14th November, 2013
Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, western Nigeria, has vowed to sack any of his commissioners who will dare to use siren while driving on the state’s roads and urges all public officers in the country to desist from using siren.
Fashola, who spoke at the National Council on Transportation on Thursday at the Civic Centre, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria lamented the unscrupulous way public officers made use of siren indiscriminately on the road.
The governor said since he did not use siren, he did not expect any of his commissioners to use it, as he would wield the big stick on anyone who violated his order.
“From the day that I have become governor in this state and until this moment, I haven’t had course to use it and I don’t intend to use it. I detest noise, but I think that it is even worse that people elect us to manage public transport on their behalf and we choose to escape from it.
“After riding in a free car paid for coupled with the free fuel, it is an abdication of duty. It must apply across the board. At least at the state level, I can speak. My commissioners have very clear order; they will lose their job if they do,” he vowed.
The governor questioned that looking at the road transport policy, “can you imagine in one of our state capitals, one day without blasting car horn? Can we imagine how lovely that day will be? And this is possible. It is because we haven’t done the basic things, that is, train drivers appropriately, punish those who break the law. Can we set for ourselves a day in a state without blasting the horns?
“Let us get rid of all these sirens. They aren’t made here. We buy them to enrich other economy. They were made in factories outside the country. And then we use loud horn, especially the one used during emergency. Are we in a state of perpetual emergency? If those who manage the public transport policy can get away by using sirens, it will never work.”
Fashola said the nation could develop a public transport system that responded to the public, protect people, create jobs, promotes economic growth and improve national safety and security, adding that if every form of unqualified person went through the security post in a siren, there was no way safety could be ensured on the roads.
“And we expect to be safe. Those we put there to protect us, cannot even detect who is who. So when they approach a check point with a kidnapped victim in their boot, they just put on their siren and drive away. These are things that we must really reflect about and take very had decision about which way we want to go,’ he said.
The governor stated that the nation must resolve as a nation to sanction illegal operators of public transport services as they were the major debilitating factor to the growth of transportation in the country.
According to him, “if people play by the rules, they register, they get state carriage, get licenses, and they pay taxes. We owe a duty to protect those who invest and commit their assets and who play by the rules from those who violate the rules. There are a lot of those agencies mostly paramilitary agencies, operate bus transport system without control.
“This is the time to put a stop to it. If they have cooperatives that intend to participate in the transportation sector, they must do so in accordance with the laid down rules and regulation in the territory in which they wish to do so,” he stated.
Fashola said the nation’s education, health and other key sectors of the economy depended mostly on the transportation sector, saying this was because with a reliable and efficient transport system, wastage, losses and efficiencies would be things that would be impacted.
“We will have less wastage, if vehicles don’t spend four days to do 12 hours journey. We will have more efficiency if the road networks are reliable. And complemented by water, rail transports systems. At the moment, most of the inter-state journeys are largely now embarked upon by air and the kind of pressure that we are putting on the aviation sector because other sectors aren’t responding sufficiently,” he added.