Aside Asphalt or Concrete, When Shall we Lay Safety and Sanity on Nigerian Roads?

 

In an era of rapid urbanization and transnational competition for development, Nigeria’s public transport system lags. It is one sector replete with varying degrees of unpleasant experiences for commuters across rural, semi-urban, and urban settlements. The undignified treatment of passengers is palpable, to the point that it often masks any effort by Federal, State, or Local governments to make our motorways safer or saner. The rate of road mishaps is embarrassing, not merely because of the spate of kidnappings of travellers, but also the decades of cruel human & material transportation habits that have become the horrible trademark of Nigerian roads. Remember, these roads remain Nigerians’ primary mode of transportation. What does it profit a Nigerian city, therefore, to have a recently constructed road well laid with either asphalt or concrete technology, yet burdened with the inappropriate carriage of Nigerians and their goods by private operators of our public transport system? A few examples will suffice.

1. Passenger overcrowding of vehicles - Save for e-hailing shuttles like Bolt and Uber, a drive through the well-paved roads in our Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, which is supposedly the most planned city in the country,  will expose the barbaric culture of crowding two passengers in the front seat and four in the rear of a sedan taxi. What then goes on across the 36 State capitals and other cities, towns, & villages spread around our 774 Local Government Areas of the world’s most populous black nation? Observe the sitting arrangement of passengers in a shared taxi (saloon car or sedan) in Abuja, and you’ll be disappointed that two passengers are crowded into a front seat meant for one. At the same time, four are squeezed into the back seat like sardines in a place designed for three. How does that barbaric culture of public transport, even on the asphalt layer of a freshly constructed or renovated road, convey progress in 2026? How much is the extra revenue gained by the commercial motor drivers to justify squeezing humans in their vehicles for both short-term and longer intra-city or inter-state trips that would compensate passengers for the emotional & physical distress they are subjected to? Why strip a female passenger of her dignity when her sensitive body parts are unwillingly compressed against a stranger’s anatomy in the front seat? Do these drivers not encounter difficulties when they struggle to shift the manual transmission during a trip because the passenger's hip or thigh in the front seat continually obstructs a smooth shift? Why should a passenger be coerced into sniffing either the breath or sweaty armpit of another when they’re cramped like sardines from Gudu junction to Federal Secretariat complex in Abuja on the way to work every day?

2. Product overloading of vehicles – This unwholesome practice cuts across saloon cars, buses, trucks, and articulated vehicles ferrying congested contents such as agricultural produce, oil & gas products, and all forms of consumer goods. There is certainly no iota of national decency, safety, or pride in transport habits that continually portray us as lagging in human progress, communal advancement, and national development. Product overloading of vehicles is simply unacceptable.

3. Passengers sitting or standing on the open roofs of overcrowded articulated vehicles – It is preposterous to still notice on a daily basis on Nigerian highways, trucks moving a herd of cows, baskets of tomatoes, bags of rice and so forth from points of rearing & harvests in one part of the country to major markets in other locations with several humans sitting or standing carelessly over these products in the open rooftops of the conveying vehicles. I’m not surprised, therefore, that we have several persons falling freely from these trucks when they’re moving along the highways and having recordable deaths on a daily basis.

4. Continuous recruitment of “conductors” – The unofficial scheme of service or nominal roll in Nigeria’s transport system appears to have normalized a unique cadre of transport workers popularly called “agberos” in Lagos and other cities & towns in the southwestern part of Nigeria. Their peers are seen and called unique names in all 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory of my beloved country. All motorparks in this country are beehives of conductors, whose unwritten job description is to conduct potential passengers to their seats, collect transport fares typically in cash, issue the remainder of money, which we call “change” after payment of fares, and uninvitedly as seen in many cities, force their buttocks to either stand in obstruction of the window of the moving bus or forcefully occupy a full row of seats in a manner that creates discomfort for other passengers.

And please do not ask me what the thousands of officials of the respective State Traffic Management Agencies, Federal Road Safety Corp (FRSC), Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Nigeria Security & Civil Defence Corp (NSCDC), Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Vehicle Inspection Office (VIO), and sometimes, the Nigerian Army who daily mount surveillance along both the intra-city roads and inter-city highways are meticulously involved with to either encourage or curb all the forms of road nuisance discussed above. 

While this publication does not exhaust the culture of unpleasant road habits that have become synonymous with Nigeria’s public transport system, can the three tiers of government please redirect a minimum percentage of the financial investments committed to simply laying asphalt, deploying concrete, constructing drainage, and building flyovers to the urgent enforcement of safety and sanity in our road subsector? Can we at least demonstrate national progress in this regard in this 21st century?

My name is Adetolu Ademujimi, a Medical Doctor, Healthcare Finance Specialist, Author, Reformer, Public Policy expert, and social entrepreneur who can be reached in Abuja through adetoluademujimi@gmail.com. You can also visit my website www.adetoluademujimi.com.

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