On 14 April, Nigeria’s National Association of Road Transport Owners (Narto) publicly dissociated itself from allegations that it is sabotaging the functioning of the country’s railway system.
Reacting to recent suggestions by minister of transport Alhaji Ibrahim Bio and senate president David Mark linking road transporters to the problems of Nigeria’s railways, the association denied having a hand in these. 

The allegations are baseless and untenable, Narto national operations coordinator Alhaji Lawal Isa told reporters. Those who blame road transporters for the failure of the railways do so “either out of ignorance or mischief,” he said.

No one with road transport interests had ever been appointed to a ministerial post in transport, he pointed out, nor anyone who could have influenced government decision-making processes that could seek to scuttle the development of the railways. He was quoted asking: “Why did the [rail] system defy all expert interventions by the Indians and presently the Chinese? Is it road transporters or the endemic corruption that has eaten deep into our national
life?

”We are constrained to ask; who killed Nigeria Airways, the Nigerian National Shipping Line, NITEL, the National Freight Company, the National Supply Company, manufacturing industries, the Federal Mass Transit Scheme, the power sector, the textiles among others? Is it Nigerian [road] transporters?” he said.

Citing possible reasons for the present state of the railways, Alhaji Isa noted that the situation was aggravated by government policy which placed priority on massive road development between 1960 and1970, without adequate attention to improving the railway system.

”This situation was rather unfortunate because we believe that a holistic approach to the transportation system is required with balanced transport infrastructure, backed up by an effective national transport policy which seems to be practically non-existent in Nigeria”, he told the press.

He challenged senate president Chief David Mark to initiate measures through which the senate committee on transport could initiate a full scale inquiry to “unravel the mystery behind the allegations of sabotaging government efforts at resuscitating Nigeria’s railways”, including the $500 million railways contract to the Chinese during the Abacha regime and another railways contract to the Chinese by the last administration without appreciable result till date, and to make the inquiry public.


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