THE recent increase in the price of air travel in Nigeria may put the lives of more Nigerians at risk of kidnapping, armed robbery and accidents on the road.

Two weeks ago, airlines in Nigeria increased their airfares to N50,000 per trip for local travellers across the country.

On March 9, five airlines, Dana Air, Air Peace, Arik Air, Ibom Air and United Nigeria Airlines were forced to delay flights due to scarcity of aviation fuel.

The Chief Executive Officer of Air Peace, Allen Onyema, on behalf of the Airline Operators Association of Nigeria (AOAN), said on Monday that the hike in airfares was caused by scarcity of aviation fuel.

Onyeama warned that airfare could increase to N100,000 for a single trip. This is over 60 per cent above the Nigerian minimum wage.

Many middle-class Nigerians may be unable to travel by road due to the increase in the price of air travel tickets within the country.

There are indications that the increase will force many Nigerians to travel by road.

In recent times, many Nigerian highways have recorded several cases of armed robbery, kidnapping and abduction, as well as fatal road accidents.

Major roads like the Abuja-Kaduna, Abuja-Lokoja and Benin-Auchi highways are hotspots for kidnapping, abduction and armed robbery.

Also, the rate of fatal road accidents in Nigeria has increased in recent years. The ICIR had reported that in 2019, 5,483 persons died from road crashes, while 5,574 died in 2020. The number of deaths from road accidents rose to 6,205 in 2021.

A Security Risk Management and Intelligence Specialist Kabiru Adamu told The ICIR that the increase in airfares would force more people to travel by road.

“Definitely, insecurity is a function of frequency; if more people are travelling on the road, their vulnerability to road-related risks will increase.

“There are several road-related risks, starting from road accidents, highway robbery, kidnapping, ambush by armed gunmen, armed robbers and others. So that will definitely happen. If before now five people are travelling by the road and all of a sudden, 5,000 people start travelling, their vulnerability increases,” Adamu told The ICIR.

Another security expert, Ademola Lawal, said the hike in the cost of air tickets will lead to increased insecurity because people who cannot afford the new prices will begin to travel by road.

Lawal said Nigerian roads are unsafe, a situation which, according to him, will put more Nigerians’ lives at risk.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/insecurity-how-increase-in-airfares-could-put-more-nigerians-at-risk/

exhales..... NIGERIA!!!!!!!!!

Laslas all of us go dey use road or trek...

The contraption is gone to the dogs...

People are complaining and still want to make the same mistake that brought here in the first place, the problem was that buhari was too old to be in government and they packaged him into a suit and paraded him like a trophy and when he eventually came in, instead of having a president we ended up with a presidency, because everyone in the government is a president of his own, everyone was building his own cabalistic group in the regime undermining anything that will bring development but rather anything that will bring cash for embezzlement. Now we have gotten to time for elections again, now they have started advertising an even older man, older than the problem we all are praying to go away, now they have started packaging him like a sardine inside a jeans and top and a shoe the looks like boat on him. The simple truth is that if Nigeria make mistake again, the country might not survive it, because as it is now the country is on extra time.