Don wants development of railways to achieve freighting of 60m tonnes annually

Harboursandport.com: Lagos--- A University Don, Prof. Augustine Odinnma, has said that development of the nation's railways will not only improve the transport situation in the country but would also help in freight about 50 to 60 million tonnes of cargoes from the nation's seaport annually. 

Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi

Odinnma, disclosed this at a one day summit, the Democracy, Governance Economic Summit, DGES 2017 with the theme: “Good Governance, Secure Borders, Prosperous Nation.” 

He stated that: “Government must intensify efforts to improve the railways system to move 50-60 million tonnes of freight annually, else we would continue with excessive use of roads.”

Odinnma in his paper titled: “Impact of Energy, Transport And Telecommunications: An Indispensable Tripod For Economic Growth,” said that Nigeria’s tourism sector would have boomed if it had a good transport system.

He lamented that Nigeria is one of the worst electricity supply nations where the grid reaches only 10 percent of the rural population, saying, “Nigerian electricity reach 4,810 MW in August 2015, compared to South Africa’s 43MW for a population of one third of Nigeria.

“Efficient transport system provides economic and social opportunities and benefits that result in positive multipliers effects - accessibility to markets, employment and additional investments. “When transport systems are deficient in terms of capacity or reliability, they can have an economic cost such as reduced or missed opportunities and lower quality of life.

“Transport contributes to economic development through job creation and its derived economic activities. Accordingly, a large number of direct (freighters, managers, shippers) and indirect (insurance, finance, packaging, handling, travel agencies, transit operators) employment are associated with transport. Producers and consumers take economic decisions on products, markets, costs, location, prices which are themselves based on transport services, their availability, costs, capacity, and reliability,” he said.

Summit Convener, Mr. Akinsola Cole, said that the summit is meant to look at the various values that exist in the society as it is related to democratic norms and values.

“If we get our democracy right, there is chance that we get our governance to be as effective as it should be in order to engender good economic realities and aspiration of the people would be achieved to a large extent.

“Without good governance no economy thrives anywhere in the world. It is in peace, security and prosperity that you have people that are meaningfully engaged to do their economic course. This summit is an attempt to look at the totality of all these things and try to bring to bear on our policy initiators and implementers, the direction we believe that the nation should go,” he said.

Also, a member of the Guild of Editors, Chief Tunde Olusunle, recommended that Nigeria needs committed leaders who will govern with integrity and channel our natural resources towards actualization of sustainable national development. “Leaders who govern, should be made accountable by publicly publishing achievements on a periodic basis.”