“We need a first-class transportation system.” – Dan Lipinski
For decades, the country has relied overwhelmingly on roads to move people, raw materials, finished goods, agricultural produce, petroleum products, and imported cargo. Trucks have become the backbone of domestic logistics, but they have also become the clearest evidence of the system’s failure.
Across the country, roads are collapsing under the weight of cargo they were never designed to carry. Containers spend days trapped around Apapa. Businesses factor avoidable delays into their pricing models. Manufacturers struggle with unpredictable delivery schedules. Farmers lose produce before it reaches the market. Consumers pay more for almost everything. This is not simply a transport problem. It is an economic problem, an inflation problem, and increasingly, a competitiveness problem.
No serious economy relies almost entirely on one mode of transport. The world’s leading economies have built integrated transport systems in which roads, railways, ports, airports, and inland waterways function as one coordinated network. Cargo arrives at a seaport, moves onto rail, transfers to inland terminals, and is delivered by road only for the final segment of the journey. That is the essence of multimodal transport.
Multimodal transport is not merely the use of different forms of transport. It is the deliberate integration of those forms into a single, efficient chain. One contract, one operator, one coordinated system of movement. That distinction matters.
In Nigeria today, containers arriving at the ports are routinely broken down and transferred almost entirely onto trucks for movement across the country. The result is chronic congestion, higher logistics costs, damage to roads, greater risks of cargo theft and spoilage, and severe inefficiencies in the supply chain. Indeed, some importers now spend more moving cargo from Lagos to Kano than they spend shipping it from Asia to Nigeria. That should concern policymakers.
Transport inefficiency quietly raises the cost of living. Every failed road corridor, every delay at the ports, every unnecessary checkpoint, every broken rail link, and every hour spent in traffic is eventually reflected in the final price of food, cement, medicine, electronics, and household goods.
For many Nigerians, inflation is often discussed in terms of exchange rates, fuel prices, and monetary policy. Yet logistics costs are one of the least acknowledged contributors to inflation.
A bag of rice is more expensive not only because of production costs, but because of the challenge of moving it efficiently from farm to warehouse, from warehouse to distributor, and from distributor to market. The same applies to cement, pharmaceuticals, agricultural inputs, and consumer goods.
Nigeria’s overdependence on trucking is particularly unsustainable because it weakens the lifespan of roads while simultaneously reducing the productivity of businesses. Major transport corridors such as the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway, the Lagos-Ibadan route, and key roads leading into industrial zones have become symbols of infrastructure exhaustion.
Yet the paradox is that Nigeria is not short of transport assets. The country has seaports, inland waterways, airports, rail infrastructure, and road networks. What it lacks is coordination. What Nigeria currently possesses is not a transport system, but a loose collection of disconnected assets.
The rail sector, while gradually improving, remains insufficiently connected to ports and industrial clusters. Inland waterways remain underutilised despite the enormous commercial potential of the Niger and Benue rivers. Inland dry ports have not been fully integrated into cargo evacuation systems. Airports operate independently of broader freight networks. This fragmentation imposes a heavy cost on economic growth.
If Nigeria is serious about becoming a manufacturing hub, increasing non-oil exports, and benefiting from the African Continental Free Trade Area, then multimodal transport must become a national priority.
AfCFTA will reward countries that can move goods quickly, cheaply, and reliably across borders. The winners will not necessarily be the countries with the largest populations or biggest markets. They will be the countries with the most efficient logistics systems.
That is why multimodal transport is no longer a technical discussion for freight operators alone. It is a strategic issue that affects trade, industrialisation, food security, inflation, job creation, and national productivity.
Building a multimodal transport system will require more than constructing roads and rail lines. It will require customs reform, digital cargo tracking, harmonised port procedures, regulatory clarity, and stronger collaboration between transport agencies.
The government must also create an enabling environment for indigenous logistics companies to evolve into full-scale Multimodal Transport Operators capable of managing cargo across multiple transport modes under one unified framework.
Equally important is the legal framework. Questions around liability, insurance, documentation, dispute resolution, and cargo responsibility across different transport modes must be properly addressed if investors are to have confidence in the system. Nigeria’s economic future cannot be built on traffic congestion, fragmented logistics, and an endless queue of trucks.
The future belongs to countries that understand that transport is not just about moving goods; it is about moving economies.
Until Nigeria fully embraces multimodal transport, it will continue paying a heavy price for inefficiency and in today’s world, inefficiency is one of the most expensive burdens any economy can carry.
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