Focus on maritime, university don urges govt

Stories by Dele Aderibigbe, Lagos

Diezani Alison-Maduekwe,
Minister of Transport

A transport expert has warned that the safety of Nigerians may remain compromised by rickety vehicles and avoidable accidents on the nation’s roads, until the authorities divert its present attention from roads to harnessing the potentials in the other transport modes, particularly, the inland waters. The expert, a lecturer at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, LAUTECH, Mr. Adebambo Shomuyiwa, however expressed genuine regret that the maritime sector, as a result of insufficient regulation, had been overwhelmingly taken over by charlatans and touts who have given the sub-sector an image of a domain for sharp practices, thereby leaving the government little choice beyond remaining focussed on road development.

“The lack of professionalism may have seriously contributed negatively to the transport industry, particularly the maritime industry as being dominated by quacks,” the university don emphasised at Ogbomosho, against the background of the on-going carnage on Nigerian roads.

Well travelled with a wealth of experience in public transport manage-ment, Shomuyiwa tasked the Chartered Institute of Logistics to intensify its efforts on the membership bill, positing that the idea of making the transport sector, which he described as “vital and sensitive,” an all-comers affairs as not being too good for the nation’s welbeing. “I see a transport industry which, if well taken care of, all things being equal, will be capable of energising every other. The transport sector should be an enhancement to other sectors of the economy. All other sectors of the economy engaged in transportation.

“Infact, I do challenge my students to mention any discipline that does not involve transportation and that if they could mention one, I was ready to resign as a transport lecturer,” he explained further, stressing that the country, rather than use the sector for enhancement, has allowed it to degenerate to a level where it now fuels wastage and avoidable destruction of lives.

Zeroing on the maritime sub-sector, the lecturer maintained that Lagosians, for instance, have no reasons getting to their offices late in the morning, or arriving home late after closing from offices if the inland waters had been adaquately utilised as done in several countries.

“We are blessed with about fewer channels which, if dredged, would boost the efficiency of the nation’s transport system. Good enough, the economic cost and environmental impact assessment of their dredging is quite minimal. “In other words, when all these are put in place, Nigerians, particularly those in the working class, would be saved a lot of man-hour, that is, in the sense that they would not be resuming late to work and when they close, they get back home on time, rather than being held for hours in traffic jams on the roads.

“Of course, with such in place, there would be need for consultants as opposed to the type of consultants we now have in the industry,” he said, noting that regretfully enough, the situation now on ground indicated that most consultants in the industry were often lawyers, doctors, pharmarcists and other discipline specialists, all claiming to be professional transport managers instead of registered transport professionals who know the nittygritty of the job.

“Again, you would understand that transport includes maritime, aviation, rail as well as roads. You cannot be in aviation and still claim to be an expert in maritime field. There should be a high degree of specialisation which the Logistics bill will also bring about. Asked if there was anything fundamentally wrong with the country’s transport policies, Mr. Somuyiwa insisted there was none that was not surmountable: our problem was however in the visions of those who were frequently engaged to midwife the policies. “The fundamental problem we have in Nigeria is in the area of transport policy formulation. We tends to adopt the transport policy of other countries without considering their suitability to our local environment.

“There is therefore the need to have a critical study of the nature of our environment as well as our economic culture in order to know what modes of transportation should be emphasised for what area. “Good enough, the present administration is emphasising or encouraging the use of water tranport system. If this vision can be encouraged along with the rail transport system, their economic advantages would be enormous, especially for Lagos. “Personally, I strongly believe that private sector should be encourage to part take in the development and operation of some of the transport sector. The government cannot do all those alone, but it must however, provide the necessary guidelines within which private partnership should work.

“In other words, if we want our transport industry to develop like those of other developed countries of the world, private partnership must be encouraged; especially through the provision of efficient and effective transport policy and infrastructural facilities. “Efficient transport system will obviously bring about the much talk about ‘dividends’ of democracy to Nigerians, both in the urban as well as rural areas. “We should be emphasizing inland water development, we should be emphasising our railway development alongside the other transport system; but more especially the nation’s waterways, in which we have environmental comparative advantage, as such vision would lead to development that would massively benefit the the country, via a more comfortable and effective mass movement of our people, with a multiplier effects of boosting integration and overall development of our economy,” the university don explained.

He enjoined the Federal Government to take the bull by the horns, stressing that the only option to effectively touch the lives of Nigerians was to pursue a policy of inter-modalism, rather than remained constrained to the use of only the roads, even with its attendant severe consequences. “The government must be prepared to take the bull by the horns. This is not the era of what we are going to do, but how we shall do it within a specific time frame. “First, inter-modalism must be encouraged. When you are talking of modal exchange, that is when you are talking about interactions between various modes of transportation.

“Rail as at today is nothing to write home about, air transport is more or less like a trap. But if you are talking of mass movement, you can never do without rail and water,” he concluded, emphasising that Nigerians were now wasting a non-negligible fraction of their lives on road traffics.