I have been hearing a lot about the GIGM bus service recently and I figured I’d give them a try during a recent trip from Enugu to Lagos, Nigeria. I haven’t really used that many bus transport services in the past but I am quite familiar with a lot of them.
This is a personal review of my experience with this service.
The park in Enugu is located at No.7 Market Road in the city centre. It took about 10 minutes to drive down from Independence road to the location. Because I didn’t book my ticket online, I arrived early to buy one there.
By the time I arrived at about 5:45 am, the waiting area was already rowdy and announcements for boarding and departure were being made for some of the buses. I joined the queue to get a ticket to my destination and paid using my MasterCard.
The bus service operates several routes to Lagos including stops at Iyana Ipaja, Ajah, Festac among several others. I chose to go with the Yaba route and was given a ticket for the first bus which was to depart at 7 am.
The ticket cost me N4,500, which would have been N450 cheaper if I had purchased it on the company’s website. I would have also had the option of picking a better seat if I got my ticket a day earlier.
At exactly 6:45 am, our bus number was announced for boarding. We were booked to ride in a 14-seater Toyota Hiace vehicle. When I got my ticket, there were only three seats left on the bus, so I chose seat 11 – a seat by the window on the last row.
We wound up departing the station at exactly 7:30 am due to a few delays. First, a passenger who had paid for a seat was nowhere to be found. An exchange request was made and the replacement came with a large amount of luggage.
The bus has very limited luggage space and this is something you might want to consider if you plan to use this service. After reshuffling some of the already loaded bags, the driver was able to fit in her bags in and we began our journey to Lagos.
Once inside, I found the leg space to be extremely poor. I’m about 160 cm in height and this was very uncomfortable for me. Worse, a bag was cramped under the seat in front of me making it even harder to stretch my legs.
If you have longer legs, you might want to consider riding shotgun, choosing one of the aisle seats or seat 13 as you practically have no obstruction in front of you.
The ride itself was pretty smooth. The road was good for the most part and the driver maintained a safe speed for the entire trip. I assume there are speed monitors installed on all GIGM’s vehicles but I can’t confirm this at the moment.
During the trip, we made 2-3 minor stops, where we were addressed by someone from the monitoring team and then a 15 minutes stopover at Ore where we all had to leave the bus. We eventually arrived in Lagos at about 3:00 pm and the park in Jibowu one hour later.
Overall, I thought the service was great and it’s definitely one I would recommend.
Have you used GIGM’s service before? What was your experience?
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