Transport Infrastructure In Nigeria

According to Dr. Obiora Madu (2015) who defines Infrastructure as part of a structure that has to do with material or economic base of a society or an organization. Infrastructure in Nigeria can be viewed as the basic structure that promotes the good performance of important services. Prior to this, for a country such as Nigeria to have a good logistics structure system in the different modes of transportation, constant investments from both public and private sectors are needed.

According to the recent World Bank report on logistics performance, states that a competitive network of global logistics is the Strength and courage of international trade and the importance of efficient logistics for trade and growth is now widely acknowledged: “Better

The transport infrastructure in Nigeria includes the following modes: road, rail, maritime, pipelines and air. Mainly looking at the recent statistics, the bulk of cargo transported in Nigeria mostly makes use of the road system than the others. They also make use of the pipeline to transport oil, gasoline, diesel, natural gas and others.

1. Maritime or shipping - We can see in our society today that one of the major problems Nigeria is facing is that it has no meaningful participation in the shipping industry on which Nigeria depends, both for exports and Imports. Nearly most Nigerian Exports are shipped “Free on Board” (FOB), while its Imports are shipped ‘Cost Insurance Freight’ (CIF) said (Dr. Madu, 2015). The oil rigs in Nigeria waters and the vessel which service them are also owned and controlled by foreigners. Even the vessels involved in coastal trade and Inland Waterways covered by the coastal water Act are mostly controlled by foreign Ship

Rail transport - Nigerian railways transports system is faced with some kind of problems which are: locomotives not sufficient enough, rolling stock, poor working capital, signal malfunctioning and lacking communication equipment, and so on. Some researchers suggested that the Federal Government should launch a 25year strategic plan on rail project for Nigeria, by changing from narrow to standard gauge, strengthen the curves and gradients of the existing narrow gauge. In spite of the conscious efforts at ensuring prompt and timely maintenance of assets, the Nigerian Railway Corporation are still not good enough in funding by the governments which has resulted to; Poor infrastructural assets management; Poor mechanization of track maintenance; Inadequate number of inspection vehicles; Delay in the rehabilitation of washout sites in the North Eastern section of the NRC (between Bauchi – Gombe), and Lack of adequate maintenance spare parts for locomotives and rolling