Going by the current prognosis, 2020, which begins tomorrow, promises to be one with pleasant outcomes for the transportation industry, writes ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE

 

The Minister for Transportation Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi shocked stakeholders immediately he was sworn-in for a second term. He called for memoranda on the policies and programmes they want his ministry to  implement between then and 2023.

To industry watchers, such a path was novel, giving an indication of his willingness to thread uncommon path in rebasing the sector, which until 2015 had been  prostrate.

If 2019 had gone as one of the best years for the sector, with rail transportation emerging as the toast of the Ministry, going by the Minister’s disposition, 2020 may emerge as a better year.

 

New rail experience

 

The completion of the Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge and the activation of commercial operation of the speed train service will, certainly, be the administration’s greatest gift to Nigerians in the new year.

Already, a four-month free train ride was kicked off on the Lagos-Ibadan Standard gauge on December 4, and it will run till April 2020.

Amaechi, in a slew of tweets on his tweeter handle @rotimiamaechi, expressed happiness that the double track lanes have finally reached Moniya, the terminus in Ibadan.

What remains, according to him, is the Lagos end, with the construction from Agege to Apapa Ports as well as the completion of the 10 train stations. He gave an April deadline for both.

Though hitting Apapa may stretch beyond April, Amaechi is optimistic that the original plan, which was to take the standard gauge to Ebute Meta, is achievable.

During his routine tour of the project on December 20, Amaechi erased doubts that the project would be delivered in April. He assured that work would be speeded up from January 6 on all sections simultaneously to achieve the set deadline.

It will be the first time for a project of such magnitude to be completed within the first cycle of its life span. The Ajaokuta-Itakpe-Warri railway, which was conceived as the nation’s pioneer standard gauge took 38 years to be completed, while the second, which is the Abuja-Kaduna standard gauge took 12 years.Both were delivered by the Buhari administration in 2017.

That the 157-kilometre standard gauge track would be delivered within three years, underscores the commitment of the administration to the transformation of the transportation sector, which might have been borne out of the recognition of the sector’s capacity to unlock the economy.

Undoubtedly, the administration remains committed to changing the  narrative, which pitches transportation as one of the least contributors to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and its almost exclusive concentration on the road mode as its only means of transportation, despite being Africa’s largest market.

As the administration takes ownership of the Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge by April, and its eventual historic flag-off by May, it proposed intention to start the Ibadan to Kano leg (which is the final leg of the project), same month. This leg is projected to be completed before the end of the administration in 2023.

Again, speaking on this, Amaechi had said it would be rather disappointing after all his worries, if the Buhari administration will have to leave the project for another administration to commission.

Yet, it is not only on the Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge that the government is expected to deliver. The government said it is shopping for funds to take on the Lagos-Calabar Standard Gauge Costal Rail line, while the Itakpe-Lokoja-Abuja route is being farmed to a private concern on a Build, Own, Operate and Transfer Private Partnership Participation(BOOT-PPP).

Amaechi said the administration would link state capitals with rail lines, while attempts would also be made to link Kaduna with Kano, with a slip line to Daura to terminate in Maradi in Niger State to ease trans-sahelian trade, where Nigeria’s port cities would benefit maximally from the landlocked nations with whom it shared common borders.

 

Waterways transformation

 

Nigerians are also expecting the Amaechi leadership of the Transportation ministry to leave a lasting legacy on the waterways.

Beyond making Nigeria more competitive in the international environment with the several ongoing reforms led by the ministry, operators and industry watchers said the ministry must take more than a passing glance at the inland waterways to make the inland ports more viable.

They argued that the huge investments of the government over the years would continue to pale into insignificance if the inland ports were not operational.

Experts argued that accessibility by roads, dredging and channelisation and outdated equipment or lack of facilities are some of the bane of these inland ports.

The Baro port, said to be the flagship of the inland ports under the Nigeria Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), stakeholders argued, has continued to be under-utilised despite the huge investment of successive governments because of the scant attention placed on it and other inland ports to be the drivers of economic regeneration in their zones.

NIWA’s new Managing Director Dr Chief George Moghalu, who described these river ports as key to  socio-economic development, for instance, bemoaned the non-completion of the Jamata river port in Lokoja, a project which has for long seem to have been abandoned by the contractor.

According to him, “If the waterways transportation is effective, it will reduce pressure on the roads as heavy axial loads could now be transported on water instead of the roads thereby prolonging the lifespan of the roads.”

Within the year, Nigerians would want issues of abandoned projects scattered round the waterways resolved and the waterways become more active.

They would want to see NIWA engage with littoral states with very strong presence on the waterways and encourage others less visible to push their government for greater presence on the waterways.

Rather than the war of attrition over which agency is superior or have overriding capacity on the waterways, NIWA, experts said, should play the lead role by setting the pace,  standards and regulations and seek the assistance of other players in the sector to reduce the anticipated challenges  in  the sector.

 

Laws and policies

 

Perhaps Amaechi’s greatest achievement, which would beat his strides in the railway transformation, would be the berthing of a transportation policy for the country. Experts and industry watchers have cried hoarse on the need for the nation after 60 years of independence to have a governing policy driving the sector.

Read Also: 2019: Rail’s greatest year

 

Rather than give it the requisite priority, successive administrations have paid lip service to the desire of operators to see the nation develop a policy to guide the government-to- government relationship as well as policies to regulate the operators, operations and other gamut of transportation in the country.

Governments since 1960 have set up various committees and panels, which have come up with various recommendations on the framework of a transportation policy for Nigeria.

However, rather than such materialising into a position paper, and a policy, such recommendations usually ended in white papers that were never implemented. The result has been a chaotic transportation system that is at best ad-hoc, with various states, which ought to domesticate such policies working at cross purposes as none, until the outgoing year, when Lagos received a draft policy from a committee set up in last year to help it draft a transportation policy to guide all gamut of the industry.

Interestingly, some of the 36 states of the federation are yet to see the need to establish a Ministry of Transportation, while some still merged the ministry with other activities giving the headship of such agencies to advisers.

Theses problems are said to be responsible for the skewed outcomes and an economy that is tottering.

Pioneer Dean, Lagos State University School of Transportation (LASU-SOT) Dr Tajudeen Kayode Bawa’Allah said the beginning of a new decade is another opportunity, which Amaechi has to stand at the cusp of history.

“We would love him to please give Nigeria a transportation policy and this can be achieved before the end of the year. No fewer than five committees have been set up to come up with recommendations at various times of which I have been privileged to be among two of such.

Our reports are still gathering dust in the Ministry there. Let Amaechi dust those files and begin early in the year a process in which before the end of 2020, we can have a policy that can be passed to the National Assembly in place,” Bawa’Allah said.

Beyond the transportation policy, which forms the super structure, upon which every investment of the government – whether in the past, present or in the future – devolves , stakeholders have also restated the need for the government to amend some laws that has militated against the sector.

One such law is the Nigerian Railway Act 1955, which is yet to be amended since it was presented to the eighth National Assembly.

Other laws, which the lawmakers failed to ensure their passage are the National Transportation Authority bill, The Nigeria Ports Authority Amendment bill, The Nigeria Shippers Council Amendment bill, among others.

An early passage of all those enabling bills, according to Bawa’Allah, who is a Fellow of the Academy of Engineers, remains one way of ensuring that the investments and legacies are preserved and continue to impact on the sector beyond the tenure of the administration.

He commended the Buhari administration for the University of Transportation, which ground breaking was done this month and the foundation of a wagon factory in Ogun State in November, adding that by these it has written Nigeria’s name in gold in the comity of nations.

But all these will pale, if the nation still continues to adopt ad-hoc measures to address the challenges besetting the sector.