Borno to buy 1,500 taxicabs

Borno State Governor, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum, on Saturday, met with tricycle taxi drivers in Maiduguri, where he said 500 tricycles and 100 cars will be purchased for allocation to them at subsidised rates. 

 Gov Zulum said 2,000 tricycle drivers, who currently did not have their own cabs or worked on hire purchase agreement would benefit from the intervention in which four cabbies would be allocated one tricycle for shared business while another 200 drivers would jointly own 100 cars.  

According to him, all the 2,200 beneficiaries will be required to repay only 50 per cent of the market value of the tricycles and cars which they will generate from the business while the government will waive the remaining 50 per cent. 

Gov Zulum, however, warned that only drivers who did not have their own tricycles would be considered.  

The governor said while the government had banned the importation of tricycles into Maiduguri to curtail cases of crimes committed and address congestions along the main roads, the coming intervention is based on need.  

He further said, all measures were in the best interest of the tricycle drivers while acknowledging the huge employment opportunities it has provided.  

In a statement, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Media, Malam Isa Gusau, said the Ministry of Transportation would liaise with various unions of the tricycle operators to agree on suitable and acceptable modalities for the allocations. 

A drivers’ union leader, Alhaji Hurso Grema, thanked the governor for the intervention and for some regulatory measures introduced by the government which he said had saved their occupation from incursion by bad elements who hitherto tried using tricycles for criminal acts.  

 It will be recalled that drivers in Biu town benefitted from a similar intervention in 2020.