THE Managing Director, Associated Bus Company, operators of ABC Transport Plc, Mr. Frank Nneji, has urged all tiers of government to pay more attention to bad roads nationwide.Speaking at the 2011 edition of the annual ABC Transport accident free campaign programme held in Lagos, recently, Nneji charged the Ministry of Works to come up with 'concrete strategies in developing viable road networks, while the Ministry of Transport should initiate actions that help promote virile transport operation nationwide.'Meanwhile, the guest speaker at the annual event, Dr. Callistus Ibe explained that the three tiers of government would need about N321billion to fix various roads currently in bad state across the country.Ibe, who is an associate professor of transport management, University of Technology, Owerri, also disclosed that only 15 per cent of the entire roads were motorable.Nigeria has a national road network of about 200,000km out of which about 18 per cent are owned and maintained by the Federal Government, 15 per cent by the state governments and the remaining 67 per cent by the local governments.Ibe, who spoke on 'The challenges of road safety in Nigeria and the panacea,' also gave a breakdown of the required amount for road rehabilitation.He said: 'We have the challenge of sourcing for an estimated N112.4billion by the Federal Government, N64.05billion by state governments and N144.55billion by the local governments to put the roads in safe and motorable conditions in line with the best practice.'Ibe also lamented the increase in the menace of highway robbers as adding to risk of travelling on the bad roads. 'The actions of this group of people (robbers) have added to the number of increasing road crashes statistics. It is either that a vehicle in motion is forced to stop or the tyres deflated and glasses riddled with bullets.'In addition to this, we have the other problem resulting from the blockage of our highways by security operatives mainly by the police. The blockage points now are major sources of road crashes. Most often, it is either that a vehicle crashed into them or drivers lost control in the process,' said Ibe .While quoting from a recent report credited to the former Managing Director of the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency, Mr. Olubunmi Peters, Ibe said that the dilapidated nature of the roads had cost the nation about N450billion.He condemned lack of adequate regulation in the road transport business. 'This fact account for the domination of the mode by private operators with one or two vehicles, they come in and go at will and are not subjected to any form of licensing.While acknowledging the establishment of the Road Transport Safety Standardisation Scheme and a number of other initiatives to ensure safer roads, Ibe alleged lack of political will as a major drawback.He called for the creation of a central vehicle registration system, which would guarantee a reliable database for vehicle registration, drivers' licence and enhanced national security.'We also recommend the use of technology to compliment the present manual enforcement process in Nigeria. The use of camera is strongly recommended; we should explore the possibility of using images from Nigeria satellite system in monitoring traffic and violation of same.'In her submission, the Special Adviser to the Lagos State Governor on Transport Education, Dr. Temitope Masha, said that the task of achieving maximum safety on the road was a collective responsibility.She urged the private sector to play an active role in improving the transport sector.Masha said that the state government had initiated some major projects, including the light rail and resuscitation of water transportation to reduce the burden on the road.She said that the planned expansion of the Bus Rapid Transit scheme and continued road rehabilitation and upgrading would improve the road transport mode.According to her, some officials of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) have just completed a training and mentorship programme to give them new orientation on traffic control.She urged members of the public to always exercise restraint while on the road, obey traffic rules and regulations and assured them that the traffic officers would in turn respect them.The Zonal Commanding Officer, Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Mr. Danjuma Garba, said that Nigeria had domesticated the Accra declaration of 2007, which was aimed at reducing accident rate by 50 per cent by 2015.Also, he said that the FRSC had keyed into the United Nations Decade of Action on Road initiated in November 2009 at the first global ministerial conference in Moscow, Russia with the theme 'Time for Action'.
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