- FG’s plan to return them is good, but …
Toll gates will soon be back on federal highways in the county; about 14 years after the Federal Government abolished them. President Olusegun Obasanjo had ordered the demolition of the toll gates and banned collection of tolls on them with effect from January 1, 2004. He said they had outlived their usefulness.
Speaking on a Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) forum tagged: ‘The President explains’, Obasanjo said the N63 million which the tollgates generated daily was nothing to write home about and that the gates constituted inconvenience to motorists and encouraged corruption. He added that the tollgates had been known to record serious accidents while portions of roads near many of them were full of potholes.
Many Nigerians welcomed the idea then even as many others felt the reasons given by the government were not tenable and that it should have addressed the observed lapses in the arrangement and fine-tuned them for efficiency.
Years after, it had become obvious that proceeds from the petroleum tax of N1.50k per litre which, effective January 2004, was proposed to be used to improve federal roads cannot sufficiently address the problem of road infrastructure. Many federal roads became impassable, thus constituting death traps. A good example is the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway which the Federal Government has been trying to expand in the last few years.
The competing demands for scarce resources led the Senate in 2016 to resolve that tollgates should be returned to federal highways. A member of the Senate representing Bauchi-North Senatorial District, Suleiman Nazif, therefore moved the motion titled, ‘Need for the re-establishment of tolls on our federal highways,’ He said: “The Senate notes that the re-establishment of tollgates is a solution to saving the nation’s generally dilapidated road networks; observes that besides revenue generation, the presence of tollgates, which are normally managed by armed security agents, provides a level of safety for road users; notes that government alone cannot fund road construction.”
This, no doubt, is the way to go. Indeed, it is what obtains in many other countries. This is why we welcome the government’s resolve to bring back tollgates on federal roads. We also applaud its decision to adopt motorist-friendly platforms, such as phones, smart cards and electronic cards on windscreen for toll payments. Mr. Chukwunwike Uzo, director of highways, planning and development, Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the idea was to make toll payment easy and reduce cash payment at tollgates.
It is gratifying, too, that the tollgates would run as businesses to create employment for Nigerians. Said he:”We are evaluating, studying and trying to map out all the facilities we need to put in those areas where we had toll plazas in the past. We are not looking at it only as toll plazas, but as a business venture, so that we can create employment for Nigerians. We want to set up facilities like mechanic workshops, restaurants, rest rooms and little motels to create employment for people living around the tollgates.”
In essence, the tollgates would be radically different from what we had in the past – which were just avenues for collecting money from motorists. This is what, expectedly, the new arrangement seems set to achieve. We hasten to caution, however, that in Nigeria, the problem is not in government being bereft of ideas but in implementing them. On paper, the proposal looks good; we can only hope things would not be muddled up at the level of implementation.
If well implemented, road travels will be the delightful experience that they should be: not only will our roads stop being death traps; many Nigerians would also be able to find jobs in some of the ancillary facilities that would be provided on the highways.
