By Auwalu Birnin Kudu
The management of Adamawa Sunshine Transport Board (ASSTB) has called on federal and state governments to declare emergency in the road transport sector of the nation.
Muhammed Tukur -Abbo, the board General Manager gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Yola on Wednesday.
He said the call became necessary and imperative, considering that about 85 per cent of Nigerians used roads to transport themselves from one place to another.
According to him, Nigerians are more of using vehicles, motor cycles, bicycles and other related means of transportation to travel and in the movement of goods and services.
He lamented that a reasonable percentage of existing federal and state roads in some parts of the country were in bad shapes waiting for rehabilitation or total reconstruction.
He, however, lauded the efforts of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration in rejuvenating the rail transport sector through construction of many Kilometres of rail lines and procurement of sophisticated trains.
He noted with dismay the current price of fuel, especially diseal which had made maintenance and road transportation activities difficult, especially transportation of spare parts and other essential consumables within the country.
The manager sought for Federal Government’s intervention like it did in the aviation industry, by reintroducing mass transit system and palliative measures to cushion the hardship being experienced by pasengers.
He lauded the efforts of Gov Ahmadu Fintiri for constructing and rehabilitating numerous roads connecting urban and rural communities in the state.
He said the board was expecting additional fleet of vehicles from the state government to complement the existing number of vehicles in the agency.
” We will allocate those vehicles to our qualified drivers for inter state transportation.” (NAN)
