How compromised regulations is killing the Lagos BRT system, By Kunle Awosiyan

A boss once told me, “most reporters miss good stories nowadays because they now ride cars and feel too big to come down when a big story suddenly breaks out around them”.

Believe me, nowhere is safe again. There are evil men everywhere whose ultimate goal is to become rich quickly no matter what it will take them. Must we all get rich? I mean our destinies are different. There will always be poor people and for those who are rich, I want to believe, they are destined to be rich.

I’m always comfortable in my small car but I derive more pleasure riding a commercial bus. It was more of fun riding the popular Lagos”Molue” then. A good soft sell magazine reporter would always get fantastic stories inside Molue.

However, BRT has made commercial transport a better deal for those of us who love to write about Lagos life. BRT was good in the beginning but the regulation is so bad now, except in the area of ticketing.

At Berger Bus Stop for example, even before Endsars’ in which rioters burnt some of the buses, the BRT drivers and their managers had stopped complying with the rules.

For every bus, the route is conspicuously shown on its windscreen as it approaches the bus stop but drivers do not follow this anymore. Of course they can change the route electronically, they have stopped doing this while boarding is now done with verbal instruction either by the driver himself or the officials.

A bus that arrives with Oshodi-Berger Route on its screen may decide to transit Berger-Leventis-TBS. Even with long queue of passengers, they run away from some routes because of traffic and their own laziness.

Since the BRT bus stop was burnt at Berger, the buses now use the commercial and private car bus stop to pick passengers.

Here, the LASTMA officials have compromised. Instead of following the park and drop order by the government, the place had been turned to garage where cabs and buses now stay for hours to load passengers.

Here, a trip by cab from Berger to Lekki-Ajah is N1000. I learnt that cab operators pay daily levy to LASTMA officials for allowing them to pick passengers. Sadly, the BRT buses now park on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway waiting in turn to load at the bus stop.

While passengers wait for hours on the queue, the BRT drivers sleep in the bus and sometimes interact with touts at the bus stop. It is obvious that with their new attitude the drivers had since lost their values as they are daily exposed to the antics and the indecent lifestyle of the NURTW touts.

Before now, a BRT bus transiting Berger to TBS would have to pass through Ebute-Ero, towards the outskirts of Oke Arin and to Leventis, Marina, CMS and stop at TBS.

Now, due to the heavy traffic on the Third Mainland, most BRT drivers without the consent of the operators and government ply Ikorodu Road towards Western, Funsho Williams, Avenue to link Costain and via Ijora or Carter Bridge. Some drive through Yaba, Oyingbo, Oto Awori, Iddo to link Idumota, Apongbon area.

Their ultimate aim is to just get to the Island anyhow. They argue with their bosses and choose their own routes. There is no orderliness anymore.

The viral video of the BRT driver that conveyed Bamise Ayanwola to the hands of kidnappers and her eventual death, the various social media posts against the driver are enough evidences of the rots in BRT.

It shows a compromise of government regulation. One of the posts alleges that the suspected driver twice shared money to some of of his colleagues at Oshodi BRT terminal.

Which money was he sharing? What is the source of the money and is it ethical for a professional driver on duty to suddenly turn himself to a tout of NURTW?

The introduction of Cowrie card is a brilliant idea but as at today the POS machine inside some of the buses are no longer working. At times passengers have to tap in on one bus to board another one.

Tap in on Bus A and enter Bus B. It is as bad as that. Sometimes the balance on passenger’s cowrie card disappears and no tenable excuse has been offered by the operators, except that affected passengers had failed to tap out while alighting from the bus.

There are many sharp practices by some BRT drivers and it seems one of these is conniving with kidnappers and armed robbers to perpetrate crime. While this current incident will help the government to correct its mistakes, the suspect in this mess should be thoroughly investigated to name other gang members.