Christmas: Catholic Church subsidises transport fares for travellers

By Uchenna Eletuo

The Holy Spirit Catholic Church, Onireke, Ojo, Lagos, on Wednesday announced a subsidy of transport fares and provision of mini buses to help its parishioners and non-parishioners travel during Christmas.

The Coordinator of the programme for the church, Ngozi Okeke, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the initiative was to ease the burden faced by travellers during the festive period.

“The fare for the services is N6, 000 and this is just to meet up with the cost of the service and not for any profit as commercial buses charge far beyond that.

“The fare is constant and is not being determined by market forces, unlike the commercial ones that increase fares, depending on the time and upsurge in number of commuters.

“The church is dominated by Nigerians and part of the missionary work of the church is to render such services to the people in times like this,” she said.

Okeke said that the buses would depart the church premises Mondays to Saturdays.

“If other churches and organisations can do the same especially during Christmas and provide humanitarian services to people, the tales of woes people encounter would be reduced,” the coordinator said.

When NAN correspondent visited the church premises, many travelers were seen boarding the buses.