Filling the mobility gaps: The shared taxi industry in Kano, Nigeria

This paper aims to analyse the growth of the taxi and shared taxi industries in Nigeria after the 1980s Structural Adjustment Programs. The reduction of public bus services and growing urbanisation fuelled the rise of (paid) car-pooling and eventually a change in the taxi regime. This new system offered an increasingly flexible shared service which (partially) met urban mobility demands. Although this system is common to many African cites, and similar to post-1989 socialist states in Europe and central Asia, focusing on the city of Kano (Nigeria) allows us to identify some of its peculiarities. Relying on secondary sources and on interviews with witnesses, this paper traces the trajectory of shared taxi services from the 1950s to today.