Economic Hardship: NEDC To Deploy 10,000 Solar Powered-Tricycles, Taxi, Busses In Northeast

Economic hardship, NEDC to deploy 10,000 solar powered-Tricycles, Taxi, Busses in Northeast

By Madu Mohammed, Maiduguri

To reduce cost of transportation, tackle challenges of climate change, global warming and inline with President Bola Tinubu commitment to safeguard the environment, the Northeast Development Commission (NEDC) is to deploy 10, 000 solar powered Electrical Tricycles, several other taxis and 40 seater buses across the six states of the region to ease hardship faced by the masses and maintain clean environment.

Interacting with the members of the National union of Road Transport Workers ( NURTW) and Nigeria Association of Transport Owners (NATO) at the NEDC headquarters, Maiduguri on Wednesday, the Managing Director of the NEDC, Alhaji Goni Alkali said ” due to climate change, global warming and hardship faced by our people as a result of cost of transportation,. We call you to deliberate on the issues of alternative sources of Transport to reduce cost of transportation and safeguard our environment.”.

“As a critical stakeholders in the transport business, we want to have your inputs on CNG and E-mobility but we believe we in the Northeast we have the comparative advantage of solar that was why we are considering 3 options of E-Tricycles, E-Taxis and E- buses”, the MD added..

Alhaji Alkali said ” the introduction of the tricycles, taxis and 40 seater buses will help in not bringing down transport fare but safeguard the environment and create wealth along the value chain. These tricycles, taxis and buses if fully charged will take someone 200 to 250 kilometers and will be recharged within an hours”.

“”We are going to deploy 10,0000 E-Tricycles across the 6 states of the Northeast, we will be doing that in 3 phases starting with 2,000 to 5,000 in the first phase, we are as well going to trained our staff, the drivers and transport owners on the operations, maintenance and management of the e- tricycles,taxis and buses, as well as construct 5 megawatts to 10 megawatts charging points and , repairing facilities at designated areas within the region. Already we have commenced the construction of the facilities”, the MD said..

He said the tricycles, taxiis and the buses will commenced operation with intra city operations before embarking on inter city operations, stressing that the commission is not unaware of the challenges that might be associated with the E-mobility but the Solar powered is far better than CNG.

He assured that the commission is determined to deliver on it’s mandate as an intervention agency.

Speaking, at the occasion,the NATO Secretary Gombe state, Musa Inuwa who commended the commission for the initiatives, urged the commission to consider deploying 18 seater buses, as some of the areas cannot accommodates 40 seater buses.

In his remarks, the members of the NURTW from state called on the commission to also consider deployment electric truck to ease transportation of good.

Also, the NUTRW,Secretary, Bauchi state, Comrade Ismail Umar urged the commission to also look the option of introducing CNG buses .