- April 28, 2025
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Whither Transport Masterplan?
National Transport Policy: Pushing the needle of economic prosperity Transportation is globally accepted as the backbone of any thriving economy, playing…
National Transport Policy: Pushing the needle of economic prosperity
Transportation is globally accepted as the backbone of any thriving economy, playing a critical role in facilitating trade, enhancing mobility, and fostering national development. In Nigeria, the absence of a cohesive and comprehensive national transport policy has resulted in fragmented transport systems, inefficiencies, and safety concerns.
In this report, LANRE ABDUL and SAMUEL BENJAMIN explore the urgent need for a national transport policy to address these challenges, enhance economic growth, and improve the quality of life for Nigerians across the country.
NIGERIA’s transport sector faces significant challenges, including inadequate infrastructure, poor regulation, and safety risks, which hinder economic progress and social development.
The lack of a national transport policy has led to huge hemorrhaging as a result of inefficiencies across the various transport modes.
Despite widely acceptable statistics which supports that any population exceeding a million ought to have multi-modal transportation, in Nigeria, in spite of a population nudging over 250 million, we have remained largely pristinely mono-modal, relying almost exclusively on the land mode to meet our transit needs.
Therefore, for Nigeria to maximize the opportunities within the transportation sector, some experts have argued that the country not only need the National transport policy to regulate and drive the appropriate investment into the sector, it also needs the national transport policy to leverage the advantages of intermodal transport, as well as provide the appropriate framework for the various states. A national policy according to experts would also foreclose the tendency for most states to work in silos with no convergent points in terms of transport planning and initiatives.
While the country continues to totter, transport experts insisted the nation ought to learn from several countries around the world that have developed exemplary transportation systems, largely due to strategic national transport policies that prioritize efficiency, sustainability, and integration.
For example, Japan’s transportation network is renowned for its effectiveness and pin-point technological advancement with the introduction of the Shinkansen, or bullet train.
The journey of the Japanese transportation revolution commenced in 1964, just a year before Nigeria also commenced her convoluted journey into developing a policy around transportation.
While Japan revolutionized travel, connecting major cities at speeds up to 200 mph, Nigeria went south, relying almost exclusively on derelict contraptions to meet and manage its land transportation needs. The Japanese initiative, it was learnt, was part of a broader national policy to stimulate economic growth and regional connectivity post-World War II, especially as the government focused on integrating various transport modes, such as trains, buses, and subways, to ensure seamless connectivity across the country.
Another example is Switzerland. Switzerland boasts of a comprehensive and punctual public transportation system, including trains, buses, trams, and boats that connected the urban and rural areas, even its Alps efficiently. This efficiency was credited to razor sharp national transportation policies that emphasized sustainability and environmental responsibility.
Similarly, the Netherlands renowned for its bicycle-friendly infrastructure, with an extensive network of bike lanes and a culture that encourages cycling although public transit systems, including trains and trams, are well-developed, ensuring efficient connectivity. But these are driven by national transport policy of the country.
In 2024, Dutch technology companies, including ASML, contributed approximately $230 million to enhance infrastructure in Eindhoven, supporting the government’s “Operation Beethoven” plan.
Norway has emerged as a leader in electric vehicle (EV) adoption largely due to the impact of its transport policy. EVs constitute the majority of car sales and is driven by the country’s national transport policy.
Worthy to mention also is France. Its transportation system integrates various modes, including high-speed trains like the TGV and an extensive metro network in Paris. And it is a product of its national transport policy, which prioritize public transport to reduce congestion and pollution, resulting in a well-connected urban transit system that is both reliable and efficient.
Nigeria’s West African neighbour Ghana has a National Transportation Policy which has undergone review recently. Specifically in 2024, the Ministry of Transportation commenced the dissemination of the revised National Transport Policy and Electric Vehicle Policy in a bid to enhance its transport sector.
The Gambia has a National Transport Policy of 2018-2027 which is an update of the 1998-2006 policy with a system that mixes both public and private operations and consists of a system of roads (both paved and unpaved), water and air transportation. The 135-page document provides the road map for the management and maintenance of the national transport infrastructure.
Other African countries also have roadmaps which have been adopted to serve as guides for the operation of the transportation sector.
But as big as the transportation industry is in Nigeria, the sector is virtually unregulated besides not having a destination in mind of what its services hope to look like in the future due largely to the absence of a master plan to provide the legal and regulatory framework for all the modes of transportation. This, experts say, has been hindering investment in the sector.
“If we are duly regulated, and laws regulating transportation are enforced, and monitored, I think our lives will witness a huge transformation,” said Segun Obayendo, the President of the Chartered Institute of Transport Administration of Nigeria (CIoTA).
CIOTA is one professional transport body that has pushed the need to have a transportation master plan to entrench professionalism in the transportation sector.
And there are many stakeholders like CIOTA who believe that the country needs to have a National Transport Policy and they have been pushing for it in the last three decades. Ironically, despite these efforts, the country has not been able to adopt a National Transport policy let alone following its guidelines.
After more than 60 years of independence, none of the four modes of transportation has been optimized to the benefit of many Nigerians and towards enhancing the country’s revenue.
From air to land, or from rail to water transportation, one level of inefficiency or the other stares many who needed to make use of any of these modes of transportation in the face, leaving the average commuter frustrated and most times stranded, paying hugely for the service to commute from one place to another.
For instance, many roads across Nigeria, classified whether as highways, expressways or inner roads are in deplorable state making commuting harrowing for both motorists and commuters. Major expressways and highways across the country have deteriorated with commuters and motorists spending over five hours, and sometimes days, on a trip that should not take an hour to navigate through.
Yet within the road transport system are transport unions who are raking in billions from the system that is not ploughed back for any infrastructure upgrade.
Same malaise plagues the nation’s maritime sector. Despite its vast potential, Nigeria’s international or inland waters are strewn with herculean challenges that continues to nag economic growth and efficiency.
A litany of infrastructure deficiencies for decades have bogged down the country’s ports leading to inefficiencies and increased operational costs. The sector also grapples with revenue leakages and governance issues which prevent optimal collection of internally generated revenues and affect the overall financial health of maritime operations and security challenges as the sector is plagued by piracy, armed robbery, and illegal activities such as oil theft and illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, which not only endanger lives but also deter investment and increase operational costs. Add this to the fact that the nation continues to have its own shipping fleet, one could then imagine how the country have continued to be a fringe player within in the maritime transport subsector.
The aviation sector, being pivotal to the nation’s connectivity and economy, however faces several challenges that impede its development and efficiency. These include infrastructure deficiencies as the airports are hampered by inadequate facilities and limited capacity to handle passenger surge as infrastructural shortfall leads to congestion, delays, and a vanishing passenger experience in major cities with huge air passenger traffic.
Also, despite improvements, safety remains a endemic issue as inadequate training for pilots, air traffic controllers, and maintenance personnel contributes to operational risks, just as Nigerian airlines often struggle with financial challenges, including high operational costs, fluctuating exchange rates, and difficulties in securing funding for fleet maintenance and expansion, leading to route cancellations and, in some cases, the shutdown of airline operations.
It is probably one sector that can hardly experience a meltdown or low patronage as human beings are intrinsically inclined to move, come rain or shine. Therefore, transportation irrespective of the mode – land, water, air or railway – would be needed at every point in time.
Speaking recently at the 63rd edition of the Centre for Value in Leadership, Prof Samuel Odewunmi, a transport expert said, “Transport as the anchor of the economy is not just a sector but the backbone of the economy.”
Noting the need for a national transport policy which has been pending for 30 years, and the need for a robust public-private partnership to address the challenges in the transport sector, Odewunmi said: “Among the three critical things that need to be tackled is the national transport policy. Successive administrations have been trying to put it in place for the past 30 years but none has been pronounced. We need to get our transport policy right. Road system of transport is an orphan in the country. Water and rail have mobility but are contributing five per cent to mobility.
The transportation sector held the key to any economy and formed the basis of all socio-economic interactions, adding that Nigeria was suffering the bane of inadequate transportation
Less than five percent of trade is in Africa due to a failed transport system. There should also be the public-private partnership.”
Yet, Nigeria has experimented with the railway transportation system as a mode of transportation over a century ago and the system is still alive. The air transportation is also over 100 years old this year after the first aircraft landed in Kano and Maiduguri. The historic flights involved three De Havilland DH 9A aircraft belonging to the Royal Air Force, RAF.
Also water transportation is not strange to Nigeria. Both organised and unorganised, the country has leveraged on the massive waterways to drive water transportation.
The country is blessed with abundant waterways which could have been leveraged on to manage the present challenges thrown on the citizens by the removal of fuel subsidy.
Its resource base of waterways spans 10,000 kilometres with about 3,800 kilometres of them “navigable seasonally” according to the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA).
Twenty-eight of the nation’s 36 states can be accessed through water and that Nigeria can link five of its neighbouring countries–Benin Republic (Port Novo), Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Chad and Niger Republic by water. So water transportation is also not strange.
Probably understanding the key role the transportation sector could play in driving his Renewed Hope Agenda, President Bola Tinubu carved out of the Ministry of Transportation, a Ministry for the Marine and Blue economy, which according to experts may need to synergize if the hope of berthing a workable transportation policy is ever going to be realized.
The Minister of Transportation, Sa’idu Alkali is responsible for overseeing the nation’s transportation infrastructure, including rail and road networks, the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, AdegboyegaOyetola, manages maritime affairs, focusing on the sustainable use of marine resources, while the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, is in charge of civil aviation and the development of aerospace initiatives.
Under the Renewed Hope Agenda (RHA) of President Tinubu’s administration the Federal Government has advanced initiatives aimed at reducing even the carbon footprints generated by the sector to promoting the adoption of alternative fuel sources, notably Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) and electric vehicles (EVs), aiming to enhance Nigeria’s transportation sector, reduce fuel costs, and support environmental sustainability.
This culminated in the launch, on October 2023, of Presidential CNG Initiative (Pi-CNG), which seeks to provide affordable and cleaner fueling alternatives by converting vehicles from petrol to CNG. The programme aims to reduce transportation costs by up to 40 per cent and lower carbon emissions, including converting one million vehicles and tricycles by 2027.
It is not just the Federal Government that understands the huge importance of the transportation sector. The state governments are also taking steps to maximize the opportunities within the transport sector. And they are a bit pragmatic by coming up with a transport policy to guide its activities and investment within the sector.
For instance, Lagos State in May 2024 launched its transport policy masterplan. States like Kano and Anambra are already working at having a transport policy. Kano recently held a two-day transport policy dialogue while Anambra, only last week, held a transport policy retreat to formulate a policy document to drive its many initiatives on transportation.
Although the Federal Government under President Tinubu is committed to the transportation with the creation of additional ministries which gives room for accelerated development but the president must understand that the world is going intermodal within the transport sector. Intermodal transportation involves the use of multiple modes of transportation—such as road, rail, air, and sea—to move goods or passengers from origin to destination. This approach leverages the strengths of each mode, aiming to optimize efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance overall service quality.
And the statistics about intermodal transport hugely tilted towards road transport. Road transport handles approximately 90 per cent of all passenger and freight traffic. In 2020, it contributed about ₦2.4 trillion (approximately $6.4 billion) to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). However, this dominance by the road transport subsector has further compounded the challenges of congestion, road deterioration, and safety concerns, all of which continued to plague.
Attempts to have a national transport policy have not yielded fruit since the return to democracy. In the early 2000s, the need for a national transport policy was recognized as part of broader infrastructure and economic development plans. Discussions were informal, with policymakers acknowledging transport inefficiencies and around 2006, the Federal Ministry of Transport began preliminary assessments to understand Nigeria’s transport needs across road, rail, air, and waterways.
Thus, it was not surprising that the Federal Government started an initial drafting phase around 2010 and 2015 with the government in 2011 including transport system improvement goals in the Nigeria Vision 20:2020 strategy, reinforcing the need for a national policy.
In 2013, a technical committee was established under the Ministry of Transportation to initiate the drafting of a National Transport Policy, aiming to improve intermodal transport coordination and by 2014, the committee completed a preliminary draft and
sought stakeholders’ input from transport unions, state governments, academia and private sector actors.
In 2016, the Ministry of Transport presented the draft policy for technical reviews, including aligning the draft with international best practices and sustainable transport goals. This was followed with public consultations in 2017, through engaging stakeholders across major cities, including Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt, allowing for input from transport users and industry experts.
According to the then, the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, the 1.41 per cent transportation contribution to the national gross domestic product (GDP) is unacceptable. He made spirited attempts for the government of President Muhammadu Buhari to sign a national transport master plan for Nigeria, but all his efforts were stonewalled.
He said: “The government of President Muhammadu Buhari is in the process of developing a national transportation master plan that will be implemented as a fulfillment of one of his campaign promises to diversify the national economy while improving non-oil sector revenues.
Amaechi said the transportation sector held the key to any economy and formed the basis of all socio-economic interactions, adding that Nigeria was suffering the bane of inadequate transportation.
The minister further said: “For a sector that plays a major role in the nation’s development, there is an urgent need to exploit the opportunities that abound within the sector to improve its contribution to the national economy.
“Countries like South Korea and Singapore have built their economies around a vibrant transportation sector. Although Nigeria is blessed with multiple modes of transportation that are the envy of many, these potentials have largely remained untapped.”
In 2018, revisions were made to the draft based on feedback, focusing on road safety, urban transport, railway development, and air and maritime transport integration.
In 2019, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) directed the Ministry of Transport to finalize the draft policy, signaling political support for its approval, but the process was slowed down by COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, as government focus shifted to health and economic stabilization, delaying the policy’s progression.
The Ministry of Transport resumed work on the policy in 2021, emphasizing the need for economic recovery through improved transport infrastructure and this effort was reinforced with stakeholders, including industry experts and civil society, in 2022 launching advocacy campaigns to push the government toward approving the policy.
As a result, the draft policy was resubmitted for FEC approval, but nothing has come out from the effort.
This medium understands that the FEC under former President Buhari has refused to ratify the policy largely due to the opposition from some stakeholders in the various modes of transportation. For instance, some people felt the policy would reduce their powers over the sector they superintend because of the proposition for a National Transport Commission which might oversee the entire gamut of the transport sector.
Experts however believe the transportation would remain stunted for as long as government continues to play the Ostrich regarding bequeathing a transportation policy for the country. They believe the policy can be ratified while it is subjected to periodic review.
The inefficiencies observed in the sector, preponderance of non-professionals and the total disregard for the law to regulate the sector has led to an assembly of informal players who have cornered it and has turned it into a fiefdom. To avoid the sector being permanently in the hands of “gatecrashers” government must institutionalize a policy which would give room for the sector to be run professionally and more profitably.
Professor of Transportation, Badejo also said: “It is inevitable that we need to establish a transportation policy. It is when that policy is clearly understood and appreciated that you can now draw up a programme which you call a masterplan through which you can achieve the policy objectives of transportation.
“In an attempt to achieve that, you have to understand the structure of governance in Nigeria in order to achieve a good transport masterplan. You need to understand clearly and unambiguously the structure of governance in Nigeria. Nigeria operates a federal system of government, meaning that we have three tiers of government – the federal, states and the local governments.”
Also commenting, a former Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Transportation, Dr. Taiwo Salaam said the policy is very strategic to drive the transportation sector of any economy.
He said it is the policy that would specify the way the sector would be organised, the level of investment required and the timeline of implementation of the identified programmes.
He further stated that investors all over the world would be comfortable doing business with the country’s transportation ecosystem if there is a policy.
He said: “Now, when we talk of policy, policy is what you want to do, when you want to do it and how do you do that. How do you want it done? Those are the three things you need in a policy. You need roads. Where do we need these roads? Why do we need this road? And what is the effort we are making to bring these roads? Can we do it by ourselves?
“You have to look at your pockets. Can we bring in PPP (Public Private Partnership) to come and do it? Can we do half of it as a government and then the private sector should do half of it? Can we borrow money to do it? These are the things you need to look at. So, you have to look at the commercialisation of the road. You have to look at the administration of the road. You have to look at the operation of the road. You have to look at the technicality of the road, the economy, the marketing, and many things you need to put together. These are the things that will formulate your policy.”
The National Transport Policy is no doubt a matter of urgent importance and an emergency of sorts for Nigeria if truly the country is to live up to its sobriquet as the Giant of Africa. Experts however look up to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who bequeathed Lagos with an enduring legacy with the Transport Masterplan he implemented to replicate the same at the national level with a view to tapping on the huge potentials in the sector.
