By Nsan Ndoma-Neji
Governor Bassey Otu’s administration in Cross River State has deployed 10 electric buses and 500 electric tricycles, popularly called “keke,” to cut transport costs for commuters.
Commissioner for Transportation, Pastor Ekpenyong Cobham, disclosed this yesterday while answering questions from journalists in his office in Calabar.
He said the move aligns with Governor Otu’s plan “to give back to the public servants, to the daily commuters, who will get an average of 300 to 400 Naira savings daily.”
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Cobham explained that the state considered CNG but settled on electric after weighing options to reduce intercity fares and address carbon credits.
“At some point, we wanted to opt for the CNG. But it was imperative that we need to bring down the cost and try to handle the issue of our carbon credits.
“We then settled for the electric option,” he said. The city buses, he added, have a battery capacity of “250 kilometers per charge,” making the system “reliable, and we will redeem it.”
He said that the fleet goes beyond the buses and keke adding that it includes 20 shuttle buses, 200 electric motorcycles, and 10 intercity buses that will carry “about 50 passengers on one tranche.”
Cobham projected sharp fare reductions on key routes, using the 8 Miles to Watt Market route as an example: “If you take the cost, it’s about 600 Naira.
When we start floating those infrastructures, we would love to crash it down to 150, 200 naira.”
Operators of the electric keke are also expected to earn more adding that “any beneficiary of that electric tricycle would be going home with nothing less than 15,000 naira a day”, instead of spending N5,000 to N7,000 daily on petrol.
Cobham described the rollout as the “foundation seed that would lean for a completely new era in the transportation ecosystem,” stressing that “the era of fossil fuel is going out.”
On management of the transport venture,, the commissioner assured that payments would be “automated” and run by private operators. “Like Metro Blue, no. There’s no birthday cake for anybody,” he said.
Otu’s aides described the 10 electric buses as “a bold step” after “16 years” of neglect, noting that was done about public transportation. No policy. No record, there’s nothing.” He also said fast charging stations will double as youth empowerment hubs.
Cobham recalled inheriting a ministry in a “bad state” on Aug. 16, 2023: “I arrived here and I was received by a cashier, accountant and then admin officer.
“That was the whole strength of this ministry, two staff.” Reforms started with staffing before tackling “inherent impunity in the driving culture” and “criminality, perpetrated by “one chance” drivers and all of that.”
For long-term planning, the state engaged Planet Projects, consultants to the World Bank, for a pre-feasibility study. Through PPPs, investors will build a “4,000-capacity trailer park” at Odukpani/Akamkpa to decongest Calabar, with West African Terminal as preferred bidders.
He enumerated other pipeline projects to include the Grand Littoral Rail Project, which Cobham said Otu’s administration will pursue despite “federal bottlenecks which had hindered requisite approvals.”
