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Alhaji Mohammed Danjuma Jibrin, GM, Yankari Transport Corporation
By Akanji Alowolodu, Bauchi
Bauchi State owned Yankari Transport Corporation has lamented that the spate of insecurity in Nigeria has negatively affected its operations as it has been forced to cancel some of the routes it was plying before the issue of insecurity became worst.
Also, the terrible condition of Nigeria roads has forced the Corporation to limit the number of trips its fleet embark upon daily thereby drastically reducing its revenue generation venture.
General Manager of the Corporation, Mohanmed Danjuma Jibrin made the disclosure while speaking with journalists in his office saying that, “actually, we are being affected in so many ways, for example, because of insecurity in Nigeria, the passengers are no longer traveling unless it becomes absolutely necessary” .
He also said that, “because of the uncertainty of the Jos route to Abuja, people no longer want to travel through there. There was a time we loaded our vehicles and the passengers refused telling us that we had to go through Kano and that was what we had to do”.
The GM further said that, “the revenue generation has reduced. We have to reduce the routes and slightly increased the fare in order to be able to make up operational costs”.
He however assured that the Corporation has put in place, adequate security measures to ensure that the passengers are safe saying, “we have collaboration with all the security agencies in the state, they come in to check how people are coming in and going out of the park. We even have men of the anti-bomb squad here every day”.
While lamenting on the condition of the roads, he said that, “now we have to change the tyres every quarter because the vehicles will always come back with burst tyres due to hitting potholes on the roads. It is really telling on our operational costs while incoming revenue has reduced drastically”.
In order to break even, the GM disclosed that the Corporation is operating the lease system whereby private individuals bring in their vehicles to be managed by the Corporation for a fee saying that for now the Corporation has over 100 of such buses in its fleet.
On its own, Mohammed Danjuma Jibrin said that the Corporation has 40 operational buses calling on the state government to increase the fleet with additional 50 new buses though he recognized the fact that the vehicles are costly.
He also called on the government to facilitate the issue of office accommodation for the Corporation because according to him, “this place we are operating from belongs to Bauchi LGA, the situation has limited our development plans. At times, our passengers are stranded if they arrived late”.
He added that, “as one of the oldest transport companies in this country, we need a more befitting park, we need to treat our customers better than what we are doing now. Very soon, we will get there”.
The GM then assured commuters patronizing the corporation of effective and efficient services at affordable costs urging them to continue the patronage.
