In Kaduna, Citizens Count the Gains of Uba Sani’s Free CNG Buses

Usman Abubakar

Public policy acquires its truest meaning not in government documents, budget speeches or ceremonial unveilings, but in the burdens it removes from ordinary lives. In Kaduna State, that meaning can now be seen every morning as workers, students, teachers, traders, artisans and pensioners board gleaming Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) buses without reaching into their pockets.

For millions of citizens negotiating one of Nigeria’s most difficult economic periods, Governor Uba Sani’s Free CNG Mass Transit Scheme has become more than a transportation programme. It is a moving social safety net, returning money to households, protecting livelihoods and demonstrating that government can bring both compassion and imagination to economic reform.

The removal of petrol subsidy by President Bola Tinubu in 2023 was a difficult but necessary national decision intended to free the economy from an increasingly unsustainable fiscal burden. Yet its immediate consequences were severe. Higher fuel prices rapidly translated into increased transportation costs, while the prices of food, education, healthcare and other essentials rose simultaneously.

Workers discovered that commuting consumed an alarming share of their salaries. Students struggled to reach their schools. Traders watched transport costs erode already narrow margins, while artisans, retirees and low-income families bore the harshest edge of the adjustment.

President Tinubu consistently urged state governments to complement federal reforms with practical measures capable of cushioning their effects on citizens. In Kaduna, Governor Uba Sani responded with uncommon decisiveness. On July 7, 2025, he launched a fleet of 100 brand-new CNG-powered buses and made transportation entirely free.

What began primarily as an intervention for workers and students was soon expanded to embrace every citizen because, as the administration correctly recognised, economic hardship does not respect professional, social or occupational boundaries.

Twelve months later, more than five million passenger journeys had been recorded, with approximately ₦5.24 billion saved by commuters. These figures are impressive, but their deeper significance lies beyond arithmetic. That money did not disappear into an abstract economic ledger; it remained in the pockets of families. It became food on tables, schoolbooks in children’s hands, medicine for the sick, rent contributions, business capital and modest savings against unforeseen emergencies. In an era when every Naira matters, the scheme has redistributed relief directly and transparently, one journey at a time.

Comrade Ayuba Magaji, Chairman of the Kaduna State Council of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), captures the intervention’s effect on workers with striking clarity. “The Free Transport Scheme is simply marvellous,” he says. A state employee travelling from Maraban Rido to the Kaduna State Secretariat would ordinarily spend at least ₦1,000 on a single journey. With the CNG buses, that worker travels to and from work without paying a fare. “That transportation money will now be saved to meet other needs,” he explains, adding that some junior workers save as much as half of their salaries through the scheme. His conclusion is unambiguous: “We cannot thank Governor Uba Sani enough.”

That testimony reveals why the programme is considerably more consequential than a conventional transport subsidy. A subsidised fare merely reduces expenditure; a free service removes it. For a junior worker earning a modest salary, the difference can determine whether the household survives the month in relative stability or descends into debt. By eliminating transport fares on designated routes, the Kaduna State Government has effectively raised the disposable incomes of thousands of citizens without the delays, leakages and administrative complications that sometimes weaken other forms of social intervention.

For Aisha Ahmad, a student who previously spent about ₦2,200 each day on transportation, the programme has transformed access to education. Her monthly commuting expenses once approached ₦60,000, an enormous burden for a young person and her family. “Now, as we go to school four times in a week, it is very easy for us,” she says, linking the free transportation scheme with the administration’s wider commitment to affordable education. Her experience illustrates a fundamental truth: enrolment alone does not guarantee access. A classroom may be open, but a student unable to afford the journey remains effectively excluded. The free buses have therefore become vehicles of educational opportunity.

Peter Audu, a teacher commuting from Rigasa or Mando to his place of primary assignment, once spent approximately ₦2,400 daily on transportation. That recurrent cost substantially diminished the real value of his income. “The free bus transport scheme has eased my transport fare tremendously,” he says. Another teacher, Yusuf A. Umar, similarly observes that the programme has enabled civil servants to retain a significant portion of earnings previously surrendered to daily commuting. Their experiences demonstrate how an apparently simple intervention can strengthen morale, punctuality and productivity across the public service.

The benefit extends equally to commerce. Olawale Marvin, a trader who recently began using the buses, describes the positive effect on people’s lives as “very obvious and widely praised.” Traders depend upon movement: movement to markets, warehouses, customers and commercial centres. When transportation becomes prohibitively expensive, fewer journeys are made, less merchandise is carried and smaller profits are realised. Free mobility allows petty traders and small-business owners to preserve capital, sustain commercial relationships and direct limited resources towards replenishing stock rather than merely reaching the marketplace.

The buses operate on more than 40 routes across Kaduna State, including corridors serving communities beyond the metropolis and areas inhabited by low-income residents. Their presence across the state is important. Social programmes lose much of their value when they remain concentrated around privileged urban centres. By extending the service towards communities where transport costs are particularly punishing, the administration has aligned coverage with need and ensured that the intervention reaches citizens for whom every saved fare has substantial value.

Even some residents who own private vehicles now leave them at home and travel on the free buses. Their decision reflects both economic rationality and growing public confidence in the service. It also reduces individual fuel expenditure and advances the larger environmental and energy-transition arguments supporting CNG transportation. Nigeria possesses abundant natural gas reserves; deploying that resource for public transportation reduces dependence on more expensive petrol and diesel, lowers exposure to international energy shocks and creates a credible pathway towards cleaner, more sustainable urban mobility.

Kaduna’s achievement has understandably attracted presidential commendation. President Tinubu described it as the kind of practical, people-focused action required at the subnational level, declaring: “This is more of what we need to see.” The commendation is important because it identifies the proper relationship between national reform and subnational responsibility. The Federal Government may establish economic direction, but state governments remain closest to the daily anxieties of the people. Their duty is to translate broad policy into visible relief, designing interventions that reflect local realities and protect vulnerable citizens during periods of transition.

When President Tinubu visited Kaduna last year to commission the buses, he encouraged the state to subsidise fares. Governor Uba Sani chose to go further by abolishing them. That decision reveals the moral centre of his administration. It was neither a symbolic gesture nor a fleeting concession, but a deliberate judgement that public resources should be deployed where they could make the most immediate difference. Kaduna consequently emerged as the only state in Nigeria providing completely free CNG mass transit to its citizens, setting a national benchmark in compassionate and responsive governance.

Yet the programme’s success has not tempted the administration into complacency. An additional 120 buses are expected to support Kaduna’s emerging Bus Rapid Transit system, which would make the state the second in Nigeria, after Lagos, to operate a BRT network. Designed towards the Silver Standard, the project promises faster, safer and more organised public transportation. An ultra-modern terminal capable of accommodating approximately 5,000 buses is also nearing realisation, reinforcing Kaduna’s historic position as a major transportation hub connecting more than 12 states and linking northern and southern Nigeria.

These investments reveal a coherent vision rather than a collection of isolated projects. The free CNG buses answer today’s hardship; the BRT system anticipates tomorrow’s population growth; the modern terminal responds to Kaduna’s strategic geography. Together, they represent a transition from emergency relief to enduring transport reform. The Uba Sani administration is not merely moving people free of charge; it is laying the foundation for a modern mobility system capable of supporting commerce, productivity, environmental responsibility and inclusive urban development.

The transport initiative also complements Governor Uba Sani’s broader investments in education, vocational training, employment creation and human-capital development. Thousands of young people have graduated from the state’s skills acquisition institutes, with many already finding employment in Kaduna and elsewhere. Such citizens require affordable mobility to reach training centres, workplaces, markets and emerging opportunities. Transportation policy therefore becomes inseparable from economic inclusion: skills create capacity, while mobility connects that capacity to opportunity.

Governor Sani’s accomplishment ultimately offers a powerful lesson in the purpose of government. Economic reform cannot be measured only by improved indices, increased revenues or favourable projections. It must also be judged by whether citizens can still reach work, attend school, trade, seek medical care and sustain their families while reform runs its course. The best governments do not deny the necessity of difficult choices; they ensure that those choices do not abandon the weakest citizens.

Across Kaduna today, people are counting the gains in fares no longer paid, journeys no longer postponed and opportunities no longer surrendered. They are counting salaries preserved, school days recovered, businesses sustained and households steadied. In those millions of free journeys resides the clearest tribute to Senator Uba Sani’s leadership: a government listening closely enough to understand where hardship hurts, and acting boldly enough to provide relief.

Kaduna’s Free CNG Mass Transit Scheme is therefore more than a transport success. It is an affirmation that public policy can possess a human face, that innovation can serve compassion and that leadership is most credible when its promises become part of everyday life. In placing 100 buses on the roads and opening their doors freely to all, Governor Uba Sani has done something profoundly democratic: he has made the resources of the state travel daily with its people.

•Dr. Abubakar, a sociologist, resides in Kawo, Kaduna.