OPINION: It Is Time to End the Deadly Practice of Mixing Passengers and Heavy Waybill Loads on Nigerian Roads
By Hilary JohnÂ
Across Nigeria today, something deeply troubling has quietly woven itself into our daily travel culture. It has become so normal that many of us hardly stop to question it. Drivers pile heavy goods popularly called waybills into the same vehicles meant to carry human beings.
To some, it looks like “just business.” But behind every overloaded bus is a silent story of discomfort, of fear and of tragedies that should never have happened.
One of those tragedies struck recently along the Gembu Road in Taraba State. A vehicle, weighed down with passengers and heavy cargo, lost control on the winding mountain terrain. What should have been a simple journey home became a moment of chaos, shattered dreams, and unspeakable heartbreak.
And as painful as it is to admit, this was not simply an accident, it was the predictable result of a dangerous habit we have allowed to continue for far too long.
Now, as Year draws to an end, families homeward for the festive season, the urgency is sharper than ever. People are preparing to laugh, celebrate, reunite. Yet, many will board vehicles silently wondering: Will I arrive alive?
No festive season should carry such fear.
A Dangerous Normal
Walk into any major motor park in the country, and the scene will break any heart that still feels. Drivers load goods as though every inch of the vehicle must carry weight, roofs stacked with cement bags, aisles jammed with sacks of grain, engines strained under the load of machines tied to the back. Everyone sees it. Everyone knows it is wrong. Yet, too many shrug and move on.
Meanwhile, passengers sit squeezed between loads that should never share space with human lives. Yes, the discomfort is there. But it is the quiet, suffocating fear, the fear that if anything goes wrong, escape may be impossible that makes the journey truly unbearable.
This is not business.
This is not hustle.
This is negligence, dangerous, intentional negligence and it has gone on far too long.
A Public Safety Crisis We Can No Longer Ignore
Overloading is not a small mistake. It is a life-threatening gamble.
It weakens a vehicle’s balance on sharp bends and rugged terrain.
It exhausts the brakes on steep slopes.
It strains the driver’s focus as they struggle to control an unstable vehicle.
And in the dreadful seconds when an accident occurs, heavy goods become deadly weapons blocking doors, trapping passengers, crushing bodies, and turning survivable accidents into mass casualties.
The Gembu tragedy is only one in a long list each one whispering the same painful message: We have failed to value human life. We have failed to enforce the rules meant to protect us.
Transport Unions Must Act Not Tomorrow, but Now
Saving lives demands urgent action. Not talk. Not committees. Action.
That requires:
1. A total ban on heavy waybill items inside passenger vehicles. 2. Proper luggage weighing and documentation in all motor parks. 3. Strict penalties for any driver or transporter who overloads. 4. Dedicated cargo vehicles for heavy goods not passenger buses. 5. Consistent enforcement by FRSC, VIO, and state transport agencies.
Transport unions NURTW, RTEAN, and others cannot continue looking away. Turning a blind eye, or accepting “extra fees” to allow overloading, is not just wrong. It is a betrayal, a betrayal that costs lives.
Passengers Must Also Refuse to Be Silent
Many passengers see the danger yet remain quiet out of fear, or hopelessness, or the belief that nothing will change.
But silence has a price. Refuse to enter an overloaded vehicle. Speak up.
Report unsafe practices. You may save your life. You may save a stranger’s life. And sometimes, that is enough to change everything. No amount of transport fare is worth your life.
A Call for Change, A Call to Humanity
Nigeria cannot continue losing its people to a crisis that is entirely preventable. Our roads are already narrow, steep, and poorly maintained in many areas. Overloading does not only endanger the passengers inside the vehicle, it endangers every road user around them.
The Gembu tragedy must not become “just another story.”
It must be our collective wake-up call.
Government agencies, transport unions, vehicle owners, drivers, and the public must stand together now not when more lives are lost. Safety is not a luxury. It is a right one that every human being deserves the moment they step into a vehicle.
Until we stop mixing passengers with heavy cargo, we will keep burying loved ones who should still be with us today. And the guilt will not disappear.
With love heavy in my heart, with compassion that refuses to be silent in the face of preventable loss, and with an unshakeable commitment to the safety, dignity, and wellbeing of every traveler on our roads, I make this appeal: Let us value human life above profit, above haste, above carelessness. Let us choose safety because every life matters.
Hilary John
Journalist
Peace Advocate •
Voice for Humanity
