Lagos State has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, and the Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria, RTEAN, to launch the Bus Industry Transition Programme, BITP, aimed at folding the city’s yellow “danfo” buses into a regulated, franchise-based system.
Signed Wednesday in Lagos on behalf of the unions by NURTW’s Mustapha Adekunle Sego and RTEAN’s Samson Adepeju, the agreement covers eight Quality Bus Corridors, with four — including Ketu-Alapere-Akanimodo and Ojuelegba-Lawanson-Cele — first in line. Fare collection moves to digital payment, unions will help manage members’ transition into franchise operators, and LAMATA retains regulatory oversight.
LAMATA’s Managing Director, Abimbola Akinajo, called it the product of more than two years of negotiation, insisting — quote — “Formalisation should not be construed as strangulation.”
Lagos has made similar pledges before. A 2017 Bus Reform Initiative, BRI, aimed to replace danfo with 5,000 new buses within three years. A 2021 push promised to phase out danfo buses under the Bus Rapid Transport, BRT, scheme. In late 2024, the state announced a new BRI pilot along the Lekki-Epe corridor.
Akinajo has acknowledged that danfo “cannot be completely scrapped,” since it carries most Lagos commuters, but whether this current formal framework succeeds where earlier “phase-out” plans stalled remains to be seen.
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