Abuja
:
Light Rail Transit is an absolute Necessity
By
Dr.
Sylvester Omosun Fadal
San Jose
, CA.
USA
Moco_f@yahoo.com
Almost
every politician in the position of power claims to have a
balanced-oriented leadership style that strives on getting the job done
through others and leaving a legacy of recognition.
Why this may be true for some that have made efforts to actualize
service improvements in varied forms across the Nigeria, others are
solely using self proclamations to advertise how resourceful they are at
embezzling, under a poor leadership and a system of weak accountability,
augmented by the immeasurable non-recognition of the hardworking few
that have integrated effective organizational management with concepts
that could lead to achieving actual developmental goals.
Forty four years and counting, we truly have very few that
have performed at the level expected of the positions they occupied
mainly because they have spent more of their time in office assuring
their financial safety through their impetuous greed for wealth rather
than improving the services of the masses to ensure a true legacy.
Past leaders we sometimes recognize today, were actually
considered failures at the end of their tenures.
Over the years, we have used comparative analysis to
measure one leader to another and oftentimes, have ended up seeing those
we considered failures in the past as having been more productive than
others.
Rather
than asking for light rail transit services to be implemented in all the
major cities in
Nigeria
, which would be the ideal, I recommend that OBJ sets
forth an exploratory team to conduct an initial investigation into the
possibility of implementing Light Rail Service in
Abuja
. Departing
Nigeria
in the 80’s before
Abuja
began a reality, I heard so much positive
information about the city that I was looking forward to someday
visiting a city of such greatness in my own country.
I dreamt of how it would look like.
I even tried extracting pictures of
Abuja
on the web. I
fell in love with
Abuja
before I first laid my eyes on it.
Recognizing the love I developed for the city, I somehow wished I
never actualized my physical visit.
Upon arriving
Nigeria
, I luckily had to be in
Abuja
for a couple of days and lo and behold, I looked
forward to it. At the
airport in
Lagos
, I saw a postcard of
Abuja
shot from an angle over nightfall with the lights
looming melodiously and the city looking like a bride on her wedding
day. It was beautiful.
I bought a copy of the postcard, and envied it while I boarded my
flight to
Abuja
.
Upon
arrival, my entire lustfulness was gradually dissipated when I got out
of the airport. The roadway
to and from the airport looked so beautiful, it is comparable to Century
Blvd leading to the Los Angeles Airport or Airport Road leading to the
Oakland Airport. Beautiful
that is. However, navigating
Abuja
despite the outstanding architectural works and
excellent planning of some of the roadways was a nightmare.
The roads were dusty and ugly and every 15 minutes or less our
vehicle was literally channeled off the road (alongside others) by
mobile police vehicle sirens apparently guiding some official or rich
political figure or godfather. It
was unending. I kept asking
why there were so many cars with AK 47 yielding mobile police officers
guiding them and I couldn’t get a clear and specific response beside
the fact that if I wanted same, it only took money to achieve that level
of authority. Houses that
were originally white in color looked grayish or brownish.
In efforts to get a good feel for the city I requested to have a
brief tour of the city. It
is an ok place that needs a lot of improvement.
For the poor masses that take public transportation and others
alike who enjoy good public transportation,
Abuja
is not the place to be.
The set up reminded me of Apapa,
Lagos
in the seventies when I was at
Ladi
Lak
Primary School
on
Randle Road
. Apapa was a well planned, clean and beautiful place
then and so does
Abuja
somehow, excepting that
Abuja
is dirty, poorly managed and smog filled.
Abuja
could be a beautiful place if truly enhanced with
the money currently going into the pockets of the few.
The settings reminded me of the commonality where the rich and
the poor went to the same school though Abuja doesn’t have that system
as I was told of several private schools for the rich.
It is sad that our leaders’ greed stops them from completing
projects to a level of impeccable accomplishment.
The transportation system is borderline a complete mess.
In my thinking state as usual, I started concerting ways the city
could be improved and in discussing with a good friend of mine Paul
Okoruwa, we realized that simply designing and implementing a
transit-oriented development system like a light rail transit system
that loops around Abuja, companioned with two more light rail lines that
runs vertically and horizontally, connecting to the looping line, like
the Circle, Central, and Northern lines in London, will almost
completely ease the congestion and complexity of navigating Abuja.
It will raise the level of
Abuja
’s status and remain a legacy to the regime that
implements it.
This
recommendation will not completely resolve the problem in
Abuja
but will greatly improve the city.
El Rufai could commence a preliminary process by implementing a
Congestion Management Committee (CMC) charged with ensuring that traffic
in
Abuja
improves, or at least does not worsen as the
population of the city increases. The
committee will be tasked with preparing a Citywide Deficiency Plan (CDP)
that recommends improvement and monitors the level of service and air
quality as an offset to traffic impacts.
This approach will serve as a mitigation strategy of check and
balance while also monitoring the adoption of low emission buses only as
the main transportation vehicles.
Nigeria
could build a collaborative agreement with
Japan
on the effort recognizing the best light rail trains
used by some of the largest and best transportation systems in
America
are KinkiSharo light rail trains made in
Japan
. The
government must not wait till
Abuja
falls apart like
Lagos
to put a proactive congestion management system in
place. An in-depth, ongoing
transportation analysis must be implemented and an impartial,
independent advocacy group should be assembled to monitor the successes
and areas for improvement of the various committees.
If
the rail system is seen as an alternative, it is important that the
delineation of duties and roles are not decided on political basis.
There are capable Nigerians resident in
Nigeria
that can take on these projects with minimal need
for additional training. Experts
support staff could be brought in as professionals to oversee the
development program and recommend strategies on the rail station
planning and community design process.
This will ensure that the weak and poor masses are not discarded
of their properties in the implementation process, and that fair
reciprocal relationship is established between the people, the transit
system and land usage. Recognizing
that the light rail system runs on a level platform like cars, the issue
of safety should be intently evaluated and analyzed through expert
deliberation before reaching and adopting a methodology that works best
in a city like
Abuja
. An
effective rail system and a well managed congestion management program
that oversees the adopted of low emission buses will not only create a
positive transit mode split, it will also (a) improve travel time for
residents, (b) improve operational efficiency in Abuja, (c) grow and
encourage more businesses, (d) create new market regions rather than the
current centralized system, (e) improve integration and (f) maximize
participation residents in varied activities.
If adopted, it may just be the secret to the legacy of the
implementer and will help OBJ establish the immortality most Nigerian
political leaders seek so much.
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