Commuters in Jigawa have expressed disappointment over the failure of transport fares to drop as expected following President Bola Tinubu’s promise that Nigerians would begin to benefit from reduced transportation costs through the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) initiative from October 1.

Passengers travelling from Dutse, the state capital, said transport fares remained unchanged on Thursday, with many saying they had yet to notice any impact from the CNG programme.

At Dutse Central Motor Park and Shuwarin Motor Park, commuters who spoke with our correspondent said there was no noticeable difference between CNG-powered vehicles and those still operating on conventional fuel.

A passenger travelling from Dutse to Kano, Nura Sani, said he was still paying the same fare despite expecting a reduction.

“They told us fares would come down by October 1. I am paying N3,500 to Kano today, just like last week. There is no change. I don’t know which one is a CNG bus,” he said.

Another commuter, Abba Garba, who was travelling to Hadejia, said fares on the route had also remained unchanged.

“The fare to Hadejia is still N5,000. We were expecting it to drop, but we have not seen any reduction. Everything is still the same,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Jigawa State Government was yet to publicly clarify the extent of its implementation of the CNG initiative, including the number of vehicles converted in the state and the level of government investment in the programme.

Efforts by our correspondent to obtain the government’s position proved unsuccessful.

Calls to the Commissioner for Works and Transport, Gambo S. Malam, were not answered, while a text message sent to him had not received a response as of the time of filing this report.

The state government also did not issue an official statement or organise a public event to mark Nigeria’s 66th Independence Anniversary on October 1, where developments concerning the CNG initiative could have been addressed.

However, the Jigawa State Chairman of the National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), Bello Usman Dunari, said about 100 vehicles belonging to members of the association had benefited from government-supported CNG conversion.

“About 100 of our vehicles were helped and converted to CNG courtesy of the government’s initiative. The intention is to reduce transportation fares for the people. We are still working on it,” Dunari said.

But a commercial driver operating on the Dutse-Bauchi-Jos routes, Sahabi Imam Disina, disputed the claim that transport operators had benefited from the government’s intervention.

Disina said drivers operating on his routes were not aware of any government assistance or CNG conversion programme that had benefited them.

He added that, as of Friday, the impact of the initiative had yet to reflect in their earnings or translate into lower fares for passengers.

The unchanged fares have raised questions among commuters and transport operators about the implementation of the CNG initiative in Jigawa State and when its expected benefits would begin to reach the travelling public. (Nigerian Tribune)