NIGERIA'S ROAD NETWORK IS CRUMBLING AND DANGEROUS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ABUJA 002434 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE PASS DOT FOR SAMPLE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ELTN ECON NI SUBJECT: NIGERIA'S ROAD NETWORK IS CRUMBLING AND DANGEROUS ¶1. Summary. Road travel in Nigeria is challenging for private citizens and commercial drivers. In 2004, at least 34,000 persons were killed on Nigeria's roads. The cost of failing to improve road safety is about 2% to 3% of GDP annually. Many drivers are not licensed and many vehicles are poorly maintained. Nigeria's poor road network imposes a major cost on Nigeria's citizens and businesses in terms of high accident rates, as well as inefficiencies and higher shipping costs for raw materials and finished products. This drives up prices for businesses and consumers while hampering employment and industrial production. End summary. ¶2. Road travel in Nigeria is challenging for private citizens as well as commercial drivers. The State Department's travel warning for Nigeria cautions, "Road travel is dangerous. Robberies by armed gangs have been reported on rural roads and within major cities. Travelers should avoid driving at night. Because of poor vehicle maintenance and driving conditions, public transportation throughout Nigeria can be dangerous and should be avoided." Embassy Abuja's policy for road travel within its area of responsibility in Nigeria requires all official vehicles and travelers to be within a city's limits by dusk. Night travel by road outside of cities generally is prohibited. ¶3. Nigeria, whose land area is slightly double that of California, has roughly 195,000 km (121,250 miles) of roads - more than two-thirds of which remained unpaved in 1999. California's public road network in 2004, in contrast, consisted of nearly 170,000 miles worth of roads. Statistics for road accidents in Nigeria are incomplete, but the state of road travel is not good. A January 2006 Lagos newspaper editorial termed the country's road network "deplorable." The piece charged even federal highways were "virtual death traps" and asserted that some Nigerian road networks' "abject condition" existed only otherwise in "war-ravaged countries." Another Lagos newspaper editorial noted the same month, "Nigerian roads are raging and sloshing with blood - human blood." The editorial criticized the Government of Nigeria for its lack of funding for roads, corruption in awarding road contracts, and the poor construction work certified by "crooked public officials." ¶4. The Federal Road Safety Commission reported that 14,271 road �A;accidents occurred in Nigeria in 2004 in which 16,857 persons were injured and 5,524 were killed. Burned-out vehicles at the roadside are common across Nigeria, and these figures are implausibly low for the country's estimated population of 132 million. More realistically, Nigeria's Minister of Works said in January 2004 the country's bad roads cost it 85 lives lost daily, or 31,025 annually. Prompt Assistance to Victims of Road Accidents (PATVORA),a Nigerian nonprofit agency, cited the Standards Organization of Nigeria's director general as reporting 34,000 persons died on Nigeria's roads in 2004. To compare, a preliminary U.S. Department of Transportation report concluded that 43,200 persons died on U.S. highways in 2005 and 2.68 million were injured, in a country of about 300 million inhabitants and with far more automobiles. Under reporting of accidents likely is common due to Nigerians' distrust of officialdom, and citizens' common belief that their government, at whatever level, likely will not act on their complaints or injuries. ¶5. Nigeria's Minister of works said in January 2004 the country's bad roads cost it about 135 billion naira ($1.055 billion) annually. PATVORA estimated the yearly cost to Nigerian society of failing to improve road safety at about 2% to 3% of the country's gross domestic product and reported that traffic accidents' annual cost to Nigeria exceeded the development aid the country received each year. The economic impact of road injuries is severe, because the economically active are the most vulnerable to such injuries and many accident victims are primary breadwinners. PATVORA, citing a 2003 Central Bank of Nigeria study, noted that more than 8% of hospital patients in Nigeria were road-crash victims. Although Nigeria has for its population a relatively small number of privately owned vehicles, this means crashes often involve overloaded buses and passenger vans with high casualty counts. ¶6. PATVORA concluded the human error was responsible for 58% of accidents; environmental factors, 22%; mechanical reasons, 15%; and "other," 5%. More than 60% of Nigerian drivers did not take any type of practical driving test before obtaining a license and 90% of motorcyclists did not take a formal test. Nigerian vehicles often do not have working headlights and/or tail lights, and drivers commonly do not use their headlights in the mistaken belief this will prolong a car's life. Urban passengers rely heavily on okadas (motorcycles taxis) for cheap transportation, but okada drivers and passengers rarely wear safety helmets. PATVORA reported in 2005 that the majority of road journeys in the country were made in "dilapidated vehicles." ¶7. Other Nigerian road dangers PATVORA observed were an absence of road signs, poor night visibility and bad weather, especially during ABUJA 00002434 002 OF 002 the rainy season and the dusty harmattan dry season. Many major roads in Nigeria are unlit, making after-dark travel more dangerous because of traffic accidents and armed robbers. Nigeria has "poor facilities" for road-safety control measures, a "non-existent" emergency trauma care system, an underfunded national road-safety agency, low rate of insurance coverage, and limited road-safety organizations. ¶8. The consequences of a poor road network are magnified because Nigerians' other transport options are limited. Nigeria has six major airports, but air travel has own safety problems and only a tiny portion of Nigerians can affird air travel. The country has about 3,500 km (about 2,190 miles) of railroads, almost all of which has limited narrow gauge carrying capacity, but there is virtually passenger rail service. Cargo service is very limited again pushing most overland shipping onto the road networks. Comment -------------- ¶9. Nigeria's poor road network imposes a major cost on Nigeria's citizens and businesses in terms of high accident rates, as well as inefficiencies and higher shipping costs for raw materials and finished products. The lack of access to markets and supplies drives up prices for businesses and consumers while hampering employment and industrial production. A lack of law and order on roadways, and extortion by policemen demanding bribes for vehicles' passage, also increase the cost of doing business in Nigeria. As poor farmers move to the city and redundant industrial workers migrate to other cities in search of jobs, this increases Nigeria's need for the economic benefits an improved road network could provide.