Efficient Transportation’s System Key to Developmentt – NITT Boss

John Shiklam

30 June 2011

Acting Director General of the Nigerian Institute of Transport Technology (NITT), Zaria, Alhaji Aminu Musa Yusuf, has said that it will be difficult for any socio economic development to take place in any nation without an efficient transport system.

According to him, a nation without a workable transport system and policy is like an island disconnected from the rest of the world.

Speaking during a visit to the Institute by students of the Department of Geography, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua University Katsina, Yusuf noted that the role of transport in nation building was multifarious, pointing out that any nation that aspires for rapid economic and industrial development cannot afford to neglect the transport sector.

He said it was in realisation of the important role the transportation plays in every aspect of the economy that informed the establishment of the NITT by the Federal Government 25 years ago.

“The transport sector can be developed through education, training, research and technological development. This explains why the Federal Government of Nigeria established the NITT 25 years ago.

“Without transport, our agricultural production which is the mainstay of the Nigerian economy will remain subsistence because there will be no need to produce beyond family consumption.

“Health care service delivery will be impossible without transportation, just as city development and settlement would have been difficult. We all use transport for the defence of the nation and you can go on to name other areas of life that will suffer without transportation” he said.

Yusuf, however, expressed regret that not many Nigerians care to know about the important role transport plays in the development of the economy, polity, social interaction and integration.

Speaking earlier, leader of the team from the University, Dr. Ibrahim Jaro, said the visit was to expose students studying Transport Geography in the university to the facilities in the institute.

Dr. Jaro said the choice of NITT for the facility tour was premised on the fact that the Institute remained the only centre for multimodal transport education, training and research development in Nigeria and the West African sub-region.

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