We raised it here; to ask where exactly the money of NURTW goes.

What does this organization do?

If truly, Lagos State avows to belief in human rights and upholding justice, then the present operations of road transport belie that.

People with sticks and canes, people that stay on roads for money (ready to put themselves and occupants of the buses at risk), people that yank parts of vehicles off, in an open display of brazen thuggery, yet these are the preferred bedfellows of LASG

And we wonder at this sad incident; of loss of lives in such excruciating manner

The truth is, a domino piece only fell on another, we must go back to what gave the first piece a push, before the effect was passed on.

. Are there standard welfare packages for members of NURTW? Health, insurance, etc

Are there periodic medical tests?

Remember these people are trusted with the lives of many, they must be in good physical and mental states.

. Why can’t NURTW buy properties with the tons of money they make daily and have designated parks, instead of the haphazard road-domination?

. Most of these buses were never designed for mass transport, they were converted crudely; with little concern for the passengers

Billions made, and no one had thought about phasing out these wrong buses, getting new buses in, and working on driver ownership scheme; through instalment payments.

We don’t even carry out adequate tests on commercial buses (yet they are saddled with more responsibilities than the private vehicles)

NURTW or whatever their name is, has taken a motley crowd out of this country before, so they have seen how things operate, and they have the funds.

How did we bring Lagos Ride vehicles in?

How did we bring the BRT buses in?

How did we bring the government’s Koropes in?

We know the processes, we have only refused to proceed rightly.

A government can not be comfortable with taking money from an organization or administering that organization (as the case is now), and we are in total negligence and unperturbed inaction about people’s welfare.

Where is the Private Sector Partnership that the government is seeking, when you are muscling out everyone that wants to improve the commuting issues of this state, and hugging a model that is detrimental to anything a centre of excellence/smart mega city should be about?

Even the small first/last-mile buses, are they really appropriate for some roads? Now you see the Koropes on almost every road.

How easy is alighting/disembarking from such small buses, in cases of emergency?

We reported here, that tricycles are on major expressways now, did Ministry of Transportation act concerned?

As long as people’s welfare is not important to us and we are not concerned about decency and dignity,

As long as we create a different set of rules for commercial operators and thus engender a junta because of greed and selfish interests,

As long as we want to stick with the mundane and obsolete, because of illicit gain from lucre,

Then the pains, the agonies and at instances like this, the blood of the people; are on the government that knows the right thing, but decided to do the easy; self-serving thing…

May God give succour to the families of those that passed on, and we can only hope, their deaths would trigger an action.

But based on precedence, this is on bated breath…

Environmental Lagos Platform

www.environmentallagos.org

September 26, 2022