Agunloye on the Road Transportation Crisis in Nigeria … calls for pertinent policies & social justice – By Dr Olu Agunloye
former FRSC Boss and former Honourable Minister, now National Secretary, Social Democratic Party_
We must thank the former federal lawmaker, my brother, Hon. Abimbola Daramola, for the observations on the mishandling, misuse, and abuses of Nigerian roads and communities. The scenarios described in Ekiti State are typical of other locations in our dear country, Nigeria.
The former member of the House of Representatives had painstakingly documented how vehicles, especially articulated trailers and cargo trucks with heavy payloads, damage well-built or substandard Nigerian roads, and pose multiple dangers. Please permit me to chip in a few points on this topical and important issue. It is indeed an abnormality that causes not only a huge social nuisance but substantial economic losses while posing great dangers to lives and significant security threats to communities.
The way out of the mess is not by erecting barriers on the roads as in Ondo State or treating “trailers,” also known as the ‘kings of the road’ as undesirable but by ensuring social justice for all – road users, truck or goods owners, communities, and governments. This can be achieved with the deployment of solutions such as listed below:
1. Governments at federal and state levels need to make pertinent Goods Transportation Policies to stop treating transportation of people or animals, light materials, or heavy cargos in shabby or inappropriate ways.
2. Governments should always strive to encourage industrial goods transporters, including the ‘Dangotes’, to make as much money as possible and then tax them appropriately to make money for the government.
3. The governments should build durable roads by public contracts, or public private partnership contracts, or public-private-community partnership contracts and allow all vehicles to ply them.
4. Governments and/or communities should apply tolls on selected roads to maintain and secure them as well as to recover construction costs.
5. Governments should invest in the construction of diverse transportation channels via waterways and railways to facilitate the moving of goods and people.
6. Governments at all levels in Nigeria should be less corrupt and more responsive to focus on ensuring social justice to bring peace, progress, and empowerment of the citizens.
Dr Olu Agunloye,
National Secretary,
Social Democratic Party, SDP.
6 October 2024
