Nigeria needs integrated and efficient transport system

 

Since creation, man has been an itinerant being. It is against nature to have someone remain on the spot throughout life. Aside from walking around his or her surroundings, human beings like to explore their environment. Travelling, therefore, forms part of human activities. The earliest forms of transportation were animals like horses, camels, and donkeys. We also heard from oral literature that Yoruba hunters and warriors use spiritual means, such as ‘Egbe’ and ‘Kanako’, to travel from one place to another. In one of Lobsang Rampa’s books  (real name Cyril Henry Hoskin, an English author), I learnt about ‘soul travel’.  Apart from animals, other earliest inventions of travelling include the canoe, boat, ships, cart and wagons, before cars, trucks, trains, airplanes, etc. were invented. In summary, there are four universal means of transportation, namely: road, water, rail and air.

Nigeria, nay West Africa and indeed the entire continent called Africa needs an integrated transportation system. The late Director-General of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission. In 2017, Chidi Izuwah said that about 135,000km of road network in the country were unpaved. He said that in Abuja at the 2017 Otis Anyaeji and Nigerian Society of Engineers annual lecture. He spoke on the theme “Transportation Infrastructure as a Catalyst for Economic Diversification and Inclusive National Development”. He was quoted as saying, “Nigeria has about 195,000km road network out of which a proportion of about 32,000km are federal roads, while 31,000km are state roads. Out of this, only about 60,000km are paved. Of the paved roads, a large proportion is in very poor, unacceptable condition due to insufficient investment and lack of adequate maintenance.”

The PUNCH editorial of November 21, 2023, shed more light on the poor state of Nigerian roads. Quoting studies undertaken by the IMF, Business Insider published a ranking showing Nigeria as having the sixth worst road infrastructure on the continent, which it said, “…casts a shadow over economic prospects and societal well-being.” The IMF’s scoring on cross-country road quality measured the mean speed between a country’s large cities using Google Maps to evaluate road quality and accessibility. On this basis, Nigeria did better than only five African countries –Rwanda, Guinea, Burundi, Madagascar, and the Gambia. This ranking also largely correlates with the World Bank’s ‘Rural Access Index’, and the World Economic Forum’s ‘Quality of Road Infrastructure’ scoring.

The editorial went on to say that roads are acknowledged to be critical for a country’s development, and are “emblematic of its commitment to progress”. Well-developed roads are expected to translate to economic growth, stimulate job creation, and connect communities, says the World Bank. Nigeria’s roads, however, remain an untidy mess, and its road infrastructure shortfall is critical. With a land mass of 923,768 square kilometres and a population of over 220 million (National Population Commission), its roads span just about 200,000km. About 63 per cent of this is untarred, and most are decrepit. Commuters describe the roads variously as “death traps”, “deplorable”, or “dilapidated”.  The African Development Bank reckons that between $100bn and $150bn would have to be spent annually over three decades just to close the road infrastructure gap.

Road infrastructure is the most widely used means of transportation. Due to the poor state of these roads, a journey of five hours now turns into a whole day’s journey, with the deviants using the bad spots as abduction points for commuters.

Information gleaned from the website of the Nigerian Railway Corporation says the Nigerian railway system pioneered the rapid opening up of the geographical area called Nigeria. The railway system, therefore, represents the oldest modern form of transportation in Nigeria. The Nigerian Railway Corporation is over 112 years old, and it runs a unilaterally designed track system of 1067mm Cape gauge. The NRC actually commenced rail business activities with the construction of the first rail line from Lagos to Ibadan (193km) between 1898 and 1901. By 1964, when the construction of the 640km Kano–Maiduguri rail line, then known as the Bornu extension, was completed, the present core of the railway network had been put in place.

An online source summarises the situation thus. “Nigeria’s railway infrastructure is a mix of old and new, with a significant portion still reliant on a colonial-era narrow gauge network that is in poor condition. While there are ongoing efforts to modernise and expand the system with standard gauge lines, challenges like inadequate funding, maintenance issues, and vandalism persist.” The immediate past administration of President Muhammadu Buhari did a lot to complete some of the long-abandoned standard gauge railway infrastructure. As of today, the NRC is running three of such standard-gauge train services. They are: Abuja-Kaduna Train Service, Lagos-Ibadan Train Service and Warri-Itakpe Train Service. I recall with nostalgia my travel from Ibadan to Jos in 1980 to spend part of my long vacation with my uncle, then based at the Bukuru Area of Jos. It took my elder sister and me two full days to make the journey as we left Ibadan around 9pm on our departure day and arrived in Jos at the dawn of the third day. It was an epochal trip as it was my first time travelling to Northern Nigeria. I recall writing down the names of all the towns and villages we passed through and using the experience to write a composition on “How I spent my last Holiday”.

The National Inland Waterways Authority, hitherto Inland Waterways Department of the Federal Ministry of Transport, metamorphosed into an Authority vide an act of the National Assembly, CAP 47, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 (Decree No. 13 of 1997), established with the primary responsibility to improve and develop Nigeria’s inland waterways for navigation: provide an alternative mode of transportation for the evacuation of economic goods and persons: and execute the objectives of the national transport policy as they concern inland waterways. Online source, however, encapsulated the situation thus: “Nigeria’s inland waterways infrastructure faces significant challenges despite its potential. While navigable waterways cover around 3,000 kilometres, they are underutilised due to issues like inadequate funding, a lack of proper maintenance (particularly dredging), and a shortage of skilled personnel. Furthermore, safety concerns, including frequent boat accidents and a lack of adherence to safety regulations, hinder efficient and reliable transportation.”

According to Aviation Metric of August 7, 2025, “The Chief Executive Officer of Financial Derivatives Company, Bismarck Rewane, stated that due to poor infrastructure, Nigeria’s aviation sector lost $3.5bn in revenue between 2020 and 2022. Speaking at the 29th edition of the League of Airports and Aviation Correspondent annual conference with theme “Aviation Financing in Nigeria: Risks, Opportunities and Prospect”, held in Lagos, Rewane noted that the downward trend of the sector occasioned by poor infrastructure equally saw to domestic passenger traffic declined for the second straight year to 11.5 million in 2024.

Rewane observed that many airports lack sufficient capacity and modern facilities, leading to delays and cancellations, just as the different segments of the aviation industry, such as airlines, maintenance providers, and regulatory bodies, often operate in isolation, hindering overall efficiency and safety. Taking a peek into the country’s aviation sector in 2025, the economist disclosed that the air transport sector contracted by 0.81 per cent in Q1 2025, the sixth consecutive quarterly decline. This, he said, manifested in the viability of the nation’s airport, saying, “Nigeria has 32 airports, only 20 were considered viable in 2024, and 92-96 per cent of traffic flows through just four. Nigeria has 23 active domestic airlines; however, five airlines control 75 per cent of traffic. The industry is fragmented.”

Having X-rayed the situation with our four major means of travelling, it is glaring that our transportation systems leave a lot to be desired and are a call to action. It robs the country of development. Trade and commerce are disrupted, tourism is hindered, while the security of lives and property is hampered. Federal and State Ministries of Transportation and Aviation need to work collaboratively to solve this lingering challenge. Everything possible should be done to guarantee safe and affordable transportation systems for Nigerians.

 

X: @jideojong