Infrastructure, synergy amongst institutions keys to transport challenges — Utomi

Professor of Political Economy, Professor Pat Utomi has said that infrastructure and solid institutions were key issues remaining to be resolved in tracking the challenges facing the transportation sector and solutions can only come from professionals in the sector.

Delivering his keynote address at the investiture ceremony for Dr. Bashir Jamoh, the newly elected President of the Chartered Institute of Transport Administration in Nigeria (CIoTA), and the inauguration of CIoTA’s National Executive Council and Governing Council, he noted that the economy depended solely on the transportation sector for growth and survival and charged the newly elected executives to come up with globally acceptable positions, which they should present to those in authority to move the transportation sector forward.

Utomi spoke on the theme, “Ensuring Competitiveness and Attractiveness in the Nigerian Transportation Sector – The Role of Professional Bodies.”

While bemoaning the gridlock in the Apapa area of Lagos, Utomi called on the professionals to work with the government in ensuring that intermodal transportation was achieved, as it will also help the economy to develop.

Earlier in his acceptance speech, the newly elected President of CIoTA, Dr. Jamoh stated that there was a symbiotic relationship between transportation and life. “No matter where you come from, you must use one means of transportation or another”, he said.

He recalled that the institute was created to augment government’s efforts by proffering possible solutions to the challenges facing the transportation sector in Nigeria. He promised that CIoTA will work with relevant bodies and associations to ensure the realisation of an efficient transportation sector.

Jamoh also said the institute will in the next few months come up with some programmes and also create a platform where all transport-related bodies would come together to brainstorm and share ideas with the relevant authorities for the development of the sector.