Shippers’ Council plans codification of laws of inland transport in Nigeria
As parts of new moves to deepen inland transportation, the leadership of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) observed has not only noticed the absence of a legal framework to guide the operation of inland transportation in the country, but has sealed a review deal with a consulting law firm to codify regulatory regime for the sub sector.
The Executive Secretary of the Council, Hassan Bello dropped the hint in an interaction with journalists, saying “There must be a connection, there is multimodal but as you said, intermodal is the problem”.
“What is the connection between the different modes of transport? This is important. Unfortunately, in Nigeria, there is a gap, a legal regime is missing about inland transport. What is the liability? What is the insurance cover? So, Nigerian Shippers’ Council has commissioned a law firm to study all the laws.
“So, we have to make laws for all these things and sanitize these things and make sure that if you carry these goods, you don’t default. We are working with RTEAN, NARTO, AMATO, we are still having a meeting because we are going to have registration of tucks, we can’t have rickety vehicles bringing goods to the ports anymore. One person one truck, no! You have to have a registered company and then you have to have a minimum of six trucks in your fleet”, he said.
“Now, you have the six fleet, we will look at that, you register the trucks, we see five for one month and we didn’t see one, we will ask you, Oga what happened now? Where is the sixth one and he says, it just spoiled and we will tell him, you can’t operate now when you are shorting one and then there is a tracking system in you trailer, you must put it because most of this drivers go to a particular place and stay for five days, nobody knows what they are doing. We will know that a truck is not moving from this office.
“So, they are forced to employ people, University graduates with computers who will be managing their fleet. So, that is how employment comes. But here is a man, he has one truck, he comes with the driver, sometimes he drives it or gives it to 18 year old boy to drive an articulated vehicle and kills people and then the containers falling off. It does not happen anywhere, only in this country. Why wouldn’t you have it latched with the body? Because some are not latchable and you allow it, no! it cannot happen. We have to enforce these things because we are human beings,” Bello explained.
