As stakeholders continue to set agenda for the various sectors of the Nigerian economy, Transportation Correspondents Association of Nigeria, TCAN, has challenged the new minister of Transportation, Senator Sa’idu Alkali, to transform the transportation sector and ensure that transportation contributes more to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP.
While congratulating the new minister under the administration of President Bola Tinubu, the association comprising representatives of various print, electronic and online media organisations, urged him to sustain the legacy of the former administrations on rail transformation by continuing all ongoing railway rehabilitation and modernisation agenda of the federal government.
In a statement by the Chairman of the Association, Adeyinka Aderibigbe, while noting the importance of the transportation sector as critical to the economy, charged the minister to deliver to Nigerians as quickly as possible a transportation policy, which has reached an advanced stage, in an attempt to transform the sector and position it for greater efficiency.
It also urged the minister to ensure the full implementation of all resolutions of the National Council on Transportation, which is the highest national advisory body, composed of all commissioners of transportation, to ensure that all states of the federation must establish a ministry of transportation as only about 20 out of 36 states have complied.
On palliaives for the sector, the Minister should among other things, coordinate all transportation interventions proposed by the Federal Government and interface with the state governments such as coordinating the mass transit buses, which the government promised to distribute among the states and bus operators, as well as the take-off of the Compressed Natural Gas and electric vehicle alternative to replace dependence on fossil fuel on which subsidy has been removed.