University of Benin (UNIBEN) Students Shuttle Service Committee has increased transport fare on campus and other routes in Benin with effect from July 1.
The committee said the decision was part of strategies to beat the high cost of operation as a result of the increase in pump price of petroleum products due to the removal of subsidy.
In a statement on Saturday by Collins Obhiozele and James Olawale, secretaries of the committee and the students union, cab fare would now be N200 from N150.
The statement said shuttle fare across Ugbowo and Ekehuan campuses would attract N100, while transportation between the university and New Benin market and King Square would cost N300 and N250 respectively.
Under the new pricing, boarding a cab by an individual on UNIBEN Campus will cost N400.
The statement sued for strict compliance by the students, but advised them to look out for deviants and report appropriately.
The statement said the committee would issue warnings and establish an enforcement team to address drivers’ refusal to ply certain destinations and check unauthorised fare hikes.
It also commended the students for their understanding and cooperation in this period of power outage in the university, assuring that steps had been taken to address the challenge.
“While this compromise did not meet the driver’s demands, we successfully negotiated a balance between their needs and those of the students, who are also facing challenges.
“We addressed drivers’ refusal to visit certain destinations and authorised fare increases.
“And the shuttle service committee has assured us that they will issue warnings and establish an enforcement team to ensure compliance”, the statement said.

The Centre for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) on Friday concluded a four-day training of 140 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and Public Institutions officers on disability-inclusive programmes and practices.
The Tide’s source reports that the training for the officers from Edo and Abia Sttaes took place in Benin.
It was done in collaboration with Project Enable Africa with support from the US – Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund.
The theme of the training was: Promoting inclusive economic opportunities and community resilience for Persons with Disabilities.
The training, which was broken into two parts, also had Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) trained on Rights Advocacy and Advocacy Action Plan.
Speaking during the training, Mr David Anyaele, the Special Adviser to Abia State Governor on PWDs, said the centre had picked 70 CSOs each in Edo and Abia.
Anyaele, who is also the Director and Founder of CCD, said the capacity building for CSOs would help them know the key issues affecting persons with disabilities in their states.
“We recognized that Edo has passed disability law and for it to be implemented, the civil society must be in tune with the rules and how to go about helping the PWDs advocate for their rights.
“The disability community is made up of people who cannot walk, hear and see, therefore we are involving CSOs to appreciate the key issues concern in our efforts to promote inclusive economic opportunity and a community that is all inclusive.
“And to do this, we need to build the capacity of the CSOs. The response we have gotten from here shows that the civil society are really committed in ensuring that the vulnerable group are not left behind”, he said.
Speaking on the topic, Inclusive budgeting, Anyaele said government at all levels must take proactive measures to ensure that their budgeting process recognized the needs of vulnerable groups in the society.
“When we say inclusive budgeting, we are talking about a process of generating, interpreting, programming and designing budget that takes the critical importance of physical responsibility in government .
“What we are doing here today is to build the capacity of CSOs to champion inclusiveness of PWDs in budgetary allocations”, he said.
Also speaking, Ms. Florence Attah, the Programme officer of CCD, disclosed that over 29 million Nigerians live with one form of disability or the other.
The CCD Programme Officer, who quoted the 2018 World Bank statistics, noted that the figure might have increased.
She, however, lamented that the lack of comprehensive database of PWDs had made it impossible to get the accurate data of PWDs in the country.
The Acting Director of CCD, Mr. Godwin Unumeri took participants through policy analysis and engagement with a charge to the CSOs to ensure policies of government were all inclusive.
Comrade Bartholomew Okoudo, President, Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations CONGOS and Aliu Akokhia, Executive Director, Sustainable Health Family and Maternal Support Initiative commended the centre for the capacity building workshop.
They noted that the training was not just only a refresher course but impacted on them those things they were not conversant with, especially the Inclusive-budgeting for PWDs.

The Cross River State Government has described the state’s rating on child labour by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) as “spurious” and not a true reflection of what is happening in the state.
The government demanded to know the parameters used by the NBS to carry out the research that rated Cross River number one in the country involved in child labour with 67.4 percent.
The State Commissioner for Information, Mr. Erasmus Ekpang, who made the demand in an interview with The Tide’s source, said Cross River remained the most “child friendly” state in Nigeria.
Ekpang explained that Cross River showed the value it placed on the rights of every child by being among the first state in the country to domesticate the Child Rights Law.
“The United Nations is aware of what we are doing in this regard. So, it is preposterous for us to degenerate into such a high lows even when there are a number of violations of the law.
“To say the least, we are concerned about such statistics and would want to verify this claim which I still consider as spurious.
“We have continued with sustained advocacy on the existence of the Child Rights Law in the state. The Law provides for criminalisation of violators and offenders of the law.
“As a state, we created a special Ministry to be in charge of this, which is the Ministry of Women Affairs with Desk Offices established in the 18 council areas to cascade this advocacy to the wards and villages.
“Government has gone ahead to involve traditional rulers, opinion leaders and women groups to strengthen this campaign against child labour and child abuse respectively.
“Of course, note that some violators have been and are being prosecuted in the courts. Even in my ministry of information, my orientation department has been doing a lot to sensitise and orientate the citizenry on the existence of the Law and implementation in the state.
“All these are helping and would continue to change the narrative in this regard”, he stated.
The NBS report indicates that over 24 million Nigerian children are involved in child labour, with 14.3 millions of these children engaged in hazardous work as of 2022 when the last report was conducted.
The northwest geopolitical zone bears the brunt of these figures, with the highest number of child labourers (6,407,102) and children in hazardous work (3,266,728).
The South East region emerged the highest in terms of percentage prevalence of child labour with nearly half of the children involved in child labour at 49.9 per cent.
Nationally, 39.2 per cent of children (24,673,485) are in child labour, and 22.9 per cent (14,390,353) are involved in hazardous work, painting a grim picture of the conditions under which nearly two out of every five Nigerian children live.
The report also shows that children in the 5–17 age group in child labour commit an average of 14.6 hours of work per week.
The data further revealed the top 10 states grappling with high percentage of child labour in Nigeria.
According to the data, Cross River, Yobe, Abia, Plateau and Taraba are are top five with 58.6, 58.9, 60.1, 62.6, and 67.4 percent respectively.
Taraba State is followed by Ebonyi with 56.2 per cent, Imo with 56.2 percent, Kogi with 54.4 per cent while Bauchi and Akwa Ibom came 9th and 10th with 53.3 and 52.2 percent respectively.