Kabu-Kabu: How unregulated vehicles fill voids created by yellow cabs in Enugu - The Guardian Nigeria News

In Enugu State, commercial taxis bearing official colours are vanishing by the day and creating room for the operation of unpainted or unmarked commercial cabs. As it stands, there are concerns that during the current administration’s tenure, commercial cabs with official state colours may go extinct, and the implications for the state would be dire, LAWRENCE NJOKU reports.

At about 5.20 p.m. on Thursday, September 3, Okwuoma Ikpe stepped off one of the luxurious buses that returned to the bustling Young Motors terminal located at the Holy Ghost Park axis of Enugu. The vehicle had just arrived from Lagos State.   As he grabbed his travel bag from the vehicle’s luggage compartment, he scanned the surroundings for the ever-present, familiar yellow cabs with double black horizontal stripes to continue his journey. But there was no single taxi bearing the official colours of commercial cabs.   Rather, the driveway was lined up with unmarked private cars, with their drivers either asking to render their services to him or waiting to pick up commuters who had booked them in advance.   Aside from the unmarked private cars, various tricycle operators beckoned to him, asking whether they could be of assistance.   Almost confused by the entire scenario in a city whose transport system had suddenly gone invisible, he walked to a nearby newly built bus shelter to wait for the arrival of a marked commercial cab to continue his homeward journey.     The last time Ikpe was in Enugu was 10 years ago, when there were a multitude of yellow-and-black commercial taxis, which are the official colour of commercial taxis in the state.   Indeed, over the last decade or thereabouts, a lot has changed in the state’s commercial taxi milieu, with taxis bearing the state’s official colours vanishing from the streets and being replaced with private cars operating as taxi cabs illegally despite heightened insecurity in the land.   Mired in the confusion and pondering what could have happened, Okwuoma took a short walk away from the bus shelter to a short distance away, where a yellow faded commercial taxi was waiting.   Once there, the rickety condition of the commercial taxi discouraged him from soliciting the taxi driver’s services. After what felt like an endless wait, Okwuoma eventually hired a private taxi to complete the final stretch of his journey.   Several years ago, the yellow-and-black coloured commercial cab was a trusted fixture of Coal City life.  These vehicles were everywhere on the streets of Enugu. In fact, the Sullivan Chime-led administration, which was in office from May 2007 to May 2015, infused over 700 taxi cabs, comprising Nissan Sunny and Suzuki Alto models, popularly known as “Sullivan Taxi” or Coal City Cabs, to boost the taxi scheme in the state.   These commercial cabs were operated by indigenes of the state, who earned their daily bread from the endeavour. Today, these taxi cabs have since disappeared to the point that finding any of them on the streets of Enugu amounts to a miracle. In their stead, many private car owners are doing brisk business in what is usually described in local parlance as kabu-kabu.   Ikenna Egwu, a civil servant who works at the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Enugu, deploys his private car – a Toyota Corolla to commercial use after 6 pm each day.   After the close of work each day, he fixes a detachable reflective taxi sign atop the car and combs for passengers until far into the night.   At the popular Otigba Junction, in the New Haven axis, where he was waiting for passengers, Egwu told The Guardian that cabs bearing official commercial colours are disappearing in Enugu because “commuters often prefer tricycles and mini-buses due to lower fares.”   According to him, “It is no longer easy to see commercial taxis in Enugu because even the routes that were not meant for buses before now are open to all manner of operators. So, what you now see are the few commercial taxis that are still operating at night, when there are no tricycles or minibuses on the streets. Remember that the state government has tried to regulate the operation of buses and tricycles.

The maximum time frame allowed for their operation is 9 pm. When they are off the streets, the taxis will take over.”   On why the kabu-kabu operators like him have refused to brand their vehicles in the official taxi colours, Egwu said: “We hardly break even. I do this to support my salary, nothing more. At times, I come out, and there are no passengers to ferry anywhere. Nightlife in Enugu is still very poor. The majority of those who come out at night do so with their own private cars. Only a few do so without their cars and want to charter a cab.   “Again, I am not a full commercial taxi driver. The way things are in the state cannot encourage anyone to be a taxi driver because tricycle operators are just everywhere, and struggling with them for a share of the market is quite a challenge,” he added.   Daniel Ugwu operated his branded commercial taxi – a Peugeot 504 until last year, when he sold it and purchased a mini-bus. He blamed the step he took on the low patronage of taxi cabs and the increasing cost of maintenance.   Insisting that it was becoming very challenging for the few branded taxi cabs left in the state to survive in business, he stated: “More than 70 per cent of commuters in the state either patronise mini-buses or the tricycle operators, especially in the daytime. When they are off the streets from 9 pm, private cab operators will take over. To make a living from driving branded commercial cabs in this state is not easy. I doubt if the commercial taxi scheme will continue to survive when nightlife in Enugu is at its lowest point.”   He added that the introduction of modern CNG–powered Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) buses in the state has further compounded the woes of taxi cab operators, stressing that, “these buses still ply the same routes with other commercial cabs.”   As in other major locations in the country, the entry of app-based ride-hailing services into the state’s transport sector has also ensured that commercial taxi drivers are competing with other service providers as commuters leverage local ride-hailing apps for their travel.   When the state government commissioned the modernised terminals in August last year, it also rolled out 100 Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) transit buses, which were aimed at boosting the state’s economy.   However, the Enugu State Road Transport Law and sundry regulations prohibit unregistered and unpainted commercial cabs from operating, but mandate commercial vehicle registration, driver profiling, and strict adherence to the state colour scheme to check illegal operators.   A Compliance Officer in the state Ministry of Transport, James Agbo, told The Guardian that the law remains intact and covers all commercial cab, bus, and tricycle operators in the state.   “The law is in force. We have commercial colours and registration for operators. The operators are aware. That is why commercial bus and tricycle operators still adhere to the colour scheme in the state,” he stated.   He, however, attributed the vanishing traditional yellow and black cabs in Enugu State to the shift in economic pressures, technological changes, as well as improvement in the transport policy that has allowed the state to introduce more buses into its scheme.   “The point is that commercial tricycle operators are everywhere at the moment. If you notice, the state government did not restrict tricycles from operating anywhere in the state. The fact that they can enter anywhere to pick up and drop off passengers, even where taxi cabs cannot enter, is an added advantage. That is the situation,” he added.   The state Commissioner for Transport, Dr Obi Ozor, informed The Guardian that the desire of the government was to build a multi-modal transport ecosystem that could open up the state and integrate the entire South-East region.   He added that reliable, predictable transportation networks attract investment, stressing that when expansion occurs across multiple sectors simultaneously, GDP growth follows.   Governor Peter Mbah had vowed to move the state’s $4.4 billion economy to a $30 billion economy by 2030.

The state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) surged from N37.4 billion in 2023 to N180 billion in 2024, reaching N406 billion in 2025. It is believed that contributions from the road transport sector contributed to the surge.   On the implications of operating unbranded commercial taxis in the state, a resident of the state,  PraiseGod Eze, expressed worries that unpainted vehicles used for transportation could be vectors for kidnappings and robbery activities.   He stated that branded vehicles with codes and numbers could be easily identified in situations where they are deployed for sinister purposes.   Another resident, Mrs Joyce Onah, a private sector operative, who also frowned at the proliferation of unbranded taxi cabs in the state, said their continuous operation also leads to loss of revenue for the state government.   “There are monies that certified or officially recognised taxi cab operators pay here and there for their operations. But because a good number of them don’t operate in the day, or are not licensed to operate, the state government is losing such revenue because without official colours, it is not easy to identify vehicles that are being used for private initiatives and those for commercial services,” she stated.