The House of Representatives officially pleaded with the Federal Government to review its mass transportation policy and management to make transportation affordable and accessible as a social right to all Nigerians.
The House also urged the government to reinitiate the Urban Mass Transit scheme in the interest of Nigerians.
The House mandated its Committee on Land Transport to liaise with the relevant stakeholders to establish policy frameworks that would improve the transportation sector, and report back within six weeks for further legislative action.
These resolutions were based on a motion moved by a member of the House, Aniekan Umanah, titled ‘Need to resuscitate the Urban Mass Transit Scheme in Nigeria,’ which the lawmakers unanimously adopted at the plenary on Wednesday.
Moving the motion, Umanah recalled that in 1989, the Federal Government established the Urban Mass Transit scheme to ameliorate transportation challenges in Nigeria.
The lawmaker noted that the objectives of the scheme were to moderate the national urban transit scheme, alleviate the problems of urban commuters and the general masses as well as lay the foundation for organized mass transit in the country.
According to him, the scheme helped to reduce the overriding gap between increasing public transport demand and the decreasing supply in the transport market.
Umanah also noted that almost all the states and local councils in the country, including the Federal Capital Territory as well as private entities, participated in the scheme, which greatly improved transportation for the people.
He said, “The House is concerned that the mass transport scheme failed due to factors such as poor management and lack of strict processes, which weakened its sustainability.
“The House is worried that millions of commuters across the country still experience difficulties in commuting due to insufficient mass transit vehicles, thus exposing them to grave dangers such as harassment, kidnappings, and robbery, among other things.”
