The Lagos Metropolitan Areas Transport Authority (LAMATA) says its strategic alliance with the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and its affiliate unions is yielding results to transform the transportation sector in Nigeria’s commercial hub.
LAMATA Managing Director, Abimbola Akinajo, who was a guest on Channels Television’s Sunrise breakfast programme on Saturday, said yellow-coloured buses known as danfos move the majority of Lagosians and scrapping them might be off the table.
She said, “It is not about throwing away what exists. We work with the yellow buses because if you do not interact with them, you cannot speak of regulation; they are the ones who carry the majority of people in Lagos.”
Akinajo said LAMATA’s Bus Industry Transition Programme was designed to work with transporters in the informal sector. “It is a vision to bring the formal and the informal together. We understand what they want. They know what we want.
“Today, the unions are working with us in Lagos. They are running one of our BRT routes, and they are quite successful at it because these are people who have run transportation in Lagos for years.
“What Lagos is constantly doing is working with them, ensuring that we begin to expose them to what it means to be a regulated service, and they are understanding that, and we’re starting to see some levels of dividends.”
