Last Saturday, Malam Ibrahim Bilal was captured by a photographer cramming dozens of people, mainly youths and a few women and children into his long open articulated vehicle at Kasuwan Bacci. Despite an almost one month lockdown in Kaduna State to curtail the spread of COVID-19, Bilal had moved his passengers out of Kadunan without a hitch and said he successfully transported them to Sokoto State, his final destination since he joined the transport business over 30 years ago. By Monday, Bilal had returned to Tipper garage in Kasuwa Bacci, where he and other drivers frequently commute people and their properties from Kaduna to other parts of the country.
Openly situated in the middle of the rubble that once stood as Kasuwan Barci market, the Tipper garage was established over 40 years ago, according to truck drivers at the garage. In early March, traders at the Kasuwar Barci were left speechless when bulldozers knocked down their shops in what the state government repeatedly said was part of a demolition exercise that will give way for a more modern and standard market structure. With all buildings now flattened to the ground, the demolition, according to the drivers had exposed the Tipper garage and its various articulated vehicles to passers-by.
Therefore, what seemed like a mass exodus of young men that Saturday morning, crammed into a vehicle was not unusual, according to 50-year-old Ibrahim Bilal, who admitted that he transported them from Kaduna to Sokoto not Niger Republic as speculated. “Have you forgotten that we are going into Ramadan, or that people are no longer allowed to work due to the curfew in Kaduna State? That is the reason why people are returning to their states. They want to spend Ramadan with their families and it has been the norm for years,” he said.
But with some people suspecting that the activities at the Tipper garage that Saturday was somehow connected to the state government’s attempt to repatriate foreigners due to the coronavirus pandemic, Kaduna State Government quickly denied playing a role in the return of alleged foreigners.
The State Commissioner of Humanitarian Services and Social Development, Hajiya Hafsat Baba told Daily Trust Saturday that the state government had only returned about 3,000 Almajiri boys to their various states as part of the directives to close down all formal and informal schools so as to prevent any spread of the virus in the state. She said the only other foreigners that the state government had a connection with were young Almajiri boys who were identified and handed over to the Nigerian Immigration Services. The Commissioner, however, said the state government had no hand in the recent alleged repatriation of adult foreigners to Niger Republic as it was not even aware of such a situation.
Daily Trust Saturday gathered that most of the people Bilal had transported to Sokoto had been menial job seekers who left their villages mostly in northern Nigeria and parts of Niger Republic during the dry season to find work in the cities. Popularly referred to as Yan chi rani, the youths, mostly arrive cities during the dry season and work as water vendors, security guards, sugar cane sellers and do other menial jobs for months before returning home during festivities or beginning of the raining season to farm.
With Sokoto State sharing borders with Niger Republic, there is no gainsaying that Malam Bilal could have commuted some Nigeriens who, after alighting in Sokoto will find their way into the West African country. Sanusi Yahaya, another driver told our correspondent that while it is possible that some of the passengers they convey to Sokoto or Katsina states could be Nigeriens, it was not their responsibility to investigate the final destination of a passenger. “Our bus stop on that very day was Sokoto so we will carry anyone going to Sokoto but we cannot begin to ask them where they will be going to from Sokoto, and you can ask anyone who goes to Niger Republic and they will tell you that drivers from this garage do not go to Niger Republic,” he said.
Abdullahi Inuwa who works as a security guard in Kaduna also told our correspondent that he was waiting to be paid before leaving for his village in Katsina State and said he usually hops into an open articulated vehicle because it was cheaper. According to him, “we follow trucks going to Katsina, Zamfara and Sokoto or Kebbi state and depending on the state you are going to, the driver will drop you off on the highway and you find your way.”
Tipa garage, according to Inuwa was one of such parks patronised by low-income earners to get quickly transported out of Kaduna State. However, since the news went round that suspected foreigners were being conveyed through the park, the park has attracted the radar of the Nigerian Immigration Service who have within the week visited Tipper garage twice to investigate its activities.
When our correspondents visited the park on Wednesday, angry drivers and other park attendants voiced their displeasure as to why their park was captured as conveying passengers to Niger Republic. They said they have since been forced into an encounter with the Nigerian Immigration Service, an inconvenience they claim they cannot afford at this time. Some of the drivers who spoke with Daily Trust admitted that drivers in the garage had been wrong to crowd passengers in the vehicle without respect for social distancing but also argued that the said passengers had been screened against coronavirus at various check points.
Bilal explained that “when we got to Yan Kara in Katsina State around 6pm, I was asked to stop to and spend the night there and then continue the journey the next day because we were all subjected to a body temperature screening by security agents due to the novel coronavirus. I was screened first, followed by my passengers; everyone was screened, including the children. Also, at Imasa in Zamfara State, we went through the same exercise, including in Sokoto State,” he said.
For a transport fare of N1,500 and at most N2, 500 from Kaduna to Sokoto, Bilal said he had rendered assistance by returning home people who had lost their jobs and had no food to eat due to the lockdown. Even as truck drivers at the park were informed that they could have easily imported the COVID-19 into another state, for Bilal and others, the fact that they were screened in-between states was proof enough that himself and his passengers were coronavirus free.
