Irate passengers of the Executive Express bus of ABC Transport travelling from Lagos to Abuja nearly beat up some officials of the Transportation Company in Lagos over more than 10-hour delay in commencement of their trip.
It was learnt that the incident happened on Thursday night at the Jibowu park of ABC when the journey scheduled to commence at 5 pm was delayed for hours while the passengers claimed they were not sufficiently briefed on what went amiss.
Daily Trust gathered that the passengers, majority of whom had appointment to keep in Abuja decided to board the night luxury bus with the hope of arriving Abuja early in the morning.
They told our correspondent that the company displayed on its website that the bus would depart Lagos by 5 pm and arrive Abuja at 1 am.
It was learnt that the passengers became agitated when the bus that was to convey them did not arrive on time. As at 7:30 pm, the passengers were told the bus was stuck in a traffic jam on its way from Amuwo Odofin park.
The bus eventually arrived around 8:30, our correspondent was told, with the hope of taking off to Lagos almost immediately.
One of the passengers who narrated their ordeal to Daily Trust said, “To our dismay, the bus we were told could not take off immediately because the fault that was fixed at Amuwo Odofin by the mechanic is still there. They said the steering has a problem and it would be risky to travel that long distance without fixing the fault.
“So, they called the Mechanic from Amuwo Odofin and we were still waiting. The mechanic eventually arrived and discovered he had to change a damaged part and he went back to Amuwo Odofin station”.
At this point, it was gathered that many passengers became infuriated leading to a shouting match. One of the transport company officials identified as the manager was almost assaulted in the process.
Frustrated by the situation, the ‘manager’ reportedly asked the passengers who wanted a refund to go to the counter and collect their money which some of them did, knowing that the bus would not take up on schedule and that their appointment in Abuja would be jeopardized.
A passenger, we were told, immediately collected his money and right at the station booked an Air Peace early morning flight which cost him over N40,000 just to meet up his 9 am appointment in Abuja.
“He had thought the bus would depart at 5pm as indicated on the company’s website and the ticket but he later saw that it was practically impossible to meet up with his appointment going by the situation on ground when it was not certain when the bus would depart”, said a source.
Another passenger said, “I took Okada (commercial motorcycle) from Ojo for N1,500 to meet up with the 5 pm departure time not knowing they would not take off on time”.
In the audio and video recording of the pandemonium sent to our correspondent, some of the passengers were heard threatening to sue the company if they should miss their appointment in Abuja.
It was however learnt that the bus they were fixing for hours could not leave and they had to bring another bus from Amuwo Odofin and they eventually departed by 2:00 am. While the passengers were fuming in Lagos, those waiting in Ibadan were said to be even more restless as some of them reportedly arrived the Ibadan station of the company at 3 pm because they were told the bus would arrive 4pm.
