Osinbajo To Chair CIOTA 3rd National Transport Summit in Abuja, December

…As Barr Osuala Nwagbara Heads 12-man Planning Committee

By DAPO OLAWUNI

Nigerian Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo has been billed to Chair the 2021 edition of the National Transport Summit by the Chattered Institute of Transport Administration of Nigeria (CIOTA) which is scheduled to hold between 6th and 8th of December 2021 at the Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja.

Apart from Osinbajo who is expected to also declare the event open, the special guest of honour will be Hon Ministers for Transportation, Aviation, and State Transportation.
Others expected are The head of government’s parastatals, agencies, captains of industries, and their management staff.

Speaking at a press conference and inauguration of the Planning Committee for the Summit in Lagos on Thursday, Registrar of CIOTA, Mr Rasheed Aiyelabegan said the theme of this year’s summit is “Regulating the Transport Sector in Nigeria: The State of the Art and the Years Ahead”

To this end, the institute has inaugurated foremost maritime lawyer, Barrister Emmanuel Osuala Nwagbara as Chairman of the planning committee.

Others are; Hon Chinda Oguchi as Co-Chairman, Mrs Chizoba Anyika as member, Mrs Nancy Olua, Mr Patrick Ehinore, Mr Maikano Abdullahi, Mrs Chioma Azeonu, Mr Adamu Bala, Mr T. Aluma, Mr C.C Akujobi, Mrs Ezinne Azunna and Rasheed Aiyelabegan as the Secretary.

Speaking, the CIOTA Registrar, Aiyelabegan said this year’s summit aims to examine the current state of the practice in economic, technical, and safety regulation in the transport sector of Nigeria involving all modes.

“In achieving this, the summit will interrogate the scope and implication of ongoing reforms in the transport sector by bringing together critical stakeholders, experts, and policymakers to share global best practices in the field of technical and economic regulations”

“At the end of the event, the summit will proffer different recommendations on how the country can use economic and technical regulations as veritable tools for sustainable transport development”

“This year’s summit targeted about 500 participants, these include policy makers in the ministries such as Transportation, Works, Aviation, and Petroleum Resources Others are experts from regulatory and multilateral agencies, transport professionals, and the general transport community”

“The speakers for this year’s summit will come from academics, Operations, administrations, and management, among others. The ‘ discussant will focus on both technical and economic regulations” he said

Also speaking at the press conference yesterday, Chairman of the planning committee, Barrister Osuala Nwagbara said the 1st and 2nd edition of the summit has recorded tremendous success and impacted in policy formulation in the transport sector.

According to him, it was the recommendation of the institute that led to the rejuvenation of barging operations as a mode of cargo evacuation from the Nigerian Ports, as well as the many innovative developments in the rail system.

In the 2021 summit, Barr Nwagbara assured that attention would be focused on rejuvenating pipeline transportation for oil and gas products in Nigeria.

He also stated that in terms of regulation of the various mode of transportation, there has been a lacuna, and this is why the sub themes of the event focuses on technical and safety regulation in all modes of transportation.

“Since our last summit, from the end of last year to the present, barging operations have been brought to the fore because through through advocacy of CIOTA,we have identified that there is need to adopt other roads in evacuating cargoes from the port.

“We have been able to show that rail transport is not only affordable, but that Nigerians can have the infrastructure and provide affordable cheap services from point to another

“We are also bringing to the fore, pipeline transportation, since our advocacy in this area, a lot of businesses are happening in the pipeline sector, while abandoned pipelines are being rejuvenated for movement of petroleum products” Nwagbara stated.

Recall that CIOTA became chartered by an Act of the National Assembly on the 22nd of May 2019 and gazette with the Federal Government Act No 27 of 2019 as the corporate body with perpetual succession, charged with responsibility of regulating transport management and administration in Nigeria.