This article does not contain a self-drive route into Nigeria's interior, and that is a deliberate change. An earlier version of this page planned a drive from Abuja into Plateau State with a distance, a travel time and a list of stops, and then sent readers on to a town in Kaduna State and a hill range beyond it. Both of those states appear by name in published travel advice against non-essential travel. A route plan into them is the one thing a page like this must not provide, so the route is gone and the travel advice has taken its place.
What can we help you with?
Three short questions, then just how to reach you. No account needed.
Why there is no route here
Two separate problems applied to the old version. The first is sourcing: the distance, the driving time, the stops and the village descriptions were not traceable to any authority, and a driving time on a Nigerian interior road is not a figure anyone publishes. The second is weightier. Published advice from a named government currently covers both of the states the old route ran through. Printing a convenient way in, under a cheerful heading, works against that advice whatever the disclaimers say.
So this page gives you what is published about the region, and then tells you where to get the advice that actually binds you. It names no villages as destinations, because we could not find an authority publishing anything about them.
What one government publishes about these states
The United Kingdom's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office maintains a Nigeria page that carries its own dates: it was updated on 21 October 2026 and recorded as Still current at: 25 October 2026. Read on that day, it places Plateau State and Kaduna State — the two states the old route crossed — on its list of places to which FCDO advises against all but essential travel. Plateau State appears under North Central, alongside Niger, Kogi, Taraba, Kwara and Benue states; Kaduna State appears under North West, alongside Kano, Kebbi and Jigawa.
The stated grounds are published too. For the North Central group, the page says This advice is due to criminal and militant activity and incidents of intercommunal violence. For the North West, it says Banditry and violent attacks are frequent and there is a high threat of kidnap. And for the country as a whole, it records that Kidnapping, violent crime, and intercommunal violence occur throughout all regions of Nigeria.
One government, quoted as a worked example, with its date. We quote the FCDO because its pages are reachable and kept up to date, and because it dates them. It is not your advice. The advice that governs your trip is your own government's, read on the day you plan to travel, not ours and not another country's. Your insurance and your consular support hang off your own state's advice, and a journey against it is usually uninsured.
Why we name no villages
The old version described five named places in warm detail — a market town, a hill range, a city wall, a state in the south-west. We checked and could not find an authority publishing anything about any of them that we could date. There is a particular harm in a travel page that reads as an invitation into a region covered by advisories, and there is a second harm in writing confident descriptions of real communities from nothing. So the names are out, and the two state names that remain appear only inside the advisory above, where they are sourced.
Fuel is the one cost that is actually published
Nigeria's National Bureau of Statistics publishes pump prices in its monthly Price Watch, as national averages across 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. From our approved reference data, taken from those releases:
- Gasoline: NGN 1,596.25 per liter, national average, measured at May 2026.
- Gasoline in Lagos State: NGN 1,561.22 per liter, same release.
- Diesel: NGN 3,277.47 per liter, national average, measured at 14 May 2026.
- Diesel in Lagos State: NGN 3,150.45 per liter, same release.
Two cautions that come with the source itself. These are national averages, not prices at a particular station, and the Bureau publishes the series with a lag of several months, so the most recent figure available is older than today. If you want a dollar sense of the gasoline figure, NGN 1,596.25 is about USD 1.17 at 1 USD = 1,361.8394 NGN, the Central Bank of Nigeria rate recorded on 25 October 2026 — but note that this pairs a May price with an October rate, which is exactly the kind of mixing that makes budget figures wrong.
The crash statistics we are not going to quote
You will see figures for Nigerian road traffic crashes attributed to the National Bureau of Statistics for the first quarter of 2026. We tried to use them and will not. The Bureau's own document for that quarter was not readable from its site on 25 October 2026, and the news reports that carry the figures disagree with each other: two outlets reporting the same release gave different casualty breakdowns that cannot both be right. A road safety number repeated from a newspaper, with no document behind it, is not a source. If you need the figure, go to the Bureau's own release rather than to us.
Questions to ask before any journey inland
Instead of a route, a short list of what to settle first. These are questions, not reassurances:
- What does my own government advise for every state on the intended journey, read today — and does my insurance still cover me if I go anyway?
- Has my employer or host organization a written movement policy for the states concerned, and does my journey comply with it?
- Who is accountable for the decision to travel, and who is told if the journey changes?
- Is this journey necessary, or is it a trip I want to take? The published advice in several of these states turns on exactly that distinction.
What expats should know
- There is no route in this article. The distance, driving time and stops in the earlier version were unsourced and led into advisory areas.
- Plateau State and Kaduna State are both covered by advice against all but essential travel, on a page updated 21 October 2026.
- The stated grounds are published: criminal and militant activity and intercommunal violence in the North Central; banditry and a high threat of kidnap in the North West.
- Your own government's advice is the one that counts, and it decides your insurance.
- Gasoline averaged NGN 1,596.25 per liter nationally at May 2026, from the Bureau's Price Watch across 36 states and the FCT.
- Diesel averaged NGN 3,277.47 per liter on the same basis, at 14 May 2026.
- Treat both as lagged national averages, not as a price at a pump on your route.
- We publish no crash statistics. The primary release was unreadable and the secondary reports contradict each other.
Where to check
The advisory wording and the state lists are from the FCDO's Nigeria travel advice and its regional risks page, updated 21 October 2026 and read on 25 October 2026. The pump prices are from the National Bureau of Statistics Price Watch releases, held in our own reference data with the measurement dates given above. For the advice that governs your trip, go to your own government's foreign ministry.
