By Hamza Suleiman
What was meant to be a routine road trip from Maiduguri to Yola turned into a night of fear, hunger, and helplessness for passengers of a Borno Express Transport Company bus that broke down multiple times before finally leaving them stranded overnight in Malam Sidi, Gombe State.
Among the passengers were students of the University of Maiduguri, traders, and an elderly man—said to be over 70 years old—who had just been discharged from the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH) after a surgical operation.
For them, the journey began at exactly 7:10 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 26, from the Borno Express motor park in Maiduguri. Spirits were high, and passengers hoped to reach Yola by early afternoon. But fate had other plans.
Barely a few kilometres to Potiskum, the Hummer bus developed a fault. The passengers were forced to wait by the roadside for more than two hours before a mechanic arrived to fix the problem. What followed was a long day of mechanical troubles, exhaustion, and confusion.
“We thought it was a minor problem,” said Mr. Dahiru Umar, one of the passengers who later lodged a formal complaint. “But after getting to Potiskum, the same issue occurred again. We waited another hour or two without any proper explanation.”
By afternoon, the bus resumed the journey but broke down once more near Bajoga, Funakaye Local Government Area of Gombe State. This time, there was no immediate help. The driver reportedly made repeated calls, assuring passengers that assistance was on the way.
By 6 p.m., the vehicle finally came to a halt at Malam Sidi, unable to move any further. Fatigue and hunger began to take their toll. “We were stranded in the bush with no food and no place to sleep,” Umar recounted. “All the driver kept saying was that help was coming.”
It wasn’t until 11 p.m. that another Hummer bus arrived. The driver of the stranded vehicle allegedly negotiated with the new driver to transfer passengers to Yola for ₦100,000. The deal was to be sealed through a transfer at a nearby POS operator. But as the passengers waited for confirmation of the payment, the Borno Express driver disappeared.
He vanished into the darkness and stopped picking up our calls,” Umar said. “We were left stranded again, with our luggage loaded in another bus that could not move without payment.”
With no other option, the replacement driver agreed to take only the elderly and the ailing man to Gombe. The rest of the passengers, mostly students, were left behind to face the night.
At midnight, the stranded passengers managed to stop a passing trailer, whose driver agreed to carry them to Gombe. “We were dropped near a police checkpoint, and the officers there were sympathetic. They tried to help us find another vehicle to Yola,” Umar recalled.
Their ordeal did not end there. It was not until 4 a.m. that a Sharon bus heading to Yola appeared. The driver, moved by their situation, agreed to take them for ₦5,000 each — a discount from the usual ₦7,000 fare.
After nearly 26 hours of hardship, the passengers finally arrived in Yola at about 9:28 a.m. on Monday — exhausted, hungry, and angry.
In his complaint, Umar demanded disciplinary action against the driver, a refund of part of their fare, and a public apology from Borno Express. He said the driver’s negligence not only caused emotional and physical distress but also endangered the lives of the passengers.
“Considering the security challenges along the Maiduguri–Yola highway, the driver’s action was reckless and cruel. We could have been attacked or worse,” he said.
“We survived by God’s grace,” he said quietly. “But no one should ever have to go through what we went through that night,” he said.
The Borno Express Transport Company, a state-owned enterprise, has long been a preferred choice for inter-state travel across the North-East. However, recent complaints about poor vehicle maintenance and alleged driver misconduct have raised concerns among regular passengers.
Efforts to get an official response from the company’s management were unsuccessful as of the time of filing this report.
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