REGULATION AND CONTROL OF TRANSPORT OPERATIONS IN NIGERIA: MATTERS ARISINGS

Power and Control are two inseparable concepts. The former is needed to set the ball rolling while the later is required to influence the speed of the rolling ball, determine its direction or ultimately bring it to an abrupt stop. At any given time the power required to keep moving bodies under control is usually greater than that which sets them in motion. No doubt, Control is a function of Power. What about when Power goes out of Control? It is then the maxim that ‘Power is nothing without Control’ is brought to bear. For at this juncture, Power changes its identity. It becomes ‘Disaster’. But disasters can be avoided if only we can predict well.

Predicting the future is notoriously difficult, and the more grand and elaborate the vision, the more likely it is to be proven wrong. But that does nit stop technologists, who love to paint vivid pictures of a world transformed by whatever it is they have invented. Such grand visions can help ignite the fire of enthusiasm for new technologies and foster their adoption by the public. In many cases however, technologists’ visions turn out to be wide of the mark, either because new inventions fail or more interestingly, because they succeed in unforeseen ways.

The dream of a future in which standard gauge railway tracks would criss-cross the length and breadth of Nigeria, banishing the era of substandard transport facilities and pushing the country up the motorization ladder emerged in the early 20 th century and has persisted ever since. After the development of some major rail lines than ran from the North to the South and the procurement of railway engines and wagons, optimism grew that the long-awaited road transport alternative was about to take off. Although the rail lines and the wagons still exist, Nigerians still do not believe we have a functional railway system since the dependence on the road mode has continued to be on the rise. Nigerians are still expecting the railways of the 29 th century to metamorphose into modern day railways that compete with the airlines in terms of speed and service delivery. Incidentally, this expectation is not a mere wish as developments in the railways of Europe and America has shown. But the development of railways contributed to the growth of many towns that ultimately became large industrial and commercial Cities such as Kano, Kaduna, Jos, Osogbo, Ibadan, Lagos, Enugu, and Port Harcourt. It also helped develop the early potentials of tourism. It is clear that the railway idea did well – just not in the Visionaries imagined.

Something similar is going on in the Road Transport System. At present the system has been perceived as the most hapless yet consistent transport mode in Nigeria. At the outset, the infrastructural developers envisioned superhighways that would link the major towns and cities, and modern carrying units that would convey both passenger and freight safely and comfortably within and beyond our national frontiers. Today, technically speaking, thousands of kilometers of bituminous roads have been built, a colourful cast of entrepreneurs have emerged, and countless Vehicles of diverse makes, shapes, sizes, and flaws have been procured. Besides, the advent of the motor car in the country has espoused speedy development of allied industries like the Road Construction Companies, Vehicle Assembly Plants, Spare Parts Fabrication Industries, Vehicle Maintenance Outfits, Vehicle sales Outlets, Transport management Institutions, and many more. Just because the road transport technology is developing in unexpected ways does nit mean it has failed, however.

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Visionaries get things wrong because they concentrate so much on the technology, and fail to take into account the way it is shaped by social, political and economic forces as it spreads. For instance, most of our Federal Highways were constructed at a time when the nation’s railway system was functional. Then heavy-duty vehicles were few because Companies hauled goods and heavy equipment by rail. Petroleum products were getting to depots across the country through the network of pipelines. Hence tankers were few on the roads. The nation’s roads were actually built mostly for lightweight commercial vehicles. With the relapse of the rail system came the nation’s over-reliance on its poorly –built, and yet to be upgraded roads. This situation has led to several long stretches of our roads graduating from pot holes to deep gullies. Luxury Buses, trailers and fuel tankers have been known to get trapped in these gullies for days, and on such days vehicular traffic grounds to a halt. This road situation is just a tip of the iceberg when one considers numerous other unsettled issues that dot the entire landscape of the industry. As experts have pointed out, the rapid decline in the quality of transport services in Nigeria is as a result of the indisposition of the administrative arm of the industry. So like in all ailing systems, the viral infection resulted to this epidemic that we see today. If only visionaries could be convinced that there is a string of similarities that run through issues of lack of professionalism, use of unstandardised vehicles, unregulated entry and exit from the industry, and lack of restriction in operators’ choice of route and freight. This is also true of cases of general infrastructural decay, obsolescence, corruption and sharp practices and outright ugliness that have spread through the industry like gangrene. A closer look at the muddle would make similar revelations about the noble ideals of ‘Safety and Comfort’ that 99% of transport operators have thrown overboard. Power is nothing without Control – the maxim again.

In the transport industry, Power is classified into the Tractive Power or Force which comprises the various makes and categories of vehicles and entrepreneur that are associated with the carrying units, the Market Forces that motivate patronage, and the Administrative Power that regulates and controls the entire industry. Of these three forces, the Administrative power has an overriding influence, and is always there to prevent any form of disaster, no matter how it looms. The Nigerian transport industry, unfortunately, is not meeting the expectation of the visionaries because only of these tree vital forces (the tractive and the market) are operating. The third and most influential is yet to be established. It is the absence of this third force in the transport gallery that has proved the undoing of many experiments that past administrations have conducted in this field. The industry is in dire need of a Regulation and Control agency to be established by an act of parliament, as a departure from the contrived overdependence on the bureaucracy of the Ministry of Transport. Specific functions like the drafting of a comprehensive National Transport Policy to replace the misnomer left behind by the military, the regulation and control of the various transport operations, adoption of latest technologies in transport modes, research and development of modern transport ideas, among many other innovative roles should be assigned to the agency or commission. By the time this agency puts the tractive force on check, then the actual behaviour of market forces will emerge. Proper understanding of these market forces, which depict acceptability, will enable the visionaries and the government to conveniently establish an ultimate yardstick for a successful transport technology.

 

Chigozie Chikere

Traffic Data Analyst

7 Samuel Ladoke Akintola Boulevard

Garki 2, Abuja.

E-mail: grandefather@yahoo.com