By Adelola Amihere
The Minister of State for Transportation, Sen. Gbemisola Saraki, has called on stakeholders to synergize and come up with solutions that will help to fix Nigerian roads.
Sen. Saraki made who the call recently when she received a delegation of Nigerian Transportation Commissioners’ Forum (NTCF), charged them to call a meeting of the Governors’ Forum, the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA), Transport Unions and the Federal Ministry of Transportation to brainstorm and come up with solutions on how to fix the bad roads across the country.
Similarly, she suggested that the NTCF should institute a biannual meeting of the Forum and the Ministry as an avenue to discuss the challenges of the sector with a view to formulating a National Policy that will provide succor for road workers and operators.
She also informed the NTCF delegation that the ministry is working on the National Transport Policy that will among other things address the issue of unregulated movement of articulated vehicles.
Regarding the issue of considering tricycle operators in the intervention fund, the Minister promised to see how they can be captured as they form a major nucleus in the provision of transportation in the city centres.
The leader of the delegation Ramatu Yar’ Adua, the Commissioner of Niger State, in company of Transport Commissioners from Borno, Dr. Abubakar Tyjani, and Adamawa, Jika Mustapha, said the visit to the Honourable Minister of State was an extension of an early one paid on the Minister of Works and Housing, Babtunde Fashola, with a view to calling attention to the imminent collapse of roads across the country.
Yar’ Adua disclosed that Niger State has the largest network of roads but that this has not brought about development as the journey from Minna to Bida which is supposed to be 45 minutes, now takes 3 hours.
