– Adejola Adeyemi Crown
Effective and efficient transportation system provides economic benefits that result in multiplier effects such as easy accessibility to markets, employment and additional investments.
Roads are the arteries through which the economy pulses. By taking producers to markets, workers to jobs, students to school and the sick to the hospitals, roads are vital to any development agenda.
According to World Economic Forum, since 2002, the World Bank has constructed or rehabilitated more than 260, 000km of roads as it lends more for road infrastructure more than education, health and other social services.
Transport services also affect almost every economic activity to a varying degree.
Consequently, citizens who are deprived of transportation infrastructure miss out on several economic opportunities.
The developmental role road transport plays in an economy makes it a derived demand as the sector itself is not productive but is responsive to forces generation in the production and consumption sectors.
The history of transportation in Nigeria dates back to the Pre – Colonial era. Within this period, transportation system such as roads, railways and air transport facilities were really effective and there was not too much emphasis on bush path.
Presently, the modes of transportation in Nigeria have changed drastically which now includes roads, railways, airways, inbound waterways, coastal waters, the deep sea and the pipeline for oil and gas.
The potential significances of road development for investment trade, growth and poverty alleviation have long been recognized.
Not only that the road transport infrastructure facilitates the direct provision of services to consumers, it also provides intermediate inputs that enter into the production of other sector and raise factor of productivity.
The economic development of Nigeria has reflected the development of her transport system.
The Nigeria road system is classified into four broad categories.
These are, the Federal Trunk “A” roads under Federal Government´s ownership and they are developed and maintained by the Federal Government.
The Federal Trunk “F” roads formerly under the state ownership but it was taken over by the federal highway standards.
The Trunk “C” roads are under the local government ownership and management as each of the tiers of government has the responsibility of planning, construction and maintenance of the network of roads under its jurisdiction.
Generally, a model for transportation and economic development can be summarized as: providing infrastructure – improving (Physical) accessibility – enforcing mobility – improving welfare. Reducing the distance between people, markets, services and knowledge – or simply “getting people connected”.
This is a great part of what economic growth is all about. Although, connectivity has become increasingly important today with the emergence of new communication avenues, a good and reliable transport network remains vital.
There is a very strong positive correlation between a country’s economic development and the quality of its road network.
In the quest for the social economic development in an area especially in the 21st century, good road network plays a very significant role in the process of economic development of any society that is serious and eager to achieve any meaningful growth.
Apart from the fact that a good road speeds up the social economic development of an area, it goes a long way in attracting investors to that particular area.
Nigeria being a major oil producing nation in the world had also hitherto depended on oil for a large chunk of its foreign exchange thereby neglecting the agriculture sector for many years.
During those years of neglect, a lot of rural roads that leads to farmlands which were supposed to be a major source of income for the country had been neglected thereby leaving a lot of those roads in a state of total disrepair and leaving a whole lot of the rural areas inaccessible.
The nation like Nigeria which is currently battling with inflation, recession and economic degradation should therefore encourage the citizens to return to farming in a massive and commercial proportion.
The government needs to encouraged rural farmers to do more by making their road network good enough and accessible.
A research conducted by Research-Gate shows that in three national development plans in Nigeria, road transportation system has been given more priority followed by water and air but it is disheartening and worrisome to note that although huge chunk of the national budget was set aside for road, a whole lots of roads are left unmaintained leaving some as death trap to commuters and road users.
The research also stressed that Nigeria has a total national road network of about 200, 000km with federal roads making up of 18 percent of about 35, 000km, state roads 15 percent of about 17, 000km, and local government roads 67 percent of about 150, 000km with most local government roads being unpaved.
Therefore, the total gross domestic products (GDP) has been on the downward trend in spite of the fact that the 20 – 30 percent of annual budget are expended on road projects at both state and the federal levels.
The road sector accounts for about 90 percent of freight and passenger movement in the country.
The short term dynamics of growth rate of the economy revealed that the error correction terms of road significant in the determination of economic growth in Nigeria.
The poor state of Nigerian roads can therefore be attributed to the following challenges:
Overloading, blocked drainage, structures and the parking of heavy axle vehicle on carriage ways contributing additional deterioration to road infrastructure.
The budgeting cycle limits the use of funds during the dry season (dry season which is the most preferred period for construction).
A shift in inland transportation from rail and waterways to roads has increased the burden on roads as they have become the nation’s primary mode of passenger and goods transport. For example, the high volumes of petroleum products are transported on the national roads which naturally are meant to be transported through the pipeline thereby diminish the already limited life span of the roads resulting in higher maintenance needs.
A historical trend of prioritizing new road construction over maintaining the already existing roads to further exacerbates deterioration of existing road infrastructure.
Current maintenance levels are insufficient to preserve the quality of the existing road infrastructure resulting in annual deterioration.
Ample resources have been allocated to federal road rehabilitation but not enough of these resources are reserved for preventive maintenance.
The current institutional structure of Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) for the management of road is inefficient. They should be more proactive in handling issues of roads in Nigeria so as to serve its purpose.
It is therefore suitable to recommend that rather than construct new roads, policy makers should adequately maintain the existing roads as this will further reduce cost of transportation of goods and services, thereby reducing poverty and boosting economic growth in Nigeria.
Against this backdrop, Nigeria’s current transport infrastructure is not aligned with the country’s aspiration to become one of the world’s 20 largest economies by 2020.
As stated above, increased maintenance and capacity expansion are needed to improve the current state of Nigeria’s infrastructure.
Therefore, a focus on linking the various form of available transport so as to strengthen the intermodal transport of goods and passengers would improve the safety, convenience, travel time and cost of Nigerian transportation and reduce carbon or particulate emissions on the roads.
So, if adequate road infrastructure is central to Nigeria’s economic growth as a core responsibility of good governance and public welfare, it would in many areas improve the positivity of investing in Nigeria that at the end helps to positively impact the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
