Should states collaborate with the Federal Government to drive an effective mass transit that will be truly national? The berthing of a forum of Commissioners for Transportation, experts say, will help breed a healthy sector that could grow the economy, writes ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE
The gathering of Commissioners of Transportation in Abuja, last Friday, was the clearest signal that Nigeria may be on the way to getting it right in the transportation sector, a critical sector which drives the wheel of the nation’s economy.
While the sector has witnessed tremendous support and sustained planning by governments world over for about six decades, transportation has been abandoned by successive governments in Nigeria, turning the sector into an all comers’ affair.
This has made the sector almost prostrate, contributing a mere 4.5 per cent to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2017.
The maiden edition of the meeting of states’ transportation policy formulators was a fallout of last year’s National Transportation Council’s resolution, which served as peer review mechanism to drive the renaissance of transportation across the states, thereby reviving a sector largely seen as being in the woods.
That explains why Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi’s charge is that the greatest dividend such a gathering could give Nigerians was to bequeath a working mass transit to the people. For this to happen, all federating units must key into the policies and programmes of the Federal Government.
The problem is that the nation’s transportation sector, like others, has been fraught with dysfunctional paradigms that have seen states working at cross purposes to one another, thereby making a national transportation master plan a messy piece of cake and unachievable.
For instance, while for about two decades the National Transportation Council – Nigeria’s highest policy making organ, clearly stated that motorcycles should not be means of mass transit anywhere in the country, many of the states did not only permit same, but openly encourage it. There were instances where governors, who ought to drive the policy, continued to dole out motorcycles and crash helmets to the youth as empowerment tools.
The resultant effect was the ugly kaleidoscope of commercial motorcycles called okada, which are now contesting space on the crowded roads in the cities. It is not out of place to see commercial okada operators migrating their services from hostile environments to favourable states.
The effect of such odious practice, which cut across several states of the federation, is that national transportation policies and programmes have continued to be distorted as states’ fidelity to the policies is seen in breaches.
For the past six decades, the nation’s transportation sector was more of a jungle, where everyone held sway. The result is that despitethe country’s population, which is put at about 180 million, Nigeria’s economy, until recently, the largest in Africa, is still driven by a monolithic motorised system of transportation, while other sub-sectors have been either moribund non-existent, or operating at a disproportional ratio to its full potential.
For instance, while the road mode had accounted for over 75 per cent of both freight and passenger transportation in Nigeria, air, rail, and water modes have continued to jostle for the remaining 25 percent, with the air accounting for about 10 per cent, while the rail does about 12 per cent, leaving inland waterways with only three per cent traffic.
Amaechi listed some of the programmes, which he envisaged greater collaboration, to include the development of Road Transport Operators Manual (RTOM), Road Crime Control System (RCCS), Introduction of Truck Transit Parks (TTPs) and the development of robust urban mass transit that would fully deploy the three modes of transportation.
Road transport operators’ manual, road crime control system and the introduction of truck transit parks, will help stimulate the transportation sector, create jobs, relief the roads and assist in making the roads safer for all operators/users.
This is aside the introduction of Green Transportation (walking, trekking, bicycle riding), and Amphibious vehicles, which could be used on the nation’s inland waterways being promoted by the government.
According to experts, the time has come for a shared vision if government is determined to give Nigerians seamless transportation system.
A logistics expert, Mr. Kelvin Joseph, urged the states to formulate right policies that would develop the road transport sub-sector, which according to him, was state’s constitutional responsibility.
Amaechi said the Federal Government remains committed to the ongoing reforms in the rail, maritime, aviation, mass transit and road operations administration.
According to Joseph, states must cue into the reforms and expand the transit modes available to the people linking one state to the other.
Chairman of commissioners’ forum and Akwa Ibom State Commissioner for Transport and Petroleum Resources, Mr Orman Esim, said beyond peer review, the forum was also to ensure that there was uniformity in service delivery by state governments. He said issues such as multiple charges and taxes within states would soon be a thing of the past.
Working Document
From United Kingdom (UK), to Singapore, China and Australia, tiers of government in developed societies usually have holistic master plan encompassing their transportation visions and aspirations.
In the United States (US) for instance, states are required to regularly update a master plan co-ordinated by the Department of Transportation (DOT). DOT is a federal regulator.
The federal regulator requires that each state must prepare and periodically update a state wide intermodal transportation plan that not only addresses how it will tackle specified factors, but covers a period of at least, 20 years as a condition to receiving federal transportation funding.
In its 2005 to 2030 masterplan with the theme: “Strategies for a new age: New York State’s transportation Master Plan for 2030, an update of the state’s 1996 plan, the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT), envisaged the following parameters: 11 million licenced drivers, 10.5 million motor vehicles, riding over 113,000 miles of local, state and interstate roads and 17,000 local and state highway bridges.
About 2.6 billion transit passenger trips are made yearly, including a daily average of 4.8 million subway riders. Over 488 communities are linked by intercity bus service, which serves 2.6 million passengers yearly.
No fewer than 4,800 miles of railroads serve or connect 31 passenger rail stations and carry 78 million tons of freight yearly.
Experts said a transportation master plan that would include the states, will help address the nation’s status as the biggest economy on the African continent.
In a changing global economy, where travel demands of customers are becoming complex, new modes, they argued, needed to be introduced if Nigeria must continue to be relevant.
Lagos State Vehicle Inspection Service (VIS) Chief Executive, Dr Hafiz Toriola said an integrated master plan, which includes all modes of transportation, especially land, water and air must be pursued.
He also canvassed the involvement of 36 states in designing masterplan that suits their environment, while the Federal Government sets the rules of integration, facilitates and coordinates inter-state involvement.
He said: “There should be a devolution of power, which would see the Federal Government take full charge of all roads on the exclusive list, (Trunk A) roads, while states gain full autonomy to run all roads on the concurrent list (Trunk B) and local governments the residual (Trunk C) roads.”
Former Dean, School of Transportation Studies, Lagos State University (LASU), Dr Tajudeen Olukayode Bawa-Allah, wondered why the government ought to be taken seriously in its bid to develop a transportation masterplan for the country.
Executive Director, Safety Without Borders (SWB), Mr Patrick Adenusi, traced the mushrooming of illegal activities in the sector and the way all comers find their way into the sector to the absence of a master plan.
Describing transportation as a major part of human activity, Adenusi wondered why the government had to wait till everything almost collapsed before it thought of regulating the sector.
According to Adenusi, nobody goes into the aviation industry and buys an aeroplane to start operating it. The other sub-sectors of the industry, he said, ought to be strictly regulated as well.
A master plan, mutually shared by the states, experts argued, will ensure that every state is maximally developed.
The states must begin to evolve their plans and efficiently manage their physical development.
According to Managing Director Planet Projects Ltd., Biodun Otunola, states must take ownership of the transportation systems in their states and develop systems that support their population.
Conclusion
The coming together of Commissioners of Transportation outside the nation’s highest advisory body on transportation, Otunola said, may be one of the ways to sanitise the sector and stimulate its growth across all states.
Having someone like Amaechi to drive the change initiative in transportation may mean an unusual time for the sector and stakeholders will agree, is the only way to bring sanity to a sector that has long been abandoned and neglected by policymakers.
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