Nigeria's Transport union and its passengers By olusegun Ariyo

                                                                        

The ignominious failure in urban transport and traffic management is one of the major courses of transportation problems in most Nigeria cities. One of the common traditions in Nigeria city traffic behavior is conflict among the road users that is characterized by street trading, road obstruction, on road- parking, evacuation of structures on road set back, abandonment of damaged vehicles  at roads sides, and unhealthy competition between the pedestrians, motors, motorcycles,  street traders and cat pushers. As a result of this, the traffic decay in the city mobility in Nigeria has been characterized with an increase in the waiting hours on board vehicles.

 Apart from that there is high competition among the commuters, resulting in fighting, pick pocketing and injury. Those that bear the brunt of this mostly are the aged, the school pupils, woman, and those that are new to Nigerian urban way of life. As the problem of poor performance of transport services, coupled with the poor condition of roads and lack of effective transport management culture continues, there has been the problem of non reliable and efficiency in our today’s transport services which are associated with on-motion motor breaking problems, that’s indeed the reason why the risk of using urban transport service in the country remains very high. The  case of non –reliability and inefficiency of urban transport is partly attributed to the personnel especially the drivers, higher  proportions of the motor drivers in most Nigerian cities are not adequately trained.

 There is no wonder the Lagos state government in its bid to ensure standardization, provided training school as a means of promoting proficiency for motor drivers, but the question remains for how long are they going to begin to realize the importance and the needed opportunity of that institute? Road transport is more suitable for short and medium distance traffic, it can not compete in speed with rail or air but it is on the road where it is practicable and convenient for all individual to own and drive for personal conveyance. Similarly, the problems confronting the commuter is more of disadvantage in the use of roads transports in our cities, they are itemized to include long hour waiting at bus-stops, long journey to work, burning travel hour  and low performance at work. Other problems the urban passengers encounters  include  low social interaction over the week, tiredness during the week resulting  from week of hectic travel hour and fear of  hectic travel hour and fear of rubbery  and attack from miscreants’ and indeed men of the  union around bus-stops and garages.

 It is also common for the passengers to experience unstable and unreliable transport cost, overloading of passengers with ordinary goods. The problem can be further summarized as insecurity of life and property, waste of limited hours which would have been essential to development, which unfortunately becomes the masses threat to life and property which consequently hinders progressive urban socio-economic development. This resulting from inadequate maintenance and management of urban transport infrastructure and facilities, inadequate monitoring of transport operators thus, the essence of urban transport management is to address the problem and risk that are associated with the transport operation in the city. However, the impact of the activities of the road transport lobour union has a significant effect on the inadequacies areformentioned.

The lost of passengers movement from origin to destination varies, some of the determinants factors is the level of hold ups, the condition of the road which is associated with rain season and especially the influence of the union operators. Because of these factors, the transport fair rises from one level to another particularly during the mourning and evening peak hours in some instances, where the unions forcibly collect dues from the buses operators, some of the operators are usually assaulted physically or verbally, some passengers and there other road users who try to intervene mostly get molested, beaten up or have their vehicle vandalized. Report indicates that any bus operator that argues may have his bus vandalize on many occasions and some time confisticated. Outside the physical injuries that might have been incurred in this case, the passengers on board may be delayed and latter requested to go and board another bus why some of them lose some amount of money to the hands of conductor while some lose their properties in the hands in the course of rushing out of the bus to hoodlums and bag snatchers. Also, in the course of collecting those unwarranted fees dues to the unions, particularly at the bus-stops and road sides, parks at time lead to road obstruction.

This normally is the courses of long traffic hold up in most of our major cities, unexpected traffics built up around the bus-stops on the other hand in the event of impounding a bus as discussed above, some passenger usually waste their precious time. This problem can be directly said to be an act of mal-administration and inefficiency that is hampering the activities of the road transport lobour union on our roads. Report reveals that the conversion of some garages and parks to nuisance place was one of its major challenges in addition to rudeness behaviors from members of the lobour unions, where it has become a permanent attribute in the spot of disengaging and engaging passengers in the metropolis.

The presence of  the national union of road transport workers and the  road employers association of Nigeria on our major cities would have compliment adequately, and complimented the effort of government in ensuring passengers safety and smooth traffic but the unethical nature of their activities have negated  the benefits. The challenges posed by these activities of this two unions has created economic loss to the urban passengers, this has made the union to become a parasite to the economy. Report reveals that the amount of money paid every day is very high, since the bus operators would not like to make any lost, the burden of paying such dues is passed on the passengers in form of hike in fares. This has made transport cost unpredictable and indeterminable. In other to make road transport lobour unions to perform their expected role, just like any other unions, there is a need to carry out a comprehensive reform, this should include the re-enactment of the laws that establish it, where the modalities for dues collection and the amount to be paid is stipulated, this indeed would straighten the roles of the road transport unions and compliment the effort of the government in sustainable transport development and at the same time pay back the bus operators and passengers whom directly or indirectly pay the dues.