Whether you do your travel by day or by night from Lagos to other parts of the country, the police have said that your safety is guaranteed. The police assured all travellers in the state of adequate protection, regardless of time of day.
However, from the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), it is a note of caution. The corps holds that inasmuch as its activities do not extend to nighttime, its responsibility to travellers at that period of the day is out of the question.
At the approach of every Christmas and New Year, people tend to become wild about the rate at which they go from place to place, especially by road. The eagerness to travel during this period almost certainly stems from increased business activities as people look forward excitedly to Yuletide pleasure and merrymaking. However, this increased traffic is not recorded during the daytime alone. A good number of people have preference for night travel, too – for personal reasons that range from the reasonable to the ridiculous.
The Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Olarinde Famous-Cole, spoke with Saturday Tribune on security arrangement for night travellers in the state. He said the Commissioner of Police, Imohimi Edgal, had not only increased police presence but had also created pin-down points in all divisions and area commands. “Anybody travelling in Lagos in the night is assured of his or her safety. We have increased police presence in the day and in the night. The commissioner has also created no fewer than four pin-down points in all the divisions and area commands in the state,” Famous-Cole said.
According to the police image maker, policemen are drafted to parks where night travel business operates. He added that the police in the state work in concert with transport companies to ensure proper profiling of intending night travellers. “Apart from the fact that we collaborate with transport companies to profile their travellers, our men are on the road 24/7 to arrest anybody who attempts to break the law. We also have an increased motorised patrol in all parts of the state. Apart from conventional policemen, we deploy policemen from the Rapid Response Squad, Special Anti-Robbery Squad and anti-kidnapping and anti-cultism units to check criminals and ensure the safety of law-abiding citizens of Lagos State,” Famous-Cole said.
But a senior official of the state sector of the FRSC, who spoke with Saturday Tribune on the condition of anonymity, said: “We don’t operate in the night and we don’t encourage night travel.” According to the road safety official, “our men work during the daytime and we ensure strict compliance with safety guidelines on the road but since we don’t operate in the night, there is no way we can check those vehicles.”
On its own part, the leadership of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) in the state said only a few of the companies affiliated to the union embark on night travels. The NURTW claimed that some of the affected bus owners hire security operatives to travel with their passengers.
The chairman of the state council of the union, Alhaji Tajudeen Agbede, said drivers who undertake night travels employ the tactic of stopping over in safe locations to avoid any form of attack. Alhaji Agbede said some of the drivers know their routes well and they are always very cautious. “Yes, some of them [transport companies] still embark on night travel, especially those who go to Abuja. Many of these buses have security men attached to them to ward off any attacks on the vehicle. The owners of the buses make arrangement for the security. Another thing that these drivers do is to stay over at safe locations when it is very late. They continue the journey very early the next day. The look for a safe place where the security of their buses is guaranteed and they park there to relax till the next day,” he said.
Saturday Tribune was unable to reach the management of one of the leading transport companies in the country, Chisco, which is known to operate night travels. One of the workers at the company’s Jibowu centre, who identified himself as Chinedu Nnamdi, however, disclosed that the company always goes the extra mile to ensure safety of customers who, for various reasons, prefer to travel in the night.
Describing this category of travellers as “peculiar,” Nnamdi said the company understood the risk involved in this type of travelling and as such, was always careful not to put behind the wheels, drivers who don’t have enough experience in this mode of travelling. “I can guarantee that whether it is night or day, we ensure the highest form of shape for our vehicles and drivers. There are peculiar customers who for various reasons prefer to travel at night, but I can confidently tell you that none of them would tell you that they ever got poor services here. This is because we always go the extra mile to ensure that only experienced drivers take up night journeys here, and all our buses are in good shape,” he said.
The favourite takeoff points
Maza Maza, Mile 2, Oshodi, Jibowu and Ojota are favourite takeoff arenas for night travellers in Lagos. Coaches popularly referred to as luxury buses belonging to different transport companies line up by 5.00 p.m. in these places. The initial burst of activities sees bus conductors and touts known as agbero make quick money from helping passengers load their belongings into the waiting coaches.
Night travel, which hitherto was largely alien to the nation’s transport system, crept into existence a couple of decades ago and despite repeated warnings by relevant safety agencies, more people have continued to embrace the idea.
Usually, boarding and eventual departure of passengers begin around 7.00 p.m. at the aforementioned takeoff points for night travellers, but loading of goods into the cargo compartments of buses commences much earlier.
This is to give ample time to travellers who have a lot of goods to transport to properly check in and for the garage boys to stack their loads up in the few spaces available in the belly of the buses.
Therefore, for a bus that is expected to depart by 7.00 p.m., travellers with heavy belongings are expected to arrive about two hours earlier, while those with lighter or fewer items may take their time and arrive at the park much later.
Only a few parks operate the night travel business. Most of them opt for day travels only. At the parks that operate night travels such as the Maza Maza terminal along the Mile 2-Orile Expressway area of Lagos, commercial activities thrive into late in the night. Therefore, what to eat or drink is the least worry for night travellers as the parks are packed with sellers of foods, snacks, drinks and other items that often come in high demand by travellers such as recharge cards, handkerchiefs and souvenirs.
Moses remembers his service year (NYSC) with nostalgia. As a corps member attached to one of the military formations in Kaduna where he had his primary assignment, nocturnal travels held, for him, the greatest appeal. Night was the most convenient time to travel down South then, considering the intimidating workload at the public relations arm of the organisation he was posted to and the limited time to work with.
For him, besides giving him the opportunity to ‘sneak’ in and out of Kaduna, night travels provided him those opportunities to ‘catch fun’ and soothe frayed nerves. He still relishes the spectacle, then, of the ever-present tea sellers at the parks, coupled with other fast food merchants that were always available to satisfy the thirst and hunger of night travellers.
“I would leave Kaduna around 7.00 p.m. and get to Lagos in the early hours of the next day. Sometimes I am the one that would wake my people up. It is almost stress-free, nobody would know whether you travelled or not. It was such a fun then,” he added.
The one year he spent as a corps member was such an exciting period he would not want to forget in a hurry.
But all these have since changed. An attempt by Moses to re-enact those night travel experiences, two years ago, when he was at that popular northern city almost ended up in a disappointment.
“My heart was in my mouth throughout the duration of the journey. To start with, the drivers care less now and they can be reckless. The first shocker that I got was that the man that had been spending time at a bar very close to the park was the one to take us down south. I protested but my protest fell on deaf ears.
“Besides, the roads are no longer secure. He was so reckless, especially on Okene Lokoja axis. When I tried again to caution him, it was a co-passenger that told me he had no choice but to appear reckless since the place constituted a black spot in that area. It was after we managed to arrive Lagos safely in the wee hours of the day that I vowed not to do night travel again,” said Moses, who now works in a company based in the Magodo area of Lagos.
Curiously, despite the attendant risks, many Lagosians, unlike Moses, are not ready to forgo night travels for a number of reasons ranging from the reasonable to the weird. Night travel has become part of their being and as such, they do not mind taking that option each time they have cause to travel.
Travellers’ ‘horrible’ ordeals
Some passengers who spoke to Saturday Tribune said although travelling at night is time-saving because traffic jam is less, transport companies and armed robbers have made such trips a nightmare.
For the transport companies, some passengers accused them of retaining rickety buses (Akpuruka) on their fleet because when such buses break down on the road, passengers are usually attacked by armed robbers. Worn-out tyres, old engines and motor parts, overloading and general poor maintenance were the main reasons commuters gave for the constant breakdown of the vehicles on the road at night.
A night traveller, Ngozi Udumah, said she once spent three days on the road and boarded three different buses on one journey. Besides, she stated, it is not good to eat too much food when embarking on such trip. One may, according to her, be seriously pressed and the drivers do not stop anyhow on the road.
“We left Owerri at 7.00 p.m. and our bus first broke down in Asaba at 9.30 p.m; they said it was overheating. It started working after some hours only to break down again at Okada, after Benin City around 11.00 p.m. We slept there and continued our journey the following day in another bus as the first bus could no longer move.
“When we got close to Ijebu-Ode, we were alerted to an ongoing robbery operation on that road so, we ran into the bush. We later continued the journey till we got to Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, and the bus broke down around 3.30 a.m. We waited till daybreak before we were able to board another bus that brought us into town,” Mrs Udumah narrated.
The buses appear to be in good conditions on the outside but on the inside, some of them are quite old with ragged seats, dim lights and shaky engine sound.
Chigozie Awah, a trader, said he preferred night trip due to its low cost and free movement on the road. “The cost is low compared to day travel. I normally pay between N4,000 and N4,500 from Lagos to Onitsha or vice versa. Although it is higher during Christmas or Easter, it is quite cheap compared to plying the road by day.
“Again, the roads are often free during the night and I normally sleep throughout. This makes the journey easier for me. But the deplorable state of some buses is making it difficult for us. These buses are poorly managed. When they are broken, they patch them up a little and put them back on the road. They keep ‘managing’ them until they break down irretrievably,” he noted.
Investigations by Saturday Tribune showed that to provide some form of security for passengers and ensure a measure of decorum on the bus, some transporters sometimes hire gun-carrying, plain clothes security personnel to travel with them. However, reports indicate that such personnel at times intimidate travellers and stop them from making legitimate complaints to either the driver of the bus or his assistant. But a driver with one of the popular transport companies in Lagos who identified himself simply as Udemba told Saturday Tribune that often passengers were to blame for any embarrassment that occurred. He said some passengers could be unruly in the way they make their demands.
“Some passengers are never satisfied no matter how well they are treated. Almost every driver who embarks on night journeys knows that when there are no vehicles coming from opposite direction for a long while it is a red flag that robbers may be robbing ahead. When we notice that and stop for a while, passengers will remain on the bus believing that we are making some repairs. Also, for safety purposes, we usually agree to jointly stop at a particular spot or time till early morning before continuing on the journey. But uninformed passengers will assume one thing or another,” Udemba stressed.
One of the administrative officers at Maza Maza told Saturday Tribune anonymously that night travel is an open option and the dangers inherent in travelling at night also exist in day journeys. “Night journey is an option that you are not under any obligation to take. Our roads are bad whether at night or during the day. Robbers rob on our roads not just at night but also during the day. So, rather than see night travel as an evil thing and condemn it, we should condemn successive governments that have failed to give us good roads and effective transport system,” the officer said.
‘Why we prefer night travel’
However, some travellers revealed to Saturday Tribune, rather strange reasons they go for the night option. They see it as providing the right ambience for romance.
According to Joy, a frequent night traveller, she has received overtures from the opposite sex uncountable times during such nocturnal travels. “The fact remains that we always have very few females doing nocturnal trips, and that is why those few always experience some form of harassment from the males on board.
“One of such cases that I still remember vividly is that of a guy who intentionally booked a seat right beside me on my way back from Enugu, some time ago. I had to shut him out when I discovered that his language was becoming vulgar and he was getting funny,” she stated.
Esther, who just finished her national youth service in Aba, Abia State, also had such romantic tale to tell. She was Lagos-bound in April for Easter celebrations when a guy bought two bottles of soft drinks and offered her one. Although she rejected it, he persevered. “At the end of the day, he was such a worthy companion throughout the duration of the journey. Nothing serious happened thereafter but we exchanged numbers,” she stated.
The practice of night travelling had survived a piece of legislation that sought to be its death knell. A senator from the eastern part of the country once sponsored a motion seeking to outlaw night travel in the country.
In 2011, the Senate threw out a motion seeking to ban night travel in the country. Senator Chris Anyanwu from Imo State drew the ire of a cross section of Nigerians, especially transporters, when she urged her colleagues to ban night travel, citing the poor state of the nation’s roads and growing insecurity in the country.
Rejecting the plea, however, her colleagues and other lawmakers argued that such a ban would be tantamount to infringing upon people’s fundamental right to move freely. The Senate stressed that night travel should rather be made safer and urged the Federal Government to properly equip the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) to ensure safety on the roads at night.
However, six years after, it is not certain if the FRSC has in anyway been better equipped to ensure safety on the roads at night. But judging by night travellers’ experiences, one thing seems certain – in six years, there is no known proof that the nation’s roads have been better off, neither can it be said with all certainty that the roads are now better secured.
and then