Railway Act: Expert seeks review of 21-year-old plan

Following the recent presidential assent to the bill removing the railway from the exclusive to the concurrent list, experts have called for a review of the railway master plan.

The Executive Director of the Centre of Sustainable Mobility and Access Development (CenMAD), Dr Kayode Opeifa, spoke in Lagos at the Chartered Institute of Transport Administration of Nigeria’s (CIOTA’s) First Quarter Induction and Investiture ceremony with the theme: “Professional Development in Transport”.

The Minister of Transportation, Mu’azu Jaji Sambo, and the Minister of State in the ministry, Ademola Adegoroye, the Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Mr Dauda Adamu Biu, were among 40 Nigerians conferred with “fellow” of the institute.

Opeifa disclosed that in 2002, the National Council of Transport held a summit where the federal ministry of transportation was advised to set up a master plan for the railway system and other modes of transportation.

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He said, “Also, in that summit, I said in my paper that the ministry should set up a rail master plan, that was then in 2002, that is 21 years ago, we are still in phase 1, moving to phase 2.

“Enactments have been assented to law by the President to remove railway from the exclusive to concurrent, that makes it more imperative to look at that plan for railway and other transport system.

 “So, in all the national council of transport that have held up till now, I am going to suggest that the ministry should produce a compendium for us and CIOTA should partner the ministry so that we can see how far we have done and those things we have not done.”

He urged CIOTA to work closely with the ministry of transportation in a bid to ensure those that worked in the ministry were chartered transporters.

In his lecture, the Chairman, Training and Education, CIOTA, Prof Callistus Ibe, said the time had come for the institute to take its rightful place to regulate the transportation sector and lead from the front in ensuring the sector was sanitised.

CIOTA’s President, Segun Obayendo, said the institute was committed to upgrade and bring the best practices to the operation of transportation in Nigeria.