₦airaland Forum

Zane2point4:
Is dat even how a sars office should look?
Hahha, funny country,

This is how a market look like in china compare it with that zoo.

Shut up, you lying SWINE. Majority of markets in China look like THIS:

https://www.china-window.com/images/img_market.jpg

What you did is like me taking a picture of the new Tejuosho market in Lagos, and claiming that that's how markets look in Nigeria.

Tejuosho Market, Lagos
https://www.assist2sellpropertiesng.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2cover.jpg

Butoneday2:
This zoo country called Nigeria needs to be re-colonised.

Brainless he-goat. So where is the highly industrialised, advanced country the whites left you with after their 70 years uninterrupted rule?

Oh wait.... They didn't.

They left you with an undeveloped bush country with zero industries, zero universities, zero power plants, zero infrastructure, mass illiteracy and peasantry, while exporting billions of dollars worth of your resources, and depositing the money in London.

The black governments come into power at independence, and ensured that unlike your illiterate grandparents under colonial rule, you benefited from mass education programmes.

So here you are today. Educated, well fed. With shoes on, unlike your peasant forbears, calling for the colonial rulers to RETURN.

Doesn't that show you are extremely dumb and stupid?

The great Ammunition of Nigeria.

Good luck in your new position as Tanzania National Team Head Coach.

https://i0.wp.com/www.rockcityfmradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/emmanuel-amunike.jpg?resize=1038%2C584

How much does drinking and smoking cost, that even secondary schools students do with their pocket money? Foolish man trying to be smart.

In fact it is you people that don't drink or smoke that are the biggest thieves.

The white guy here tries to keep a straight face
then gently suggests to the Africans that they let
white people help them organise it next time.

No, white boy.... We will not call on you next time.

We will learn from our mistakes, just like you learnt from yours.

Appleyard:
What a babel. The people that are dancing or working about are being repressed, incarcerated, and have no or little access to the internet yet they are alive and even feature in sport competitions all over the world. My friend....

You even said most of us here can't survived one week in North Korea....But tourists go to the place every year. Even some Americans can't resist the temptation. How many of them have died?

Are you insinuating that the Korean people are subhumans? Or you mean to say the condition of some states in Northern Nigeria are better than what is attainable in NK, yet they are Alive?

I will take my chances with North Korea than to live in a place like Chicago where the police will be too glad to put 20 bullets in your skin for being black.

Let Koreans live their own defined democracy. Don't impose yours on them. Isn't that what democracy means?

My friend, if you go to North Korea and criticise the govt they can kill you. The jails are filled with thousands of political prisoners. No internet access. No forming political parties to contest elections. Nothing.

What the hell is wrong with you? I don't think you've ever lived under a dictatorship, so you are underestimating the conditions. People here in Nigeria gave their lives to get rid of Abacha. And he was nowhere near as harsh as Kim. Not even close. Better go and get some sense somewhere.

hisgrace090:
Good news of the day.

There's always something good happening in Nigeria. You just have to look for it, because everyone, including the media, focuses on the bad.

The Federal Republic of Nigeria continues to make great strides in infrastructural transformation

''All is now set for the official take-off of the Itakpe-Warri-Ajaokuta Standard Gauge Rail, the first standard gauge rail in Nigeria. According to reports, the rail was abandoned since 1987 but it is now completed and being test run. The rail is very critical to the Ajaokuta Steel Complex for movement of raw materials and finished products.''

[img]https://2.bp..com/-5BiiKGBuygw/W1vnh_H3gjI/AAAAAAAATjg/L8DeYil7N1MOwuSG3fTLYPOL9B1V-qyhgCEwYBhgL/s1600/DjGnMPTX0AAoJzA.jpg[/img]

[img]https://2.bp..com/-gR4uJeKHmD0/W1vpCapDynI/AAAAAAAATkQ/YDHqMVbyLV8cwwPvpEVswK6WXzm7JNOsQCLcBGAs/s1600/37845984_1074897482675570_5928270790901366784_n.jpg[/img]

https://static.pulse.ng/img/incoming/origs8672854/9100486-w980-h640/All-you-should-know-about-Itakpe-Ajaokuta-Warri-rail-line.jpg

[img]https://1.bp..com/-3tambnGDWN0/W1vpEDg9bKI/AAAAAAAATkk/QGT7RMz6lvAbclKfqNqzQmLJCDD4gM5kgCLcBGAs/s1600/37863142_1074897242675594_6115922430369202176_n.jpg[/img]

[img]https://2.bp..com/-DBwmxYyGLHA/W1vpEoHNQMI/AAAAAAAATko/1FB_-yNhS60DNwfAZ1hVwEQg6SPYjT3mACLcBGAs/s1600/37898650_1074897939342191_4663418495780782080_n.jpg[/img]



The minister of transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi met with the contractors and some members of his cabinet where they tested the rail from Warri to Kogi (Ajaokuta).

It is being said that when the Itakpe-Warri Rail is completed, commuters will be able to travel from Kogi State to Delta State by Rail, passing through Ajaokuta, Uromi, Agbor, and Abraka. In the next phase, the line will extend from Itakpe to Abuja.

The rail line links north central to south south. Here are the stations:

KOGI: -Itakpe -Adogo -Ajaokuta
EDO: -Itogbo -Agenegbode -Uromi -Ekekhen -Igbanke
DELTA: -Agbor -Abraka -Okpara -Ujewu


https://www.autoreportng.com/2018/07/rotimi-amaechi-inspects-ajaokuta-itakpe.html

You people DO realise that North Korea has a starving and repressed population, and is run by a brutal dictatorship?

There is no free speech. No freedom of assembly. No access to the internet. Or extremely limited access.

There's more to life than nice buildings.

NONE OF YOU COULD SURVIVE ONE WEEK IN NORTH KOREA.

How is Nigeria South Africa's older brother?

South Africa was developed long before Nigeria even began to develop.

South Africa's oldest universities were built in the nineteenth century. Our oldest uni was built in the 1960s.

They've had good infrastructure for several decades before we started building ours in the 1960s.

The white colonialists actually spent SA's export proceeds from gold etc, in developing the country, unlike in Nigeria where they simply looted our resources to enrich the Queen and her cohorts. By 1960, Nigeria was an underdeveloped backwater with mass illiteracy and near zero infrastructure, while South Africa was already an industrialised nation.

So the truth is that South Africa is our older brother, not the other way round.

meobizy:
It's good to see their staff feel the same way I do. I hardly switch to CNN because even if the world burns they find a way to link Trump to it or talk about something useless he's done. The world does not revolve around Donald Trump and I strongly believe what one of their executives mentioned in a video "the Trump/Russia story is bullsh** we make up as the day goes. It sells very well but there's nothing factual about it."

It's sad to see my beloved BBC is following the Godforsaken trend. They created a program termed Road to 100 Days [3 months], 100 Days in Office and now Beyond 100 Days all focusing on Trump's administration. E don do abeg, real issues of the world are being ignored while they speak about one reality TV star.

I hope other staff follow suit so these media companies quickly change their ways.

You are very thoughtless. Trump commands the world's most powerful nuclear arsenal. His behaviour is erratic, irrational, and driven by narcissism, racism, lies, and criminality.

He is a danger to world stability, and he must be watched very carefully.

TimeMachine:
Much respect for her.

I have written CNN many times asking them to let Trump be.

The immigrants have messed up that country and Trump is trying his best to give the American Identity back to the legitimate citizens.

I support globalization and free trade and movement but people are just leaving their responsibilities and trooping into America to enjoy the sweat of the ingenuity of forefathers of America. Where was our own fore fathers when Americans were building their country?

I guess they were busy worshipping the Annunakis as most blacks are presently doing. After they want to move to a country which was built by sheer wisdom without waiting for God to come and give them daily bread.

Trump is doing great. Let everyone sit down and build their own corner of the planet for now.

Load of nonsense. America could never have been built without the free labour provided by millions of West Africans carted there as slaves over a four hundred year period. If they actually had to PAY those slaves, they could NEVER have been able to build the USA into the superpower it is today. That country was built on FREE LABOUR PROVIDED BY OUR FOREFATHERS. The slaves did not just till the fields. They were involved as artisans, as builders, as ironsmiths, as carpenters, as accountants. Many of them left Africa with skills that were applied there even in their capacity as slaves.

So you CANNOT adduce the success of the US to white people alone. Blacks were heavily involved. If we are there, we have a right to be there. We are even owed trillions in compensation/reparations.

And we haven't even mentioned the native Americans who are the true owners of the land, mass murdered and dispossessed in their millions.

Secondly, you need to study US politics more before commenting on it with such naivety, with your Trump support.

Trump is believed by sixty eight percent of AMERICANS to be ''a racist'', according to a respected poll. They know him better than you do.

His opposition to immigrants does not extend to immigrants from white caucasian countries. He said so himself. ''Why can't we get more people from Norway?" he asked his cabinet.

He refused to rent his apartments to blacks in the 1970s. He called Mexicans during his campaign, rapists and criminals. He led the right-wing 'birtherism' campaign in which he claimed the then President Obama was not born in the US, but in Kenya, and was therefore an illegitimate president. President Obama was FORCED to produce his official birth certificate for public scrutiny because of Trump's 'birtherism' campaign. The first US president ever made to do that. There is a substantial portion of white America, at least 30 percent, that supports these racist things Trump does and says. They form the core of his support base.

A mere 5 percent of the US black population support him. 70 percent of the electorate oppose him.

Trump is known to tell lies hundreds of times a week. His lies have been documented by experts, and they run into the thousands since his assumption of power.

He is under multiple criminal investigations, including for conspiracy to defraud the US electorate by colluding with the Russian govt to rig US elections in his favour, and for money laundering, tax and other financial crimes.

So when you praise him for his immigration policies, you should take into consideration the dark background of racism and criminality from which they spring.

RoyalPriesthuud:
Look, many Nigerians do not feel a sense of belonging to the current Nigeria. If a father treats his children badly, does that mean that the children should love him unconditionally. A father that steals his children's future, unleashes terror on them via the police and does not safeguard them from aggressors within and without, signs multilateral deals that destroy s their local businesses, does not provide food security by allowing their farms destroyed, steals the fund for their medical bills and still borrow humongous debts to finance his drinking parties is a father full of shit Trust is earned, so is patriotism.

Dude, please spare me all this garbage. You can literally list three quarters of countries on this earth and recite the exact same rhetoric against them as above, and it would apply to them, yet their people do not HATE their nation, and go around calling it a ''shithole''.

Like I said earlier, MANY OF YOU NEED TO TRAVEL AROUND. Not to the US and Europe. But to the rest of the world. The world is NOT a paradise. The majority of people on it are struggling for their daily EVERYTHING. You people are spoiled by your constant exposure to the so called 'First World' where only a tiny, TINY minority of people on this earth live.

Look, for all your complaints about Nigeria, progress HAS been made. You are living a MUCH BETTER LIFE than your forbears. In the 1960s, how many people owned a car in Nigeria? Cars were only for the very rich and highly favoured classes, who made up less than two percent of the population. Majority of our grandparents were too poor to even own a BICYCLE. They walked everywhere, often barefoot. Majority of them were stark illiterates, courtesy of colonial neglect of education. THEY had no choice of emigrating to say Europe or America. Or even Ghana or SA. They had no idea what those places were or what they would do there if they got there. Today, courtesy of the mass education policy of the Nigerian govt which ensured that YOU got educated, you can contemplate the idea of travelling to any country on earth to settle and earn a living. Your illiterate great grandparents would have KILLED to have had such an opportunity. Such a capability.

Electricity? Look, up till about the 1970s, most parts of Nigeria were not even connected to the national grid. This is the same Nigeria that has existed in various forms for over a thousand years. Are you saying all those millions of people who lived and died here without seeing a lightbulb, were all ''in a shithole''? Nope. They never had that attitude. The Benin Empire used palm oil to fuel street lights in Benin City as early as the 1400s. They had underground drainage by virtue of city impluviums they constructed. Their houses ''shone like mirrors'' according to one visitor's account, due to their scrubbing their walls with special chemical herbs. By the 1500s Benin City was rated among the top cities in the world.

The Ife kingdom built pavements on their roads using broken potsherds. You can visit Ife today and still see traces of those pavements.

Why can't our local communities be so proactive today? Everybody sitting around depending on western solutions to problems they can solve, simply by studying their own history and by being creative.

Communications? As recently as the 1990s, majority of Nigerians had no means of communicating beyond travel by foot or public transport. Today you can dip your hand in your pocket and speak to a guy thousands of miles away with no sweat. You can start a business based entirely on your phone.

These are strides your forbears could not even dare to dream about.

I MEAN, I REALLY DON'T KNOW WHO YOU PEOPLE THINK YOU ARE. You think you should have the finest and most up-to-date living standards on earth, when you are only less than a generation removed from illiterate, village, peasant populations under colonial brigandage and oppression. You haven't even worked out how to properly govern yourselves. Which is not a surprise, considering you only gained independence half a century ago.

You fail to realise that you MUST go through teething problems involving societal ills - corruption, civil war, mismanagement etc. YOU MUST, or you will never be that successful nation.

Success means overcoming problems.

If there were no problems, there would be no 'success'.

Many Nigerians talk as if they expect the country to have no problems.

They expect success to simply land on their laps.

''Ah there is oil. So the oil money will be shared equitably and all will benefit, and we can all sit down, hold hands and sing Kumbaya'' .

....''Oh wait...That hasn't happened? We are failed. Useless nation. Shithole.''

A highly simplistic approach to issues.

Go and read the history of any sizeable nation moving from underdevelopment to development.

It MUST be replete with teething problems.

What we foolishly see as ''failures''.

Signs that we have ''failed as a nation''.

I shudder at such displays of historical illiteracy.

Go and study Dickensian England. Victorian England. You will be shocked at the level of mass poverty and deprivation right at the same time they were building iconic, expensive landmarks like Wembley, Buckingham Palace, and Trafalgar Square. Child slavery was the norm. People slept 20 to a room in London, Leeds, Manchester etc. Disease was rife. In all this, a tiny aristocracy lived like lords, literally. This went on for over a CENTURY before changes finally began to make an impact.

That is just the UK. We can call examples from China, from Germany, from Russia, where Stalin slaughtered 20 million of his countrymen on the way to creating his communist state. That is like 10 Biafran Wars occurring at the same time in one country. Yet look at these places today. They've come out smiling.

Lesson: We are evolving, and we must be patient with that evolution. Nigeria will most likely not be a developed nation in your lifetime. Accept that fact, and contribute your quota to making it better for this and future generations. That is what God put you here for. Not to grumble and complain and insult the country all day, all night.

Strikethem:
Even though I didn't agree with the op, but you sounded stupid. Talking of slavery, everyone one knows that you igbos are slaves in the nation. Slave to shagari a northerner, slave to tofa a northerner, slave to obj a Yoruba. No how much you people can shout on top your voice that can erase your slavery. You can only shout, you can't erase the slavery. Eru ni eru o ma Jew. Iran eru niyin.

Mr op, Nigeria is a shithole, no doubt about it.

Define the term shithole country? What exactly is it?

Please employ your intellect here. Don't just type some spiteful one-liner.

Sharpshooota:
Nigeria is a Shithole country


No need denying the obvious

Another Biafran failure. You must be referring to the sticks and catapaults Ojukwu gave you to fight with a few decades back. Brainless dunce.

FRANNN:
Nah, I don't need to "cure" myself of that mentality. That mentality is what every reasonable citizen should have in order to work on developing the "shithole".

How can you ''develop the shithole'' when you've turned off the rest of the world with your self-declared shithole status?

Who wants to do business with a shithole country? Or anyone from such a country?

If you were some Swedish investor who kept reading on social media, posts by Nigerians dismissing their own country as a shithole, would you accept a business proposal from a Nigerian as opposed to say, a Zambian or South African, assuming all the proposals had equal merit?

Of course you would never. So you are shooting yourselves in the foot by denigrating your own country, especially online. Who do you think is being hurt by this? Certainly not our politicians.

meolaniyi:
research and find out. they are the only people that address nigeria as a shithole country.

There is no way you can tell that. Are you basing your research on named monikers?

meolaniyi:
your people are No 1 enemy of Nigeria. They feel so happy and excited when people from kenya, Ghana, South Africa etc say any thing negative about Nigeria. in fact you become there best friend. They even refer to Nigeria as a Zoo. so this message is for your people.

I was actually addressing all Nigerians who like to use the s...hole term, regardless of their ethnic backgrounds.

FRANNN:
That's what you really believe

What a moronic thing to say. Every man and his dog knows Nigeria is a developing country.

Your problem is that you cannot understand how one can acknowledge the country's problems without insulting/denigrating it.

Your problem is that you think it is something to be ashamed of, to be a developing nation.

That again, is because of your colonial conditioning, your lack of education in the socio/poitical evolution of nations, and in development economics, which makes you conclude that any place not on the industrialised level of France and Germany is a ''shithole''. A ''failed country''

You need to cure yourself of that mentality.

IslamicRebel:
Yotuba demon. Always scared of the truth about the zoo.

Even when hausa fulani have reduced you people to slaves.

You do not need Trump to tell you that the zoo is a shithole.

This thread is not for uncouth, thuggish imbeciles. Kindly face the door.

FRANNN:
You just have this strong belief that Nigeria is a great country where everything works but in reality, it's not so. How sad

What is it about some of you that makes you so shallow and thoughtless?

I stated very clearly above that Nigeria is a developing country like majority of the world's nations, even listing many problems afflicting it. How does that translate in your brain to it being ''a great country where everything works''?

I know your problem. Like so many others you have a one-track mind in this. A country is either an Eldorado like the USA or a ''shithole'' like Nigeria. There is no concept of ''developing nation'' in your mindset. No grey areas. The USA is better in all ways than Nigeria. But a little thought will set you aright. In the USA 50,000 people are killed in gun crime annually.

That's like 50 Boko Haram groups operating at once. You are safer in most Nigerian cities than you'd be in Chicago or LA. Or Detroit. So clearly, everything does not ''work'' in America. Things go terribly wrong there an awful lot of times. Police brutality is rife there. Racism is a real issue impacting the lives of millions. So every country has problems. As the Igbo song goes,

''For whom is it good
For whom is it good?
There is no one
for whom it is good."

FRANNN:
You're deluded

How so?

FRANNN:
He actually did. Is Nigeria no longer an African country

He never mentioned the world NIGERIA, so it is wrong and misleading to claim he called Nigeria a shithole.

By the way, had he described Africa as a beautiful continent, would you have automatically assumed he was referring to Nigeria?

Thought not.

You only attract the negative, like a cursed fly.

Trump NEVER CALLED NIGERIA A ''Shithole''.

In a private meeting with his officials, he referred to ''African countries in general'' plus Haiti, as ''shithole countries'', asking why the US was allowing people from those countries into the US. He stated that he preferred ''immigrants from Norway''. The whole incident caused a media storm in the US, with charges of racism aimed at the US dictator.

The way Nigerians somehow used this racist's utterances which had NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH THEM, AND DID NOT REFER TO THEM AT ALL, and started to beat up on themselves with it, claiming he called NIGERIA a "shithole" is really shameful and tragic.

Some of you must really have another country somewhere, to be so eagerly spitting on your current one.

Some of you need to realise that when you call Nigeria a ''shithole'', it is your mother's house you are calling a ''shithole''.

Many of you keep thinking you are somehow separate from the country you insult and denigrate each day before the whole world.

But the world doesn't see it that way. AT ALL.

The more you denigrate your country online, the worse you and your children will be treated by foreigners, and by the rest of the world. Guaranteed. And the more you will be hated and discriminated against, and treated with suspicion.

An Igbo proverb says that if a snake pretends to lack venom, little kids will use it to tie firewood.

In an increasingly globalised world, where trust itself is a currency stronger than the dollar, you are shooting yourselves in the foot, by choosing not to criticize the country while still granting it its basic.....dignity.

This is the country of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Of Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe. Of Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. Of Mallam Aminu Kano. Of Chinua Achebe. Of Wole Soyinka. Of Tai Solarin. Of Chief Gani Fawehinmi. Of Chief Bola Ige. Of Chimamanda Ngozi-Adichie.

The country of Segun Odegbami, Nwankwo Kanu, Jay Jay Okocha, Finidi George, Rashidi Yekini, Sunday Oliseh, and Daniel 'the Bull' Amokachi.

The country of Chief Osita Osadebe, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, King Sunny Ade, Ebenezer Obey, Tuface Idibia, Wizkid, Tekno, Yemi Alade, among hundreds of other world class luminaries that have stood up and shown the world our huge potential .

A country of luminaries. HOW DARE YOU CALL IT A SHITHOLE?


We are a developing country, like 80% of the world's nations. Our problem is that due to our colonial history, whenever we travel abroad we go to the UK, USA, or Western Europe. These countries make up less than 15% of the world population. But for most of us, when describing what happens ''abroad'', we are usually referring to those countries.

We rarely travel to places like Nepal, Cambodia, Senegal, Bangladesh, Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia, Honduras, Ethiopia, Guinea, Eritrea, Colombia, Uganda, Burma, Afghanistan, Mali, Pakistan etc, which is where the majority of the world lives. For most of us, these countries might as well not exist. We never talk about them.

If we shed our colonial complex that tells us that ''abroad'' only means London and New York, and started to really tour the world and see it as it is, maybe even see that things like power outages are VERY COMMON IN MOST COUNTRIES, that corruption is the norm in most countries, that inefficiency, nepotism, crime etc are not unique to Nigeria, then we just might start to hate our own country a little less.

Patrioticooduan:
Nigeria is a shi.thole country. Who does not know that? When you have 200 languages and cultures in a country that fight for dominance all the time, then such country is a sh.ithole country.
Nigeria is a useless sh.thole that must be split.

Some of you are so stupid. That is your mother's house you are calling a ''shithole'', you ignorant dunce. Many of you keep thinking you are somehow separate from the country you insult and denigrate each day before the whole world. But the world doesn't see it that way. AT ALL.

The more you denigrate your country, the worse you and your children will be treated by outsiders, and the rest of the world. Guaranteed.

You are a dunce if you think they will somehow separate YOU from the so called ''shithole''.

And by the way, Trump NEVER CALLED NIGERIA A ''shithole''.

In a private meeting with his officials, He referred to ''African countries in general'' plus Haiti, as ''shithole countries'', asking why the US was allowing people from those countries into the US. He stated that he preferred ''immigrants from Norway''. The whole incident caused a media storm in the US, with charges of racism aimed at the US dictator.

The way Nigerians somehow used this racist's utterances which had NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH THEM, AND DID NOT REFER TO THEM AT ALL, and started to beat up on themselves with it, claiming he called NIGERIA a "shithole" is really shameful and tragic. Some of you must really have another country somewhere, to be so eagerly spitting on your current one.

Alhaji Nnamdi Abubakar Kanu.

I don't even know why they bothered rebuilding that colonial road. They should have built a modern dual carriageway linking those areas without having to make that dangerous journey on Milliken Hill.

ba7man:
Watch out for those beggers and petty traders that will flood the sidewalks to take position.

When the Govt tries to evict them, they'll scream "Victimization" and paint them as insensitivity to the plight of the poor.

The government should simply FINE anybody found selling items or parking their cars on a sidewalk. Such fines generate millions of dollars each month for municipal governments in many countries. Simply employ thousands of uniformed street wardens that will be going around and inspecting the roads for any violations. It''s a whole industry and income generation/ job creation method, the traffic enforcement sector.

RevenGeMission:
While this is very very commendable , I know it will lead to controversy , road expansion means houses and shops will be demolished


Watch out for protests up and down soon

The state government must ruthlessly crush all dissent to the programme. The interest of the wider society supersedes that of private individuals and businesses.

EVarn:
Very nice initiative....I hope all these ideas and projects come together to make Lagos one of Africa's smart cities.

Sidewalks can make or break a city. If you lack them, it discourages tourism. Tourist LOVE to walk. And no one is prepared to walk on any careless surface that is not well built and designated.

Lack of sidewalks hampers business and commerce, as people cannot engage in window shopping, which leads to impulse buying. Can you imagine if say Allen Avenue was like that pic above? One could spend a whole day on it, just strolling in and out of all the fancy shops on that street.. Today you can't do that. Open gutters everywhere, no sidewalk. Sand on the road. You have to drive in a car or you might even fall into a gutter while walking. So this is a very welcome initiative by the Lagos state govt. It will transform the appearance - and image - of the city.

Other states need to learn from this. Enough of the primitive building of roads with open gutters and no sidewalks.

Lagos To Invest In 900 kilometres Of SIDEWALKS Across The City

Lagos’ quest for transforming itself into a walking and cycling friendly city-state, has received a boost of 200,000 Euros from the German Government backed Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative (TUMI).

In an email announcing the selection of the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority’s (LAMATA) entry, Daniel Moser, Management Head of TUMI, said “out of all the applications we picked the most innovative and your project was one of them! We are pleased to inform you that you are a winning candidate of the first TUMI Global Urban Mobility Challenge 2018.”

The award was presented to LAMATA’s representatives, Deputy Director , Corporate and Investment Planning, Mr. Uthman Obafemi Shitta-Bey and Corporate Legal Secretary, Mrs. Oluwaseun Sonoiki in Leipzig, Germany.

LAMATA’s entry, entitled “The Lagos Sidewalk Challenge” detailed the importance of walking as the primary and one of the zero carbon modes of transport in Lagos, which is accessible to the young and old, rich and poor and underpins the value, efficiency and financial viability of Nigeria’s transport system.

City With Sidewalks
https://nacto.org/wp-content/themes/sink_nacto/views/design-guides/retrofit/urban-street-design-guide/images/sidewalks/carousel//retail-sidewalk.jpg



In order to make walking the mode of choice in Lagos, the state government through LAMATA agreed on an ambitious new non-motorised transport policy in October 2017, developed with the support of the UN Environment led Share the Road Programme. The state government is committed to make walking and cycling within the city safe and convenient, by investing in sidewalks and cycle lanes.

Managing Director of LAMATA, Engr. Abiodun Dabiri said the grant was a recognition of the huge work Governor Akinwunmi Ambode was doing in the public transport sector which made provision for pedestrian walkways and cycling.

Carly Koinange, the Global Programme Lead for the Share the Road programme said “it is so exciting to hear Lagos have won this grant. It’s another step in the right direction as about 40% transport trips daily are through walking and cycling and there is the to ensure those involved can do so safely and conveniently. We look forward to supporting the State Government with this great project”.

“The Lagos Sidewalk Challenge” plans to apply new innovative tools to assess existing walkability and steer investment to improving some of the most walked areas of Lagos to consistent quality standards to benefit pedestrians.

Lagos, which currently hosts about 15 per cent of Africa’s population of more than 1.2 billion inhabitants and is regarded as a pioneer of future city thinking throughout Africa, is expected to witness visible transformation in sidewalks safety, accessibility and attractiveness.

In particular, the new Ikeja Bus Terminal near the Lagos airport and the central business district on Lagos Island will be used as showcase of Nigeria’s commitment to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG).

On a global scale, the project will accelerate the delivery of a safer more people-centred transport system in Lagos and indeed, Nigeria, by creating new and more adequate, safe and protected walking environments at some of the most walked places in the city to benefit women, children and the needs of the elderly and physically disadvantaged.

Under the “The Lagos Sidewalk Challenge” project, sidewalk will be created in the most walked part of Lagos Island CBD and in the busy of State capital’s leading to the new bus station, Ikeja Bus Terminal.

To achieve reasonable access for public transport and NMT users and stabilise the use of personal motor vehicles, Lagos State Government has acknowledged that it would need to build at least 470 kilometres of Mass Rapid Transit network, 900 kilometres of footpaths and 300 kilometres of cycle tracks as well as adopt measures to check horizontal sprawl and promote transit-oriented land uses.

Within the next 15 years, Lagos State Government aims for the modal share of walking and cycling to increase to at least 50 per cent of all trips, public transport and para-transit trips to constitute 90 per cent of all motorised trips and all streets with a right of way of 12 metres or more have sidewalks and all street with a right of way under 12 metres having a sidewalk on one side and/or traffic calming measures.

“The Lagos NMT policy presents a complete paradigm shift from existing development patterns toward a transport system that prioritises walking, cycling and public transport as a viable alternatives to car use,” the entry stated.

http://thenationonlineng.net/lagos-innovative-plans-for-walking-gets-200000-euros-grant/