Infrastructure Sector : ROADS, RAILWAYS, PORTS AND THE COST OF DISCONNECTION

By Christian Oku ( Transport & Aviation Correspondent)

Nigeria has built thousands of kilometres of roads and expanded airports, seaports, railways, telecommunications infrastructure and urban centres.

Major rail projects under successive administrations have included the Abuja-Kaduna railway, Lagos-Ibadan railway and other modernisation initiatives. Road construction has also remained a constant feature of government budgets. But infrastructure development has suffered from fragmentation.

Nigeria often builds roads without sufficient maintenance; urban expansion frequently occurs without adequate transport planning; ports and customs processes have historically added costs to commerce.

The next stage should therefore be a national logistics strategy connecting
farms, processing centres, industrial clusters, rail, ports and export markets.
Infrastructure must be judged by the economic activity it enables, not merely by the number of projects commissioned. NNL.