find a job in his field. Now he is on the road from 5.30am to 9pm every day. But his income, he said, averages just 5,000 nairas ($13) a day.

“I am a father of three grown children and I need to struggle to make sure they don’t end up with this kind of job,” Muyideen said. “They need to go to school and be well-off; this is not what I want for them. Not all drivers are illiterates as people think, I am a graduate but due to unemployment, I found myself in this job.”

He has grown weary of the shady, unaccounted charges he pays the union for every trip he makes. The charges are not official and could be invented at any time, he lamented. And his inability to challenge the exorbitant levies, he said, lies in the free rein the government has given the union leadership to operate public transport in Lagos state.

“The union is mainly for thugs and the government is not doing anything about it. Nothing is being done with the dues we pay, we just pay,” he said.

Muyideen starts out every morning paying a 1,700 nairas ($4.59) booking fee at the motor park, and the dues pile up from there. Although he can make about 700 nairas ($1.89) from a single trip at full capacity, before he is able to pocket the cash, between 200 and 300 nairas ($0.54-0.81) – almost half – go to the agberos.

“Once you are driving [in public transport] in Lagos, you are at their mercy. Drivers are silently suffering because most of the reward of our labour goes to them,” he said, pointing to a union official lounging on a bench on the other side of the road.

“And you cannot do anything. They can do whatever they want at any time,” he said, dejectedly, before looking around to see if it was his turn in the queue. “If you fight them, you will suffer for it. You will either be beaten or be sent away from the park.”

Informal transport sector

Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital, is the most populated state and also its smallest. Public transport accounts for 98 percent of the traffic in the state according to Professor Odewumi, but the system is “chaotic and terribly organised”, he explained.

Nigeria’s public road transport system is predominantly informal and that part of the sector is largely regulated by the NURTW. According to the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA), there are 75,000 minibuses in the state and 50,000 tricycles according to a 2020 report by Techcabal.

In 2008, the government tried to improve Lagos’s formal transport sector with the introduction of the Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) system. However, there are just 474 BRT buses available and they only work on main highways. The BRT system does little to meet the demands of the eight million commuters who use the road network in the metropolis daily.

BRT buses, with off-board ticket purchase, only have a capacity of 40 to 85 passengers and are usually more expensive than the minibuses. They use dedicated lanes on main highways so do not have the flexibility in routes of the minibuses.

That is why many passengers choose commercial shared transport like danfo or smaller tricycles that carry a driver and just two passengers.

Tricycles, popularly known as maruwa or keke, are used to navigate feeder routes and penetrate the inner crevices of the city by using the streets rather than main roads. Tricycle riders are also governed by NURTW and are subject to the same demands as danfo drivers, only they pay a cheaper toll as they carry fewer passengers.

A series of misfortunes

One morning in August when the lockdown had just been lifted, tricycle rider Yusuf Hassan decided to help two middle-aged women who could only afford to split a single passenger fare between them, by letting them share one seat. Locally, this is called lapping, where one passenger carries another on their lap – and Yusuf understood that it did not contravene regulations because even though there were three passengers, only two seats were occupied.

He was halfway through the trip when another tricycle with three policemen approached and stopped him. “Before I knew it, they were all over me. The three of them speaking at once, accusing me of disobeying the state government’s regulations.”

He said they ignored his explanations, seized his keys and pushed him out of the vehicle, taking it to their police station in Mushin.

“When I got to the station, they refused to attend to me, saying I had violated the law. It wasn’t until I involved a union executive … that they bothered to attend to me and they said I had to pay 10,000 naira [$27.02] before it could be released to me.”

The amount was reduced after a union representative negotiated on his behalf, and Yusuf finally paid 4,000 nairas ($10.81) to get his tricycle back, because it was all the money he had.

When asked if the union had helped him pay the fine, he shook his head. “Which union?” he smirked. “The executive was only there to talk to the policemen, to negotiate the bribe. His presence only helped reduce it.”

The police seize vehicles instead of arresting drivers for these offences, he said. “Why would they arrest you? They need the money, not you. So it is your bus or tricycle that will be driven to their station.”

This was the first of a series of “misfortunes” that Yusuf says has affected his business. In the middle of September, he misjudged a traffic signal which seemed to malfunction and moved ahead.

“All of a sudden, I noticed I was being chased with a motorcycle,” he said. It was a plain-clothes policeman, but instead of stopping, Yusuf sped off, and a chase ensued.

“I thought if he chased me for some minutes, he would let me go but we both kept going and going. And he was faster, being on a motorcycle. When I knew I did not stand a chance, I looked for a place where there were a lot of people by the roadside and parked the tricycle there.”

Yusuf beckoned passersby to help him, and some tried to reason with the officer, saying the young driver, who is in his 20s, was a relative of theirs. Finally, the policeman agreed not to arrest him, but called him aside and insisted on some money instead.

“He said I had to pay 15,000 naira ($40.54) for him not to take my tricycle.” Again, Yusuf was able to negotiate, eventually paying 3,000 nairas ($8.1) on the spot.

“Up till now, I can say I have not fully recovered because the series of arrests interrupted my plan and I can’t pay back the microfinance,” Yusuf explained, referring to the 970,000 nairas ($2,622) loan he had to take to buy his tricycle.

He pays back 17,000 nairas ($46) weekly. But more than a year later, he is yet to pay it off.

“There is no sense in working for the police because that is what it is,” he added about the fines and bribes.

Threats from law enforcement

Although most commercial drivers centralise at motor parks, there are some who choose not to, and instead, drive around the city looking for passengers. Although this reduces their dues to the union, it also has challenges, Afeez explained.

These drivers still pay the agberos who stop them along the way, and they are more at risk of getting unwanted attention from law enforcement. “They [police] don’t come into the parks to arrest drivers, only outside on the road,” he said, explaining that the parks offer drivers at least some protection.

Drivers complained about problems with law enforcement agencies like the Lagos State Traffic Management Agency (LASTMA), Vehicle Inspection Service (VIS), the police and the government’s Task Force.

The Lagos State Environmental Sanitation and Special Offenses (Task Force) was created in 1991 by military edict when Brigadier General Raji Rasaki was the military governor of Lagos state. Over time, the edict has been redesigned for various purposes which now includes arresting and prosecuting “violators of the provision of the Road Traffic Law 2012”. Among the drivers, the task force has become widely notorious for arbitrary arrests and huge bribes the officers demand.

“You want to talk about the task force? Where do you want to begin because there are a lot of things to say,” Afeez said, sitting in a leased danfo at the park in Iyana Isolo one rainy Tuesday. Despite his numerous encounters, one stands out because it cost him the most.

“It was the task force that made me lose my former bus,” he said, explaining that it was seized and he was arrested three times in the space of three weeks in August and September. He had to spend all his earnings extricating himself from either task force or LASTMA officials – as well as paying 8,000 nairas ($21.6) to get the bus back – which meant he was unable to make payments to the owner and lost the bus.

“We are often arrested because there are no designated bus stops along this route, so we usually use the roadside to drop and sometimes pick [up] passengers. But that is considered an offence,” Afeez explained, saying that officials were “very aggressive” and there was no way to talk to them about the charges.

“Sometimes they beat drivers; a lot of drivers who challenge them have been beaten,” he said.

Afeez started driving 10 years ago but has never owned a bus of his own. He has been on the streets fending for himself through odd jobs since he was a teenager, but managed to take out longer leases on buses in the past. Now, after losing the certainty that came with the previous bus, he rents vehicles on a day-to-day basis; on days he cannot find one, he does not get to work.

“I don’t have my own now, so I look out for friends who may not be driving on a particular day and use their bus to work. I pay them after work,” he said.

The last arrest left a mark on him. He is now afraid because he cannot afford to be arrested with a borrowed bus. He splayed his palm on the dashboard in resignation. “We work in fear; it is as though we are thieves. We are always on the lookout for task force, the police and LASTMA officials; you never can tell which one is around.”

Muyideen also fears law enforcement officials – even more than he does the union. When asked why, he said the fines they demand are far higher than what the union will collect if he is arrested.

Several drivers from different routes have also alleged that Task Force officers use agberos they personally employ as decoys, to make arrests. “They [Task Force officials] are government thugs,” Muyideen lamented.

“The enforcement agency is a hopeless thing. Who will enforce the law?” Professor Odewumi said. “Any laws made, rather than the enforcers looking to enforce them, they are looking to exploit them. Anytime in the day, 70 to 80 percent [of the enforcers] are on the road not enforcing anything but collecting money.”

Muyiwa Adejobi, a superintendent of police and the public relations officer for Lagos Police Command, responded to the allegations about “decoys” in a phone interview with Al Jazeera.

“Using decoy by the police force is not a problem. It is acceptable in the force. Not all personnel in the task force are police officers, there are also paramilitary personnel [that work in the task force],” Adejobi said.

“In fact, according to the law [Administration of Criminal Justice Act of Lagos], even individuals are permitted to arrest offenders; the only thing is you can’t detain the offenders.”

“Although, we have deviants within the police force … we have said it and we reiterate that we have zero tolerance for corruption. It takes two to tango … the drivers should stop giving bribes to the police officers. We have told them to identify the [erring] Task Force officers and report them to the [disciplinary] mechanism we have set up in the police force,” he added.

A history of violence

According to Odewumi, the union is loosely organised and populated by people who have a history of violence and, as a result, politicians have been able to utilise them as political tools for their own agendas.

Often, riots that have broken out in the ranks of the NURTW have caused widespread vandalism and the killing of innocent people. These riots are usually the result of an internal leadership tussle in the motor parks.

“They could be violent. Their number can unleash violence,” Odewumi said.

The union is registered under the National Labour Congress (NLC) and as such is subject to government oversight through the ministry of transport. While the relationship between the NURTW and the ministry is not entirely clear, the political links between politicians and top union leaders are known and usually manifest during elections.

“Agberos have become political. They can determine who becomes the commissioner or governor. During elections, who will be used to snatch ballot boxes and disrupt the electoral process?” Odewumi said. “They are now political tools, the instrument of winning elections. That is the problem.”

The commissioner for transport in Lagos State, Frederic Oladeinde, was contacted for a comment on this article, but he was unable to speak “due to the lack of clearance by the state’s Ministry of Information” for him to talk to the press at the time.

When Al Jazeera visited his office in Ikeja, Lagos, on August 31, 2020, an interview was not given due to the aforementioned reason. Subsequent calls and emails directed to the deputy director of public affairs at the ministry of transport were not acknowledged.

Strengthen the 98 percent

Numerous attempts have been made to modernise Lagos’s ailing public transport system over the years, including things like the imported, modernised BRT system. But the implications of this for public drivers and passengers are increased route restrictions and rising fares.

“It is laughable when you say you want to eradicate the carrier of the 98 percent. We should regularise and modernise the buses, rather spending the millions of dollars spent on psychedelic ones which make no impact,” Odewumi told Al Jazeera.

“With all those innovations, they are just impressing themselves. The idea is to phase out agbero and danfo drivers but it won’t work. The government should rather strengthen the carrier of 98 percent [buses and tricycles] and provide a framework for it to operate efficiently,” Odewumi added.

“The yellow [danfo] buses have higher frequency than the BRT, they are more flexible and move into routes that the large BRT cannot move into, they adapt with demands. The highly modernised buses have no taproot in our technology.”

Tricycle driver Yusuf used to work as a barber before he decided to venture into public driving. He thought it would help him make a better living.

One year after starting, he has changed his route due to the increasing charges demanded by the union and the police along his former route. Frustrated with the official rule changes made during the pandemic that greatly affected the transport business, he is considering changing jobs again.

“At the end of the day you check the money you have earned and you see it is nothing. You ask yourself if this is all I have worked for since daybreak,” Yusuf bemoaned.

“On days that I wake up late, I always decide not to go to work again. I must start working as early as 6:30am to meet up the demands of the union and earn something tangible for myself. If I start work by 8am, I can’t meet [targets] for the rest of the day.

“You pay the union in the morning, afternoon and evening … And sometimes you don’t even know the reason, you just pay.”

While the likes of Yusuf, Afeez and Muyideen work daily to eke out a meagre living for themselves and their families, union leaders live lavish lives. The income generated from the dues they collect cements their place among the socialites of Lagos.

“Almost all the money you make from this business leaves you in the end,” Muyideen said.

“You take a bus on hire purchase and pay back to the owner, you pay agebro, you pay the police and others, you buy petrol … repair the bus and – in the end – only little remains.”

* Names have been changed to protect the drivers’ identities.

By Ope Adetayo

Al Jazeera

Nigeria’s railway people: Life alongside a high-speed rail link

“From Rigasa, the next station is Kakau, then Dutse, then Rijana,” announces Ade, a train conductor with the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC). He is dressed in the company’s green and yellow and wears a reflective safety vest as the train departs from Rigasa station in Kaduna, northwestern Nigeria. Its final destination is the country’s capital, Abuja.

Rigasa, a densely populated urban slum, is the site of the main rail terminus along the 186km (115.6 miles) Kaduna-Abuja railway line.


The Chinese-built train has a sparkling white and cerulean interior and features 10 neat, air-conditioned carriages with comfortable seats made of plastic draped in green cotton coverlets. The train, quiet and serene, carries only half its capacity of about 1,000 passengers amid precautionary social distancing measures to curtail the spread of COVID-19. It is a contrast to the overbooked trains, with passengers squeezed into the aisles, that existed before the pandemic.

“Three stops, then you alight at Rijana,” Ade repeats a little later on in the journey as he moves across the aisle checking passengers’ tickets, punching two holes in each. “The train only stops briefly at every station. It does not wait for long,” he warns us.
 

An economic invigoration?

Poor transport infrastructure has long been a big hindrance to economic development in Nigeria. This railway line, opened by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2016, is the first of the country’s standard gauge railway modernisation projects, accommodating high-speed rail lines. It is part of an attempt to reinvigorate Africa’s largest economy as railways make a comeback after decades of neglect.

The British colonial government completed Nigeria’s first rail infrastructure more than 100 years ago to aid the movement of agricultural goods from the northern region to the ports in the south. The service began to decline in the 1970s due to a fall in agricultural exports, mismanagement and government neglect. By 2009, the number of annual passenger rail trips in Nigeria had fallen from its 1963 heyday of 11 million to just one million.

The new standard gauge line – the most widely-used railway track around the world for high-speed trains – connects Abuja with the former colonial capital of northern Nigeria, Kaduna, as part of the $1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) unveiled by China in 2013. Nigeria’s 200 million-strong population serves as a ready market for Chinese exports and technology. It is also a lucrative access point into West Africa and the rest of the continent for Chinese exporters.

Matthew T Page, associate fellow of the Africa Programme at Chatham House, the international affairs think-tank based in London, explains that China’s strategic interest in Nigeria is important for the African country’s status as an emerging global power, with huge unmet demand for infrastructure projects.

“It’s a very natural connection,” he says. “Rail projects financed by low-interest Chinese loans allow the Chinese entrepreneurial class in the diaspora to establish themselves in Nigeria, Africa’s largest consumer market where there is a huge demand for Chinese exports. For the Nigerian government, the cost of building and refurbishing the rail would be an extremely large expense.”

The Kaduna railway line began operating in July 2016 with the aim of enabling faster movement of goods and people, easing road traffic congestion and promoting the economic development of towns along the route.

At the opening ceremony of the railway with its nine new stations, President Buhari announced that the service would provide a much-needed alternative transport link between the two cities. The main terminus at Idu Station in Abuja is a large grey building. The substations along the line are similar, albeit smaller, cream-coloured buildings.

But while the railway recorded about one million passengers in its first two years of operation, it has not produced the economic invigoration that the communities hosting the substations hoped for. Residents say the cost of train tickets is prohibitive and the substations are difficult to access.
 

Confusion

After a 40-minute ride from Rigasa through landscapes of lush green savannah, the train arrives at Rijana station, an agrarian and grazing village along the expressway road.

As the doors of the train open, the photographer and I jump out and find ourselves not on a platform, but right in the middle of two tracks, sandwiched between two locomotives, one racing towards Kaduna and another – the one from which we have just alighted – towards Abuja. The sound of the trains – which reach speeds of more than 100km/h (62mph) – is deafening.

At the entrance to Rijana station, a scowling station manager flanked by four other members of staff, three men and a woman, enquires about why we have stopped at the station. He looks to be in his 50s and is dressed in a flowing blue kaftan and traditional blue cap. He is dismissive of our pleasantries.

“Did you buy a ticket for Rijana?” he asks. “If you bought a ticket for Abuja then why are you dropping here?” We explain that we need to stop at the substations between Kaduna and Abuja and ask to buy a ticket from Rijana to the next station at Jere, a journey of about 40 minutes.

There are just four return train trips a day from Kaduna to Abuja. Passengers can only buy one-way, single-use tickets up to two hours before departure from Kaduna, with the date and details of the departure and arrival stations imprinted on them. Passengers making multiple stops along the line have not been anticipated.

The station manager informs us that passengers can only buy tickets physically at departing stations and that the substations no longer sell them. He cannot explain the rationale for this, but says it is a directive from the Nigerian Railway Corporation. He suggests we hail a commercial taxi driving from Kaduna to Abuja on the expressway and get out at Jere, which is just less than an hour away by road.

Our attempts to telephone the NRC via the contact numbers displayed on its website – for help with buying a new ticket – prove futile as both go unanswered.

The station at Rijana consists of a single trackside platform and a modern station building; its red roof standing out against the backdrop of surrounding farmland. Inside, there is a barricaded ticket sales area, a sparse waiting room and some office spaces. From the station, it is a 15-minute walk along a footpath through bushes and farmland to the main expressway that leads into Rijana town.
 

Bandits and kidnappers

Rijana has become infamous as a hub for banditry and ransom kidnappings, both of which have become rampant on the Kaduna-Abuja highway and across other parts of northern Nigeria. At its peak in November 2019, almost 10 kidnappings a day were taking place on this stretch of highway alone, according to the commander of the Nigerian police Intelligence Response Squad (IRT), Abba Kyari.

Thick rows of trees serve as a cover for the armed gangs that pounce, brandishing firearms, on unsuspecting road travellers, pulling them from their vehicles.

They abduct both rich and poor, demanding ransoms of between $1,000 and $150,000, depending on the wealth of the victims and their families. About $11m was extorted in this way between January 2016 and March 2020. Commuters between Kaduna and Abuja have resorted to using the train to avoid the risk of kidnapping, however not everyone can afford the train fare and with so few trains running, many travellers have no option but to risk the road.

Just a few days before our journey, the Nigerian Air Force claimed an air attack had killed several armed bandits in the forests surrounding Rijana.

At a minimarket on the Abuja-Kaduna expressway, a 20-minute walk from Rijana station, we meet 45-year-old shopkeeper Ali Abubakar, who is dressed in a blue kaftan with a matching cap. He is selling soft drinks, foodstuff and household items in his store, which can hold only three people at a time.

I buy a can of malt drink and sit with him on a wooden bench outside the shop. He tells me that he believes the seven identical substations located in towns and villages between Kaduna and Abuja are too far from the towns and that the train fare is too high to serve as a proper alternative to road transport for village dwellers and traders like him.

“If it is meant for the towns and villages with the substations then it should not be this expensive,” he says. Abubakar travels to Kaduna by road at least once a week for business, a distance of less than 60km (37 miles), at a cost of about 300 naira ($0.78) for a commercial bus ride.
 

Locals priced out

When the Abuja-Kaduna rail service commenced operations, economy class tickets cost 600 naira (about $1.50), while the VIP coaches cost 900 naira ($2.35). The first-class coaches have a bar within, extra legroom and a table for each rider for eating or reading.

In April 2020, the federal government suspended commercial services because of the pandemic. But operations resumed four months later in July, with an increase in fares approved by President Buhari. Now an economy class ticket between Kaduna and Abuja costs 3,000 naira ($8), while the VIP ticket costs 6,000 naira ($16). By contrast, travelling by road using commercial taxis or buses costs about 1,500 naira ($4). Almost half the population of Nigeria live in poverty, earning less than $1 per day.

“With the current kidnappings happening every day on this road, it is only the rich that can afford the safety of the train,” says Abubakar.

“But for someone like me, I cannot afford the train so I have to follow the road and hope my luck doesn’t run out. When you are unlucky and they [the kidnappers] get you, your family has to source money for your ransom, and if they do not meet the deadline, nobody hears from you again,” he adds.

“Some of my own friends and neighbours have disappeared due to this situation. The ransoms could not be paid and they never came back.”

Fifty-seven-year-old market trader Kabiru Salisu wears a flowing multi-patterned kaftan. For more than 40 years, he has been selling sugarcane that he grows on a small farm in Rijana. He has never been to the train station that is less than 15 minutes from his farm since it opened in 2016.

“I do not earn anything there. I do not benefit at all from there. What will take me there?” he asks, offering us sticks of sugarcane. “In my whole life I have never set foot in Abuja, so what do I need the train for?”
 

The commuters

But, for those who can afford it, the train offers a safer way to travel between the two cities.

Most of the travellers are civil servants who work in Abuja, but due to the high cost of rent in the capital, commute in from Kaduna where housing is cheaper. These weekly commuters between Kaduna and Abuja are the main targets of the bandits and kidnappers.

Before the onset of the pandemic and the introduction of social distancing measures, passengers bought standing tickets after seats filled up for the two-hour train journey, for the same price as a seat. They leant on chairs or squeezed into aisle spaces, making the trains overcrowded and frequently increasing train capacity from its 1,000 seats to nearly 4,000 passengers each time.

When we started our journey in Kaduna, we met Maryam Ahmad. The 22-year-old works for a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Kaduna and uses the train service to visit her sister in Abuja on weekends. As she relaxes into her seat, she whips out her phone to take selfies and record videos with the cream-coloured interior of the train carriage in the background. She will post them on Instagram, where she has thousands of followers. It is a popular pursuit with many young travellers who document their train travel experience on their social media accounts.

“The train is the safest option right now, but the commotion of getting a ticket can be stressful,” she says as the train starts to move and she changes position to take another selfie. There is no e-ticketing facility, so you have to physically buy tickets. Furthermore, some passengers have accused train officials of hoarding tickets and selling them just before the train departs at inflated prices.

“Also getting to the train station in Rigasa is difficult. It is quite far from the centre of Kaduna town,” she says. “If the road was safer, I would have travelled by taxi to Abuja, it is much easier and stress-free. It is fun travelling by train but the car parks are more accessible than the train station, both in Kaduna and Abuja.”

For another passenger, Nafisa Abubakar, a 27-year-old entrepreneur and resident of Abuja, the cost of the tickets is also a concern. “I always board the VIP section for my round trip when travelling on the train, but I can’t afford to do that any more, it is too expensive,” she says. “So I have had to sacrifice the comfort of the VIP section for the economy class because following the road is not an option for me. It is better to pay 3,000 naira on the train than follow the road and be kidnapped.”
 

A ticket home

On the other side of the Kaduna-Abuja expressway at Rijana, we hail a Volkswagen van heading towards Abuja. There are seven other passengers cramped inside the vehicle. It costs 400 naira ($1) for a drop off at Jere, a distance of about 50km (31 miles) and the next town with a train station after Rijana.

At Jere, a group of commercial motorcycle riders waits by the side of the expressway for passengers getting off the bus. One takes us through the hills and farmland to the railway station, a journey of 10 minutes.

It is the peak of the rainy season and the road to the train station at Jere is waterlogged and inaccessible for vehicles larger than our motorbike. There is no sign of passengers waiting at the station; the only people here are the maize farmers tilling their nearby farmlands.

Unlike the station manager at Rijana, the official at Jere tells us that the Kaduna-bound train from Abuja can pick us up from Jere station for 1,100 naira ($2.9). There is no explanation as to why the situation is different here and the tickets he gives us are official NRC tickets with “departure from: Jere” and “destination: Rigasa” imprinted on them. It will be the last train of the day, after which the station will close, so we decide to return to Kaduna.
 

Few economic benefits

When the Kaduna-Abuja rail link was completed in 2016, there was a buzz of anticipation amid hopes it would have a positive knock-on effect on the economies of satellite towns like Rijana and Jere.

Tolu Ogunlesi, the special assistant to Nigeria’s president on digital and new media, blogged earlier this year about how the rail projects would “open up” towns and cities.

Abdulaziz Halliru, a father of two in his 30s, lives in a new apartment 10 minutes from the Jere substation. He works as an estate agent and rears goats and sheep on the side.

Halliru, who wears a pink Juventus shirt and grey tracksuit, says he has never used the train due to its limited schedule. But he still hopes it could bring positive economic developments to his town, especially in real estate.

“The station here can serve as a train junction for travellers from the southern part of Kaduna and Niger State, and, if properly utilised, can turn Jere into an economic hub,” he says. “I am really happy the rail line passes through this town.”

When we board the train at Jere to head back to Kaduna, we cannot find seats as all of the coaches have been filled to half capacity and the other seats must remain empty due to social distancing protocols. Alternate seats are marked off with red masking tape, and the train conductors ensure passengers do not sit in them.

We squeeze into space at the end of the train between the luggage racks and the toilets and remain there for the hour-long journey to Rigasa station, the final stop in Kaduna.

Two ticket officers on the train have taken pictures of the tickets we bought at Jere – surprised that we were able to buy them. They repeat what the staff at Rijana told us – that the substations do not sell tickets.

Later on, when I am able to talk to someone from the NRC, I am told that tickets are no longer supposed to be sold at the substations – due to a lack of demand – but that the Jere station manager may not have received this message yet due to a “problem with communication”.
 

‘I would rather walk’

Arriving back at Rigasa train station, we are welcomed by the sight of fast-food joints, hawkers selling face masks, groundnuts, soft drinks and phone chargers, among other things. It is a stark contrast to the empty substations we visited on our journey.
To avoid the infamous kidnapping gangs on the Kaduna-Abuja road, thousands of travellers arrive at Rigasa every day to board the train to Abuja. As a result, businesses in Rigasa are booming, with a new shopping mall opposite the station and real estate investors developing new properties.

The state government has also built a new dual-carriageway road to connect the train station with Kaduna city centre in an effort to make it easier to reach the station.

Sixteen-year-old Haruna Salisu works as a payments collector in one of the numerous private car parks near the station. Passengers travelling to Abuja can leave their cars here to be watched over for 500 naira ($1.3) a day. There are more than 50 cars parked there when we arrive and Salisu explains how he now makes enough money not to have to ask his parents for any.

Despite this, the train ride from Kaduna to Abuja is nothing more than a dream for a local like him. “I would rather walk to Abuja than pay 6,000 naira [$16] for a ticket,” he says as he directs a driver out of the open-air car park.

As the sun begins to recede into the Rigasa skyline, the fourth and final train of the day to Abuja gets ready to depart. On a bridge above the tracks, children run to get a glimpse of it.

Fourteen-year-old Aisha Badamasi, who sells corn by the side of the road, dashes across the bridge to wave the train goodbye.

“I don’t know where Abuja is, but I know that is where the train goes,” she says. “Maybe one day I can take the train too and see the city where President Buhari is living. Maybe,” she giggles shyly, as the train disappears from view.

By Sada Malumfashi

Al Jazeera

Nigeria receives largest container vessel in history

The reforms in the nation’s port system is yielding results as the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) successfully berth the biggest container vessel to ever call at any Nigerian port.

The Maerskline Stardelhorn vessel with length overall of 300 metres, width of 48 metres was received at the Federal Ocean Terminal (FOT), Onne in Rivers State at 1620 hours on Saturday, August 15, 2020.

General Manager, Corporate and Strategic Communications, NPA, Jatto Adams, said the vessel, which has a capacity of 9,971(TEUs) is a flagship from Singapore.

The vessel, which was brought in from Fairway Bouy Bonny with the aid of three tugboats operated by three of NPA pilots was received by the Ports Manager of Onne Ports, Alhasssan Abubakar.

Adams said NPA is delighted to state that the landmark arrival of the biggest gearless Maerskline vessel at the Onne Ports is a result of management’s determination to improve the patronage of the Eastern Ports.

“It is an indication of the fact that the Eastern Ports are equipped to receive all manner of vessels and an expansion of the options of consignees in the Eastern and northern parts of the country,” he said.

Adams said the management of NPA congratulates its team at the Onne Ports and appreciates all stakeholders at the port for their cooperation towards seeing that the vessel berthed safely without any challenge.

He however assured of the authority’s commitment to ensuring that all ports locations in Nigeria work at their optimal capacity and the repositioning of Nigerian ports as the hub in the sub-region.

By Sulaimon Salau

The Guardian

Lagos to ban motorbike taxis

Nigeria’s biggest city has partially banned the use of motorcycle taxis following an escalating number of fatal accidents, dealing a blow to Softbank Group Corp.-backed OPay and a potential boost to Uber Technologies Inc.

The Lagos State Government cracked down on the popular way to dodge traffic congestion in the commercial capital of Africa’s most populous country, calling the bikes and their three-wheel equivalents a “menace” that are responsible for “scary figures” regarding loss of lives. Drivers ignore traffic laws and allow criminals to use the ride-hailing services as getaway vehicles, Gbenga Omotoso, commissioner for information and strategy, said in an emailed statement.

Between 2016 and 2019, “the total number of deaths from reported cases is over 600,” Omotoso said. “The only motorcycles allowed are the ones used for the delivery of mail services,” he added by phone.

The ruling is a setback for OPay, which is based in Oslo and has shareholders including Softbank and China’s Meituan Dianping. The mobile-payments company started its ORide service in Lagos in June, before raising $120 million later in the year to expand its various online services in countries such as Ghana, South Africa and Kenya. Meanwhile Uber -- which has operated in Nigeria for more than five years -- may lose a fierce rival.

A spokesman for OPay declined to comment. Max.ng, a rival motorbike-taxi operator backed by investors including Yamaha Motor Co. Ltd. of Japan, said the company would contact the state government about how the ban will work.

“The concern for us is how this will be implemented, because we don’t want people getting hurt,” Co-Founder Chinedu Azodoh said by phone. “We are engaging with the government.”

Lagos has one of the highest car densities in the world, with about 200 per kilometer, leading to notorious traffic problems. Its vast and underutilized waterways are seen as a viable alternative to relieve pressure on the roads, and Uber started to experiment with boats last year.

Bloomberg

The fast and furious motorcycle taxis in Nigeria

 It is a few minutes after noon, and Abimbola Thomas needs to get to work. He is only 10km (6.213 miles) away from his office. At any other time of the day, this would have been a 10-minute journey, but not during Lagos lunch-hour traffic. If Thomas gets in a car, this trip could take him up to 120 minutes. To save time, Thomas hops on the back seat of one of the dozens of motorcycle taxis that are waiting for customers at stalls and shops downtown. He puts his arms around the driver's waist, and the pair speed off.

While the Lagos State government does not officially promote motorbike taxis, growing demand for ways to reduce maddeningly long commute times is making an increasing number of people jump on the backs of two-wheeled taxis in Nigeria.

Tech companies are now trying to make it easier for riders like Thomas to link up with motorcycle taxis no matter where these urban passengers may be. Last year, several ride-hailing applications designed to connect riders with motorcycle taxis were launched. One is called the Gokada app.

'Okadas': controversy on Lagos' roads

Residents in Lagos call these two-wheeled taxis "okadas", because they are so much faster than cars. Okada is the name of Nigeria's first private commercial airline, Okada Air.

Motorcycle taxis first showed up in the country's commercial capital in the late 1990s.

During those early years, okadas got a bad reputation because of reckless operators and gruesome accidents. Back then, the number of broken bones and bloody limbs grew so fast that local media nicknamed a section of the National Orthopaedic Hospital Igbobi the "okada ward".

Today, riding okadas is a little safer because Lagos State restricts them to certain inner streets.

Ride-hailing in Africa

Uber debuted in West Africa five years ago. Since then, there have been several less-than-remarkable local efforts to duplicate the company's success in the United States. The standout appears to be ride-hailing apps for motorcycles because they are responding to Nigeria's unique market needs: They can zip through stalled traffic.

Users download an app and request rides on their smartphones, and branded motorcycles show up on demand. As an added feature, users can also hail branded bikes on the street. Since Gokada launched, three other motorcycle-hailing startups have debuted in Nigeria: Max, SafeBoda, and Oride.

Gokada boasts over 1,000 riders. Max, founded by two alumni of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US, says it has over 1,000 motorcyclists.

Anticipating billion-dollar market growth, investors have thrown millions of dollars at these startups. Rise Capital and a consortium of local funders invested $5.3m in Gokada. The company plans to use the money, in part, to open a state-of-the-art driver-training school to verify up to 500 operators at a time, thereby increasing daily rides tenfold.

Operating in a grey area

Fahim Saleh, the cofounder and co-CEO of Gokada, admits his company exists in a grey area legally.

He says his team has exploited a Nigerian stipulation that says bikes with an engine capacity of greater than 200 cubic centimetres can travel on all major roads and highways. Some of Gokada's bikes have been seized by government officials for other infractions, but the service continues to grow. "They said if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere," Saleh smiles, dismissing life in Manhattan. "I've lived in New York. If you can make it in Nigeria, you can [really] make it anywhere!"

"A futuristic tech-enabled Lagos can have motorcycle taxis," he explains, citing examples in East Asia such as Go-Jek in Indonesia and Grab in Thailand. "Gokada is not only making incremental improvements, [but] we are going leaps and bounds to ensure our drivers are safe including weekly training, adequate safety gear, tech-enabled driver-behaviour tracking, intensive pre-screening, rapid-response in-house medics, and more. We really do care about our drivers and our customers."

Salleh's concern is warranted; 747 motorcycles were involved in road accidents during the fourth quarter of 2018, according to Nigeria's Bureau of Statistics. That's more than one out of every five accidents.

The cost of going slow

People in Lagos call traffic bottlenecks go-slows. Most residents spend more than two hours in traffic every workday. The cost of going slow is massive. According to one former Lagos State governor, every year, go-slows rob the city's economy of 42 billon naira ($11.6m) of economic output.

To understand why, consider the geography of Lagos. With a landmass of about 3,600 square kilometres, it is Nigeria's smallest state. However, more than 18 million people live in the city of Lagos. Five million registered vehicles - 200 vehicles per kilometre - cram onto the city's 9,100 roads and expressways each day.

Just get me to work

On his part, Abimbola Thomas, our harried commuter, was now used to the adrenaline rush of motorcycle taxi rides. He tapped an app on his smartphone and hailed a two-wheeler. It arrived within minutes and took him to his office on time. "Bikes are much more convenient as a form of transportation in Lagos," he called out as he sped off.

By Kayode Ogunbunmi

Al Jazeera

Video - West Africa's first light railway system launched in Abuja, Nigeria

The first light railway system in West Africa has been launched in the Nigerian capital, Abuja. The 8-hundred million dollar project is the first phase of a grand plan to build a comprehensive metro railway system to boost public transport in Abuja.

Uber drivers in Lagos, Nigeria using fake GPS app to inflate fares

Some Uber drivers in Lagos have been using a fake GPS itinerary app to illicitly bump up fares for local riders.

Initially created for developers to “test geofencing-based apps,” Lockito, an Android app that lets your phone follow a fake GPS itinerary, is being used by Uber drivers in Lagos to inflate the cost of their trips.

In some cases, inflated trips can cost riders more than double the rate they should be paying. “It’s more like a parasite,” says Mohammed, a driver for both Uber and Taxify in Lagos. “It sets the false GPS movement while allowing the phone also to keep track of its actual movement. The Uber app can’t tell the difference between both so it just calculates both.”

When a driver uses Lockito for an Uber trip he or she can have the fake GPS running (and calculating a fake fare) from the pickup point to the drop off location, before the passenger has even got into the car. When the real trip starts, the real GPS starts running and calculating the actual fare. But at the end of the journey the fares from both trips (real and fake) are tallied up as one fare which the unsuspecting rider pays.

Uber Nigeria is aware of the abuse of Lockito by certain drivers. Spokeswoman Francesca Uriri, said it is in violation of Uber’s guidelines and the company is “constantly on the lookout for fraud by drivers and riders who are gaming our systems.”

The drivers Quartz spoke with said Lockito or “Locki”, is simply a reaction to Uber’s 40% slash of its base fare implemented in May. Many drivers were unhappy about the price drop and there were a series of protests which had little impact.

Williams*, an Uber driver who asked his real name not to be used, says he heard about Lockito a while ago but initially had no interest in using it. “Uber was sweet, until they slashed the price,” he says. “They did not bring back their price up, so the work started getting tough and tougher.”

“When the thing was just getting tougher, I had no choice but to go on Lockito.”

He claims he uses the app four to five times a week, but has specific targets and does not use it on just anyone.

Williams says the main reason he uses the app is to ensure he can meet his weekly payments to his Uber partner [the owner of the car], a situation he says many other drivers are in. Most ridesharing drivers in Nigeria do not own their cars, instead they partner with car owners and pay them a weekly fee, which according to Williams has become harder to meet as a result of the base fare slash.

Despite coming out of recession in September, the economic situation is still tough in Nigeria, which is still struggling to bounce back from the global drop in oil prices. A recent report from the World Poverty Clock predicts that by February 2018 Nigeria will overtake India and become the country with the most people living in extreme poverty. Food prices are still high although inflation has dropped and many Nigerians still lack access to basic amenities. Unemployment and underemployment are rife, leading some Nigerians to cut corners to make things work.

In recent weeks, two Uber drivers representing other drivers on the platform have started a class action suit in Nigeria’s economic hub arguing that they should receive employee benefits from Uber.

“There are a lot of drivers on Locki, every driver on Uber is on Locki,” Williams says. “The only ones that are different is the new drivers…and they’re still coming to us to teach them Locki.”

Some drivers use Lockito to inflate fares by adding 1000 naira to 2000 naira extra (roughly $3 to $6) but some drivers are believed to inflate fares to exorbitant levels.

A trip from Lekki, a neighbourhood in Lagos, to Murtala Muhammad International airport is roughly 32 kilometers and would normally cost just under 3,000 naira ($8). Williams says he recently heard of a Lockito trip that cost more than 5 times that amount.

Williams’ highest Lockito ride so far is 10,000 naira, (the trip normally would have cost the rider N3,000), and although he has expressed guilt over using the app he remains adamant that an increase of the base fare is the only way to stop it being used, a sentiment shared by other drivers.

“If you block that same Lockito today, another one will come out,” says Uchenna*, a partner and driver on Uber who claims not to use Lockito. “If that base fare is normal [and] everybody’s receiving their incentive on a normal level, that thing [Lockito] will go off. They want to get the normal, accurate price that Uber were before.”

“Lockito or no Lockito,” adds another driver who asked not to be named, “if Uber want the Lockito not to exist, that means they have to come back to the base fare.”

Perhaps most surprisingly, drivers accuse Uber of not only knowing about app, but purposely not doing anything about it because they still want to maximize their profits.

“If you’re using Lockito [with] Uber [it] will tell you “fake location detected”…they will tell you [the driver],” says Williams. “Sometimes when I run it [Lockito], Uber will tell me, “your map of your location…is fake,” you’ll now click OK…and still yet, I take my money…”

Uber denies these allegations. “Uber has automated rules in place that warns and permanently deactivates any account or accounts associated with fraudulent activity,” Uriri says. “Uber encourages both riders and driver-partners to rate their journey at the end of the trip. Honest feedback helps ensure that everyone is accountable for their behavior.”

Uber says all riders that report fraudulent activity will be refunded. But Uriri adds that the use of the Lockito will not impact Uber’s pricing policy.

Taxify, one of Uber’s biggest rivals in Nigeria, has been blocking drivers that try to use Lockito.

“You can’t do that anymore on Taxify, they were doing it before on Taxify but then Taxify made drivers update the app, once you update your app, you can’t use Lockito anymore,” says Williams.

Despite issues with the base fare, Uber’s brand stays strong in Nigeria and drivers want the company to remain, but only if the system changes. This is important as competition increases from newcomers including local e-hailing apps like Motionplus and Alpha One, some of which are offering to pay fuel for drivers.

“I pray Uber should learn from now,” says Williams. “This is Nigeria, not abroad, the more things are getting worse, the more drivers are planning things.”

Quartz

Video - Operations at Nigeria's main sea port almost grounded to a halt

For over two months now operations at Nigeria's main sea port in Lagos have almost grounded to a halt. The roads leading to the port are in bad shape and reconstruction work has been slow. Lines of trucks and tankers trying to access the port now stretch back to over 10 kilometers, making it virtually impossible to drive around the port area. The situation is now taking a serious toll on exporters of agriculture products.

Video - Nigeria to roll out bicycles to help decongest traffic

The Nigerian government is set to introduce bicycles as a major mode of transport - to decongest traffic. Nigeria's capital city, Abuja will be a model city for the project.