Since the inception of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) mass transit buses by the Abuja Urban Mass Transit Company (AUMTCO) under the Companies and Allied Matters Act 1990, a vision set forth by the then Ministry of Federal Capital Territory and now the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), successive administrations have struggled to keep this once-promising initiative alive, with notable exceptions during Nasir el-Rufai’s tenure as FCT Minister from 1999 to 2007.<\/p>\n
Originally planned as a solution to deliver social services and ease the mobility of Nigeria’s increasing population in the face of the issues posed by the soaring cost of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), the AUMTCO buses are now in disrepair. Numerous problems confronted the goal, including inadequate infrastructure, growing urbanization, rising motorization, and inefficient management strategies.<\/p>\n
AUMTCO was established to provide the best value for money, provide a safe and predictable timetable, and provide bus hire services in order to develop an orderly, ecologically friendly, and sustainable urban public transportation system in the FCT. In its prime, the company had the capacity to generate significant income, reaching up to N1.3 billion, and employed 518 people. However, mismanagement and negligence have resulted in the scheme’s utter demise.<\/p>\n
Over time, what was intended to alleviate the suffering of citizens has become a moribund initiative. Currently, the landscape of the Federal Capital Territory is dominated by private motorists and scattered public transporters, resulting in an increase in the notorious “one chance” menace due to unregistered vehicles proliferating on Abuja roads.<\/p>\n
Unionists from the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) disclosed in a recent interview that Abuja is grappling not only with the one-chance phenomenon but also with a decline in vehicle registrations. Commuters lamented the high cost of transportation and shared harrowing experiences with one-chance perpetrators.<\/p>\n
In one account, Tersoo Igba, an Uber driver, narrated a terrifying incident where two carjackers posed as passengers, drugged him, and stole his vehicle. His recovery of the vehicle only came after the police apprehended the culprits.<\/p>\n
Multiple individuals echoed these sentiments, urging the government to address the rising one-chance menace by implementing safer, more efficient, and affordable transportation solutions. There is a growing call to either revive the moribund AUMTCO or introduce a new transportation scheme to alleviate the myriad challenges faced by Abuja’s population.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Since the inception of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) mass transit buses by the Abuja Urban Mass Transit Company (AUMTCO) under the Companies and Allied Matters Act 1990, a vision set forth by the then Ministry of Federal Capital Territory and now the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), successive administrations have struggled to keep this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":9135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177,185,172],"tags":[424,423,422],"class_list":["post-9131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abuja-reports","category-interview","category-news","tag-aumtco","tag-governance","tag-transport"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9136,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9131\/revisions\/9136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}