By Steve Agbota, Abuja
Vice President of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo has said that the investment the Federal Government is making in the transportation system especially in the areas of rail, road, air and maritime sectors is aimed at achieving the potential transport huh status.
Osinbajo who chaired the 3rd National Transportation Summit of the Chartered Institute of Nigeria (CIoTA) with the theme, “Regulating The Transport Sector In Nigeria: The State Of The Art And The Years Ahead,” in Abuja yesterday, said that there cannot be economic development without transportation, adding that transportation cannot serve its purpose unless it is available in a safe, affordable and secure environment.
Osinbajo who was represented by the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Ameachi said, “ and this is why CIoTA’s theme for the year 2021 summit, Regulating the Transport Sector in Nigeria: the state of the art and the years ahead is of special interest to the present administration. The theme and the sub-themes of the summit are in tune with government thinking and actions, as can be seen in the massive transport infrastructure developments in the rail, road, maritime and air subsectors.
“As an indication of the seriousness with which this government takes transportation as sector for driving our economic agenda we enunciated some creative policy initiatives for funding critical projects in the sector. These include Road Infrastructure Tax Credit Scheme, Bonds, involvement of international development Partners such as World Bank, Africa Development Bank (ADB), IMF, Foreign Direct investment (FDI), Highway Development and Management Initiative (HDMI) and National Tolling Policy. These are yielding tremendous results,” he added.
With the recent election of Nigeria as the Secretary General of the Maritime Organization of West and Central Africa (MOWCA), he said that Nigeria has opportunity to utilize the investments we are making in the transport sector as building blocks to attain hub status, and play big especially as Africa regional trade expands with the coming of Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) initiative.
Speaking earlier, the President of CIoTA, Dr. Bashir Jamoh, informed that the 3rd Annual National Transportation Summit is another opportunity for the professionals in the transportation field to deliberate upon the current challenges facing the nation in the sector with a view to proffer well- thought-out, meaningful and practicable solutions for policymakers and decision makers in the collective quest to make the nation’s transportation system more robust and more competitive.
He maintained that transportation is the lifewire and lifeblood of any nation’s economy, adding that the year 2021 theme is a call to a renewed scrutiny, supervision and stocktaking within the transportation sector.
“Transportation is everywhere and it is everything. Transportation is on the ground, whether by road or by rail; it is under the ground whether by pipelines, cables or tubes; it is on the water whether by boats or large vessels; it is under the water whether by submarines; it is in the air whether by planes. Even our bodies have been designed for transportation or how else can one explain the movement of blood and nutrients from the heart’s pumping hub to the entire parts of the human body? One word: Transportation,” he said.
He urge stakeholders to take stock nationally of all the transportation assets of Nigeria as he said CIOTA pledges to play a supportive role in this regard.