The Minister of Solid Minerals, Dele Alake, stated this while addressing State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa Abuja on Wednesday.
By Ademu Usman Idakwo
President Bola Tinubu has approved a 50 per cent slash in the cost of public transportation and directed that all train rides across Nigeria convey passengers for free from Thursday, December 21 to 4 January.
The Minister of Solid Minerals, Dele Alake, stated this while addressing State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa Abuja on Wednesday.
The minister addressed journalists alongside the Minister of Information, Mohammed Idris, their transportation counterpart, Saidu Alkali, and the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga.
Mr Alake said a committee, which he chairs, had already met with all relevant transportation bodies across Nigeria and reached an agreement that the government would bear 50 per cent cost of transportation based on the prices at the time the meeting was held.
The minister said air transportation is not part of the arrangement because the target of the president ‘is the masses.’
Alake further stated that the action was to cushion the effect the high cost of transportation would have on the holidaymakers.
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“In the spirit of Christmas and the end of year festivities, President Bola Tinubu, in another demonstration of his love for Nigerians, has approved that the Federal Government should intervene to bring down the cost of public transportation to allow our compatriots who want to travel to visit their loved ones and hometowns to do so without stress and the extra burden imposed by the high cost of transport around this period.
“The President is well aware of the recent increase in the cost of inter-state transportation and even air travel. Traditionally, our people love to travel during Christmas and the end of year to be with families and friends and this has been the practice for ages.
“We also know that globally, intra-country travels and movement of people, goods and services always peak around Christmas and end of the year because of the socio-gravitational pull of the period which transporters always cash on to increase fares astronomically,” the minister stated.
Alake said the President Tinubu is very concerned about the economic situation in the country and he is working very hard to turn it around.
“President Tinubu wants Nigerians to be able to travel within Nigeria to wherever they want to go to meet their loved ones without the extra burden of paying exorbitantly for inter-state public transportation.
“It is in this wise that the Federal Government is announcing, beginning from tomorrow, a special discounted holiday season fare on road transport and zero-fare by rail across Nigeria.”
The minister further disclosed that people who are willing to travel can board public transport via minibuses, and luxury buses at a 50% discount of the current cost and all our train services on the routes the trains currently serve at zero cost to and fro on their travels this holiday season.
He assured that the federal government through the Ministry of Transportation will be working with transporters, road transport unions, Nigerian Railway Corporation to seamlessly deliver on this special presidential initiative.
According to the minister, the intervention on inter-state travel covers any part of the country from Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Kaduna, Enugu, Port Harcourt, Owerri, Ibadan, Akure, Maiduguri, Sokoto and other major inter-state transportation hubs will be able to do.
On security, the minister disclosed that the President has already directed the Police, Department of State Services, the Military and other security agencies to work collaboratively to ensure the holiday period is safe without any security breach in any part of the country.
