By Chibuzor Alli
Nigeria’s transport crisis is being driven less by a shortage of ideas than by the failure to consistently implement policies and convert available expertise into an integrated system, transport and logistics experts have said.
The experts made the assessment at the second edition of the Transport Summit in Lagos, where they called for stronger implementation of existing policies and transport solutions designed around Nigeria’s realities.
The summit, themed, ‘Navigating Global Disruption and the Road Ahead: Mobility, Energy and Trade Facilitation for a Resilient Future,’ featured discussions on how rail, road, water and other transport modes could be better connected to improve mobility and trade.
Speaking during a panel session on a paper presented by a senior lecturer at the University of Lagos, Dr Femi Aiyegbajeje, titled ‘Rail-Led Multimodal Integration: Unlocking Efficient Transport, Trade Facilitation and National Connectivity,’ the Managing Principal of AZ Logistics, Dr Azeez Mustapha, said the country already possessed much of what was required to develop an effective integrated transport network.
According to Mustapha, the missing element was sustained political commitment to implementation.
“Nigeria does not lack much. What Nigeria lacks is implementation. We lack the political will,” he said.
He cited efforts to link the Lagos rail network with airports as an example of projects that could improve connectivity if governments remained committed to implementation.
Mustapha urged authorities at all levels to focus on executing transport projects and developing solutions that reflect the country’s specific circumstances rather than allowing policies to remain largely on paper.
The Managing Director of Expedite Movers Nigeria Limited, Olubowala Ade-Onojobi, also questioned the repeated introduction of new policies without adequate attention to implementation.
She argued that government should concentrate on delivering policies already in place before creating additional frameworks.
“We have policy in this country. There is no year in which the government does not come up with new policies. The authorities should demonstrate how existing policies are being implemented,” she said.
Ade-Onojobi said Nigeria could study established transport systems such as that of the United Kingdom but cautioned against simply replicating foreign models without adapting them to local conditions.
A different approach was advocated by the Special Adviser to the Lagos State Governor on Blue Economy, Oluwadamilola Emmanuel, who said Nigeria could achieve better integration by strengthening solutions that were already emerging locally.
He cited the Lagos State Cowry Card as an example, noting that the payment platform allows commuters to pay for journeys across boats, Bus Rapid Transit services and rail.
Emmanuel said such systems demonstrated how a common payment platform could make it easier for passengers to move between different transport modes.
The debate also prompted calls for Nigerian transport professionals to develop a practical framework capable of bringing existing infrastructure and services into a more coordinated system.
The Publisher of MMS Plus Newspaper, Kingsley Anaroke, said the country had enough human resources to design an efficient transport system but had not sufficiently harnessed that expertise or maintained policy implementation.
Anaroke called for transport experts to come together to develop a workable integration framework, arguing that Nigeria needed solutions grounded in its own circumstances.
He cited the Cabotage policy as an example of an initiative whose intended benefits had not been fully achieved and warned that importing foreign models without addressing domestic challenges could produce limited results.
The discussions reinforced a central concern among the experts: that Nigeria’s transport challenge requires sustained execution of existing ideas and policies rather than a continuous cycle of new announcements.
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