By Seyi Babalola
A university don, Professor Samuel Odewunmi has advocated the establishment of a regulating agency for the road component of the transportation sector of the economy.
Speaking with Sunrise News on Tuesday on the sideline of the suspension of the Chairman of the Lagos state chapter of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) Alhaji Musiliu Akinsanya, (aka MC Oluomo), Odewunmi said government need to establish a regulating agency for road transport operations in the country.
Describing the road as an orphan, abandoned by the respective governments, Odewunmi said the absence of a regulator has left the road component to be a free for all, where all joiners feel free to tap into the loose funds floating around in the sector.
He said the road which is responsible for over 30 percent of travels and transportation solutions for many Nigerians is the only sub-sector of the modes that is yet to have a regulating agency which formulates policies, and regulates its operations.
“For a very long time, the road has remained an orphan in Nigeria, and it is saddening that a sector which is a leveler of sorts is yet to have a regulating agency managing the activities that go on therein. For the maritime, there is the Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC), the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), and the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), while the air transportation mode has the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), and other agencies, while the road, which accounts for about 35 percent of all transportation has no agency managing its operations.”
He said the development has left the road component to be the least developed mode, as the money floating about which could have been deployed to developing, expanding and rehabilitating the infrastructure is going into private pockets of union officials.
He explained that the existence of the unions have been inimical to the growth and health of the sector as they are not known to have contributed anything to the development or rehabilitation of either the trunk A, B or C roads.
He therefore urged the state government not to back down on the replacement on the suspension of activities of the NURTW in Lagos State, adding that the government should use the opportunity offered by the internal crisis in the union to strengthen the parks management authority the law empowered the state to set up.
Odewunmi who gave thumbs up for the bus reforms of the Babajide Sanwo-Olu administration said