Tollgates on bad roads

The move by the Senate to reintroduce tollgates on the highways has again advertised government’s policy somersault, one of the bumps on the road to national development in the country. There is indeed a dearth of enduring policy framework to guide governance in successive regimes. Yet we are being reminded daily by state actors that government is a continuum. It is a mere rhetoric without concomitant action as every new administration begins fresh on almost all scores.

A Motion titled: “Need for the re-establishment of tollgates on our federal highways,” was moved by Senator Suleman Nazif (APC-Bauchi) to seal the deal. Nazif’s Motion was supported by the Senate Leader, Ali Ndume (APC-Borno South), Biodun Olujimi (PDP-Ekiti), Akpan Bassey (PDP-Cross River) and Bukar Ibrahim (APC-Yobe), among others.

While arguing the Motion, Nazif decried the deplorable state of Nigerian roads, which he said could be addressed with revenue generated from toll collection.

He recalled that toll policy was abolished in 2003 by President Olusegun Obasanjo, who had then noted that roads should be maintained through revenue obtainable from fuel pump price increase. But the policy has never worked notwithstanding that fuel price has been increased many times since 2003.

Obasanjo had assured the nation that proceeds from a petroleum tax of N1.50 per litre would be used to maintain federal roads in the country.

The regime had argued that the N63 million collected on the tollgates daily was nothing to celebrate even as the gates constituted inconvenience to motorists and encouraged corruption. President Obasanjo accordingly ordered the demolition of all the tollgates across the country.

The point must be made that whereas tollgates remain part of standard road infrastructure all over the world, in Nigeria, they are facilities for raking in ad-hoc revenue for other issues as the roads are hardly maintained from the accruals.

Even so, diversion of fund should have been dealt with by the Obasanjo’s administration instead of striking down tollgates on all federal highways by executive fiat to solve the problem. As it turned out, president Obasanjo only complicated matters.

Apart from millions of Naira spent on the demolition in 2003, the cost of rebuilding the 31 tollgates to be re-erected will be much higher.

This is by the way. The other thing to consider is the state of federal roads. It is unacceptable to erect tolls on roads that are in terrible condition. Such will only worsen traffic congestion on most highways nationwide.

So, while we are not opposed to return of tollgates, there should be consideration for fast-tracking maintenance of the more terrible ones before erecting tollgates on them.

We also do not see the sense in organizing seminars to stem corruption in toll collection. There is technology to block leakages and ensure transparency. All said, it would be far more beneficial to make the tollgates policy part of the overall road infrastructure plan of both the federal and state governments. This will capture both intra-state and inter-state roads within the context of the National Road Funds Bill now being debated at the National Assembly, Abuja.

Although targeted at creating revenue for government, tolls should not come as too much of a burden on motorists. For instance, the toll being collected at the Lagos airport tollgate is between N200 and N500 depending on the vehicle type. Also, the toll on Lekki-Ajah road is a minimum of N120 per car. The Ikoyi-Lekki link bridge toll is N150 minimum. These charges are rather too high for road users.

Officials with deep pockets to fly over bad roads should show moderation when fixing tolls for ordinary road users at this time of economic recession.