Many Nigerians desiring to spend their Christmas and New Year holidays away from the hustling and bustling atmosphere in popular urban cities of Lagos and Abuja, to enjoy the serenity in their country homes, are currently paying through their noses to get to their holiday destinations.
This was as the transportation fare to states in the South-Eastern part of country, either by road or air, from Lagos or Abuja, has more than doubled due to the growing number of passengers intending to travel at same time.
In Nigeria, Christmas and New Year celebrations are usually a time when immediate and extended family members residing in different states in the country and those in the Diaspora mark reunion by coming together to spend the holidays.
During those few days, there are usually no dull moments as people engage in several social activities that include cultural activities, weddings, birthdays, thanksgivings, mass return, carols, carnivals and other forms of partying.
BDSUNDAY investigation shows that popular transport companies like Young Shall Grow, GUO and Libra Motors and others, are currently charging passengers fare as high N11,700 to N12,000 and N9,500 to N10,000 respectively for passengers paying for tickets across the counter and those buying tickets online.
It was also discovered that passengers travelling with Libra Motors by road pay between N9,700 to N11,700 while GUO Motors charge between N10,000 to N12,000 to go to Aba, Umuahia, Onitsha, Enugu and Owerri for a journey that formerly cost between N4,500 to N6,500 before the yuletide season.
Also, the cost of travelling by air could be left to people’s imagination as it presently costs between N51,500 to as much as N79,000 to travel to Asaba and Owerri by air as Enugu Airport is presently shutdown by Federal Government for repairs.
For instance, Air Peace has completely sold out the tickets and seats for almost all the flights from Lagos to Owerri between 19 to 24 December and 26 to 28 December while tickets for flights leaving Lagos to Owerri on 25 and 28 December still sell for as high as N51,500 to N79,000 for one-way route.
Meanwhile, Lagos outbound flights to Asaba, from 19 to 29 December were completely sold out except for flight scheduled for 20 December, which sells as much as N51,500 per ticket.
On the other hand, air tickets to less-busy routes or destinations such as Lagos to Abuja cost between N29,900 to N33,000 while Lagos to Port Harcourt, Calabar and Uyo still sells between N35,700 to N79,000.
“I had a meeting in Owerri on Wednesday 19 December, and I was forced to go by road at the cost of N9,700. That was because I booked and paid using the Mobile App of the transport company. Other passengers that paid over the counter, were charged as high as N11,700,” said a traveller, who gave his name as Sunday Anyanwu.
Anyanwu, who told BDSUNDAY that his initial plan was to fly to Owerri but was scared away by the exorbitant cost of air ticket which stood at N79,000 for one-way ticket.
However, he said: “I was able to fly back to Lagos on Friday 21 December because it was cheap to return to Lagos. Ticket was bought for as low as N20,700. This was because not too many people want to come to Lagos this Christmas period. The traffic is outbound of Lagos and not inbound Lagos.”
Chukwudi Ezeh, a middle-aged man told BDSUNDAY that he paid the sum of N12,000 each for his family members to travel to Enugu using GUO Motors on Wednesday 18 December.
Ezeh, who stated that he would be travelling to Enugu on the 23 December, said he has set aside about N15,000 as transportation fare in order to cater for any amount that the transport companies would be charging as fare on that day.
“Though, things are very difficult because the economy is tough for many Nigerians, people are really spending huge sum of money just to enjoy their Xmas and New Year holidays in their country homes,” Ezeh said.
The truth, he pointed out, was that any year that my family and I want to travel to our country home for Xmas holidays, we usually start from the month of June that year to save for heavy spending during the festive season.
Another intending traveller, who gave her name as Doris Eneh, believed that the transportation fare would go as high as N20,000 per one-way ticket.
According to her, Nigerians, especially Igbos, are always ready to pay the price in order to visit their country homes during Christmas seasons, following the engagements such as kindred meetings and wedding ceremonies that usually take place during the yuletide.
On why many people show apathy to travelling at nights, Ezeh told BDSUNDAY that very few persons are still travelling at night using the luxury buses to avoid the long traffic congestion that happens during the day on the highways, which ends up making people’s journey less attractive but very cumbersome.
“Night journeys on Nigerian roads are usually very risky for travellers because the last time I joined night bus, we experienced a very ugly attack by armed robbers along Shagamu-Ijebu Ode axis of Lagos-Ore Expressway. They collected almost all our valuable belongings including monies, phones and other things. The worse of it all was not that we lost our belongings, but the trauma that passengers went through in the hands of these wicked robbers, was unimaginable,” he narrated.
According to him, about four passengers on the bus that night was killed in cold blood by the robbers for having no money in their possessions while several married women and single ladies were taken to the bush and raped after being beaten badly by the robbers.
“It was about 10 minutes after those robbers have finished their exploitations and left us to our fate that the police on patrol arrived the scene of the crime and called for help from the Shagamu police station. Several police officers invaded the crime scene but none of us knew the outcome of that,” Ezeh narrated.
Since then, he said, I vowed not to join night buses again irrespective of the fare. “If I cannot afford to pay for the fare of morning buses, I will not border myself making the trip.”
AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE
