Give Us More Motor Parks In Abuja, Commercial Drivers Tell FCTA

Some drivers within the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have complained about the lack of sufficient motor parks that allows them to run their transport businesses smoothly.

According to them, the motor parks officially designated by the FCT for them to operate are few in number and not spacious enough to accommodate many cars.

Ibrahim Abdullahi, a taxi driver who plies Area 1  to Kubwa, said the park in Area One is too small for the number of vehicles using it. He told THE WHISTLER, “Our problem is that the garage here in Area 1 is truly small.

“If you look around to see the space within this garage, we load Mabushi, Nicon,Bannex, and Berger. Just these alone make you understand that the garage is truly small, not to mention other destinations where we drop passengers like Kubwa, Zuba among others.

“Sometimes you will come here and will not see a road to pass, no space to even enter the park in the first place. We have to end up parking our cars outside the garage. If you load and want to drive out, you’ll have to wait for others to move before you get a little space to drive out. “

Another driver at the Jabi Park who did not give his name said: “We don’t have parks oo, it is pick and drop we do. We, the drivers operating within FCT here in Jabi have no park.

“Apart from this Con Oil Filling Station where we load passengers, we park passengers from here to Zuba and come back. And sometimes the owner of the fuel station used to stop us from parking to get passengers there.”

Musty, a driver at the SDP junction, Gwagwalada also alleged that the FCT only has one official motor Park.

 He said: “In the entire FCT, the Jabi motor Park is the only motor park designated officially on the map. The rest of the parks you see around are not official. “

Engr. Okechukwu Nwegbu, Deputy Director, Traffic Management Department, FCTA Secretariat, told THE WHISTLER that the transportation secretariat had “designated some locations for temporary taxirians and bus terminals, because the one that is in the master plan, for now, none of them have been developed”.

He added that transportation is a real-time issue, and as such must have a short-term, long term and medium-term plan.

“For now, we have designated many locations for these temporary tasks so that the vehicles, the motorists, and commercial drivers will leave the highway and enter into those places for passenger embarkation and disembarkation.

“So, we have enough space for now in the city. The problem is the indiscipline of the drivers, they don’t want to use those parks. Like in Area 1 you mentioned, we have two bus parks, one up and one down.

“One of the parks up has almost 2 hectares there. You can imagine how many vehicles can park there. Then the one down, it has enough space too.”

Nwegbu explained that drivers rarely use the park located up in Area 1, instead, they chose the easier way by stopping along the highway to pick up passengers.

He said it is the drivers’ attitude that causes congestion and accidents.

Mr Ifeanyi Ughamadu, Deputy Director, Information FCDA, also pointed out that most of the space in those parks are also being occupied by merchants like food sellers, vulcanisers and POS operators, adding that this is the reason why the drivers complain of insufficient parking space within the parks.

Ughamadu said, “We have 2 parks in area 1. One in the Upper section and one below. We have 2 locations in Area 3 Junction. In Nyanya we have 3 or 4 locations too. Then going to Berger junction, there is a location there which is very sufficient to accommodate 100 vehicles, but they still prefer to park along the roads.

“If you go to where they call Bannex Junction, there’s a park there. Moving further to where they call Tipper Garage, you’ll see a park there. And along the Kubwa axis, there’s a plethora of parks there, at least 15 of them. Some are keke and some are for taxis. Then we have parks at Kubwa too. Go to Dei-Dei. There’s a park there, in fact, a newly designated park. And in Lugbe there are parks there.

“Today, we have up to forty something locations designated for taxirians and bus terminals in the territory. Why are drivers now saying it’s only Jabi park that is the only park within the FCT?”  

He said it is “misinformation” to say that there aren’t enough parks within the FCT.

“ Maybe what they mean is ‘Inter-city’. Primarily, our concern is the ‘Intra-city’ movement that is within FCT. But what they are referring to is Inter-City. Which is from here to Kaduna, maybe that’s the misconception.

“But we are trying to get one, like in Nyanya, there’s an ongoing project that will accommodate both the inter-city and the Intra-city. We have 5 hectares that will accommodate all forms of transport.”