Traders lament losses to road accident as Bauchi records lowest bus journeys in May

Some traders in food items from northern Nigeria are counting their losses after a trailer conveying farm produce from the area to the southern part of the country had a head-on collision with a Toyota Camry car along Lokoja expressway.

The incident, which occurred in the early hours of Sunday, was reportedly caused by a deep pothole, which the truck driver had attempted to avoid. According to an eyewitness, “at about 2:00a.m. when I got to the scene, the car driver who sustained severe injuries had been rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment.”

He lamented the poor state of road network across major cities in the country as a setback for farmers, who lose millions of naira in destroyed farm produce.

Meanwhile, it took security agents about three hours to resolve the traffic snarl as a result of the accident. Some of the commuters lamented that the journey from Bauchi to Lagos, which shouldn’t take more than 17 hours, was lasting over 24 hours due to the state of the roads. They called on the federal and state government to put priorities on revamping the roads to lift the economy and abate increasing road accidents.

Ahmad Ibrahim, a potato dealer, whose goods were destroyed, was seen writhing on the floor as a result of his loss. Others too were wearing forlorn faces as they count their losses.

Also, a diesel tanker fell down along the Abuja-Kaduna expressway and gutted fire on the road that link Jos to Kafanshan, in southern Kaduna.

Meanwhile, the state with the lowest bus fares intra-city and intercity for May 2018 was Bauchi at the average rate of N87.92 (within the city) and N1,064 (Intercity), the National Bureau of Statistics has said.

The bureau disclosed this in a recent report published on its website titled ‘Transport Fare Watch’, which covered bus journeys within the city per drop, constant route; bus journeys intercity, state route, charge per person; air fare charge for specified routes single journey; journey by motorcycle (Okada) per drop; and water way passenger transport.

The average fare paid nationwide by commuters for bus journeys within the city increased by 0.53 per cent to N166.85 in May from the N165.94 recorded in April. When compared to the previous year, the bus journey fare increased by 32.71 per cent.