Reputation of Highway and Railway System in Nigeria

Transportation is an important facilitator of economic growth, development, human welfare, and social integration. The main objective of it is to help increase and strengthen economic and social wellbeing, movement of people between locations and bringing goods and supplies to market. Indeed, without efficient and cost-effective transportation, cities, economies, and nations would not function effectively and global trade would not occur. From the foregoing, it is evident that over time transportation both on the railways and highways has played a vital role in development and formation of modern-day Nigeria. The Nigerian Railways (NR) has played an important role as a unifying force and a national bridge builder between the nation’s regions and communities.

The Nigerian Railways (NR), despite the present sorry state also has contributions to modern day Nigeria in terms of land use development and urbanization which has resulted in the emergence of mega towns which includes Lagos, Kano, Makurdi, Enugu, Ibadan, Jos, Minna, Port Harcourt and Zaria amongst others known as railway towns. It is important to note that 80% of the current Nigerian railways were firstly built by the regime of the then British colonial government. This construction traces back to the year 1898, when the first railroad in Nigeria was built. The Nigerian Railways (NR) contributed to increased social, cultural, and economic integration, supporting inter-ethnic relationships.

On the other hand, the Nigerian Highways (NH) conceived in the early years as a supporting transport network for the railways has in recent decades, following the near total collapse of the Nigerian Railways, taken on the role of supporting local, regional, and national economic activities. This is due to its advantage with wider spatial distribution, rapid development, and regeneration activities adjacent to the railway corridors. The railways, according to the critique by many experts and schools of thought, are suffering from the lack of political will by the nation's political leaders.

What is known as Transport infrastructure comprises a network of highways, railways, inland and coastal waterways, seaports, river ports, inland ports and depots, jetties, airports, runways, oil terminals, pipelines, and bridges. The vast decay of Nigerian transport infrastructure is obvious in all types of infrastructure. Many cases of failures in each mode of transportation abound in Nigeria within the last decade. Poor maintenance, rainfall/flooding, terrorist attacks, faulty design, poor materials and construction quality and overloading are all the major causes of Transport infrastructure failures in Nigeria.

?Transportation in Nigeria is heavily reliant on road travel which has a dominant modal share, with in excess of 87% and 95% of passenger and freight movements respectively.?The Master Plan for Integrated Transportation Infrastructure (MPITI) conservatively estimates that by the year 2020 traffic volumes on the nation’s roads will double from their 2000 level with an estimated annual growth rate of 3.5% per year. The comparable average annual rate of growth for public transport is estimated to be between 1.6-2.7%.

The total length of Nigerian National Highways, encompassing community roads, namely village tracks and paths, is estimated to be in the region of approximately 200,000km of highways (193,200km in 1995). The Nigerian Highways (NH) served as feeder roads to the nation’s railways but has for over four decades for several reasons competed very successfully with the railway sector. The primary reason for the ongoing success of the nation’s highways as measured by increasing mode share is the declining performance of the Nigerian Railways (NR), attributable in part to: (a) Poor operation and management of the railways by Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) staff and management; and (b) the relatively low levels of financial investment historically accorded to the Nigerian Railways (NR) by successive Federal Governments (FGs) compared to the Nigerian Highways (NH).

Funded by increased oil incomes, the 1970’s witnessed an expansion of the nation’s Federal highway network, linking State capitals, cities, major towns, and industrial, manufacturing and agricultural regions. However, a combination of a poor maintenance culture, encompassing prolonged maintenance holidays, poor quality construction, rehabilitation and repair, an unsustainable funding environment, limited institutional capacity, the relatively low political priority accorded to transport and high freight axle loads has led to a severe deterioration in the quality of the once highly regarded Nigerian Highways (NH).

The Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) is known for Maintenance of Federal highways within Nigeria which is funded by and under the Federal Ministry of Works (FMOW) and is responsible for routine maintenance of Federal Government Roads (FGR) and through contracting out maintenance activities to the private sector.

In 2002 a survey of the 50,000km of highway infrastructure carrying more than 3 million vehicles per day, revealed that less than a third (27%) of such roads were in good condition. The intervening period has witnessed a further deterioration with more recent estimates revealing that as little as 20% of Federal Government Roads (FGR), the nation’s most critical arterial roads, connecting population and economic centers, as well as neighboring landlocked countries of Chad and Niger, to be in good condition.

Experts all over the country have causes to question Nigeria’s Highway and Railway Transportation maintenance policy and the implementation of these policies. As more funds go into building more infrastructure, commensurate amounts should go into monitoring and preventive maintenance of these infrastructure. Therefore, it is important that the government call for additional integration of the sectors and increase the use of professional systems approaches, including increased investments for robots intermodal relationship between all the modes of transportation infrastructure, improved data collection and management in support of improved policymaking, improved prioritization of interventions and institutionalization of maintenance, and expansion of pro-poor transportation strategies and interventions.

?--Rowland Adéwùmí, PhD(Lon),FNSE