By Emmanuel Udom
Debo Adeniran, President, Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, CDHR, on Thursday, 6 June, 2024, in Lagos, lamented that the transportation system in Lagos, regarded as a mega-city, seems to be going from bad to worse, if the feelings of Lagosians are anything to go bye.
Debo explained that from land to sea, rail to air, people in the state seem not to be getting optimum values for their money, as far as commuting from one part of Lagos to the other, daily.
“Some of the roads are bad and deplorable and some transporters capitalize on this to increase their transport fares at their whims and caprices”, he said.
The National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, on the other are helpless and only interested in collecting their union fees, while commercial bus drivers do their thing their way.
His words: Daily, Lagosians are being harassed daily by transporters plying various routes, increasing their fares without feeling the pulse of the public.
Also, jetties plying our waterways have unhygienic life jackets, even as some facilities in the government owned BRT buses are obselute, uncomfortable and unhygienic.
For the rail system, he further lamented that the air-conditioners install in various trains are not functioning well, even as passengers are made to wait for hours on end in order to board trains to their various destinations.
Speaking during the citizen’s accountability and rights forum held at Rights House in Ikeja, Lagos, the CDHR scribe appealed to the Lagos state commissioner for transport to work with the various stakeholders in the transport sector in the state to provide first class transportation operations that are second to none.
Lagos, with an estimated population of 23 million people, is regarded as a mega-city and therefore the commercial nerve centre of Nigeria, that should have functional transport systems in place, he said.
