Journal of Economics and Sustainable Development ISSN 2222-1700 (Paper) ISSN 2222-2855 (Online) Vol.6, No.9, 2015 www.iiste.org Transportation and National Development Good Wilson Jebbin Maclean Felix Department of Economics, Ignatius Ajuru University of Education Port Harcourt Abstract Given the importance of transportation in the commercial life, industry and the overall economic development of a nation, this paper attempts to evaluate the impact of developments in transportation on Nigeria’s national development. It addresses five key areas in its discussion of transportation and national development. First, it tries to conceptualize transportation and national development. Second, it tries to provide a historical brief of the role of transportation in the evolution of the Nigerian nation. Third, it discusses the developments in the different modes of transportation from the colonial period to date. Fourth, it tries to examine the impact of transportation on Nigeria’s national development from three perspectives viz: economic, social and political. It observes that apart from lumping transportation and communication together in the budgetary allocation of resources, what is allocated to the sector is inadequate, given the crucial role of transportation in the modern economy. Finally, it suggests the separation of transportation from communication in the budgetary allocation of resources, increase in the allocation to the former, prompt release of the actual budgeted funds, and proper utilization of the approved and released funds to implement the designed transportation facilities if it is to contribute its quota to over attainment of national development. 1. INTRODUCTION The importance of transport or transportation (as it is called in the United States) in the commercial life, industry and the overall economic development of a nation has been highlighted by Kindleberger (1965),Ukwu (1985) and Anyanwu et al (1997) among others. For instance Kindleberger (1965: 154) describing the role of transportation and communication in the development process of nations asserted that: The market is originally small and local demand is restricted by the cost of getting goods out of the village and ignorance of whether they can be sold outside; supply is limited by the cost of getting goods into the village and ignorance of how much they can be bought outside. In the circumstance markets grow through increase in transport and communication. The expansion becomes cumulative. Increased outlets for a commodity give rise to increased real income, which in turn raises the demand for other products. As new supplies of these come on the market, in turn, incomes grow further. The linkage of markets by an improvement in a product, which makes it lighter and more readily transported, becomes part of a developmental process. In the same vein, Ukwu (1985: 116) asserted that transport and communication are critical to modernization because of their impact at various levels of social, political and economic development. According to him, they channel the flow of persons, commodities and ideas between places and over time and mediate relations and interactions between individuals and communities. And Anyanwu et al (1997: 333) summed, concerning the importance of transportation to the modern economy thus: The importance of transportation derives from a number of factors. For instance, it increases the geographical and occupational specialisation as well as interdependence of countries based on the principle of comparative advantage. In fact, improvement in transport provides more opportunities for specialization. This largely account for the remarkable improvement made so far in the development of commerce and industry since transport lies at the root of the whole process of marketing. Consequently, it leads to an enormous increase in the volume of trade, making it possible for increased and concentrated population to survive and for them to be provided with wide and more varied diet. In addition, transportation facilitates the quick deliveries of perishable and non-perishable goods. As a result, capital need not be tied up in large stock of goods since quick deliveries can be made, making large-scale production possible. Thus, the role of transportation in every modern economy cannot be over emphasized. Nigeria as a nation state started as a colonial creation in 1914 and evolved through colonial rule up to 1st October 1960 when political independence was granted her by her colonial master-Great Britain. From 1960 till date she has, as a nation state launched a number of development plans and programmes. For example, she launched her first 5-year plan in 1962-1968; a second, third and fourth in 1970-1974, 1975-1980, and 1981-1985 respectively. She has instituted a one year Economic Emergency Programme in 1986 which was later absorbed by a two-year 300 Journal of Economics and Sustainable Development ISSN 2222-1700 (Paper) ISSN 2222-2855 (Online) Vol.6, No.9, 2015 www.iiste.org Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) that ended in 1989. She has adopted a 15-20 year Perspective Plan with a 3-yearly Rolling Plans that were complemented by annual budgets in the 1990s. She has also published Vision 2010; and recently NEEDS, SEEDS and LEEDS at the national, state and local government levels respectively, all in attempt to achieve national development. In all these developments transportation as an integral part of human society is not being left out. Consequently, this paper attempts to evaluate the impact of developments in transportation on Nigeria’s national development. The paper is in six sections. Section one is the introduction while section two takes care of conceptual issues. Section three discusses transportation in the evolution of the Nigerian nation while section four addresses the issue of developments in transportation. Section five examines the impact of development s in transportation on Nigeria’s national development, while section six concludes the paper with the closing remarks. So let us take them in turns. 2. CONCEPTUAL ISSUES The concepts to be examined here are (i) Transportation and (ii) National development, as their understanding will enhance our comprehension of the issues involved in the paper. 2.1 Transportation Transport or transportation which is derived from two Latin words ‘trans’ meaning ‘across’ and ‘portare’ meaning ‘carry’ is commonly said to refer to movement of people and goods from one place to another. Thus the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2003) defines transportation as a process or business of taking goods from one place to another or a system for carrying passengers or goods from one place to another. For the BBC Dictionary (1992) transportation involves moving goods or people from one place to another. Yet for Anyanwu et al (1997) transportation refers to the process of conveying or moving of goods and people from place to place. And Okeafor (1998) conceives transportation thus: Transportation service is the port of physical distribution activity which is concerned with the actual movement of goods to their various consumers. Consumers are generally geographically separated from production areas. Transportation is the basic activity which can make it possible for those residing outside the production areas to have access to the goods. It uses power driven machines to move goods through land, seas and mountains etc, using roads, railways, ships and aeroplanes within and between nations. Thus, for the purpose of this paper, transportation should be understood to refer to a system for carrying passengers, raw materials and goods from one place to another both internally and internationally, often through power driven machines. The field of transportation has several aspects, which can loosely be divided into a triad, infrastructure, vehicles and operations. Infrastructure includes the transportation network (ie roads, railways, airways, canals, pipelines, etc) that are used, as well as the nodes or terminals (such as airports, railway stations, bus stations and seaports). The vehicles, such as automobiles, trains, airplanes etc, generally ride on the networks. The operations deal with the control of the system such as traffic, signal and ramp meters, rail-road switches, air traffic control, etc, as well as policies, such as how to finance the system e.g use of tolls or gasoline taxes in the case of highway transport. Broadly speaking, the design of networks are the domain of civil engineering and urban planning, the design of vehicles, of mechanical engineering and special subfields such as nautical engineering and aerospace engineering, and the operations are usually specialized, though might appropriately belong to operations research or systems engineering. Modes of transportation are combinations of networks, vehicles and operations and thus include walking, the automobile/highway system, railroads, maritime transport (ie ships, waterways, pipelines and harbours) and modern aviation (ie airplanes, airports and air traffic control). Thus the main modern modes or forms of transportation in Nigeria include the automobile/highway system (road), railway or railroads, water or maritime transport, air or modern aviation and pipeline. Thus when we talk about developments in transportation, we are referring to developments in these forms or modes of transportation. 2.2 National Development For ease of comprehension of the concept of national development, it is important to throw some light on development itself. It is a commonly held view that development is a complex concept with a plethora of interpretations from the various schools of thought in the social sciences. For instance, its meaning has progressed from its narrow conception in terms of narrow economic indices such as a rise in per capita income in the 1950s and 1960s, to a broader one (Okowa, 1991; and Todaro, 1977). Indeed, today development is defined qualitatively as a process of improvement in the general welfare of the entire society usually manifested in desirable changes in the various aspects of the life of the society such as; (i) a reduction in the level of 301 Journal of Economics and Sustainable Development ISSN 2222-1700 (Paper) ISSN 2222-2855 (Online) Vol.6, No.9, 2015 www.iiste.org unemployment;(ii)a reduction in the extent of personal and regional inequalities; (iii) a reduction in absolute poverty; (iv) a rise in real output of goods and services and improvement in techniques of production; (v) improvement in literacy, health services, housing and government services;(vi) improvement in the level of social and political consciousness of the people; (vii) greater ability to draw on local resources (both human and material) to meet local needs; and (viii) a reduction in pollution and/or environmental degradation (Akpakpan, 1987; and Wilson, 2002). It is in this context that Okowa (1997) defined development simply as the process whereby a society changes in all its ramifications in a direction that is beneficial to all her citizens or at least to a majority of them. Consequently he defined national development as the process whereby a given nation moves in its total setting in a direction beneficial materially and otherwise to all its people. The import is that the whole of the people or at least a majority must be involved in the above process or motion and hence the need for national objectives which when achieved, will enhance the improvement of the social welfare of the people. Thus in the case of Nigeria, national development has been defined in terms of five principal national objectives which according to Ndiomu (1992) have continued to be enunciated in subsequent development plans from the Second National Development Plan, namely: (i) a united, strong and self-reliant economy; (ii) a great and dynamic society; (iii) a just and egalitarian society; (iv) a land of bright and full opportunities; (v) a free and democratic society. The fundamental question therefore is: how are developments in transportation capable of enhancing or impinging on the achievement of these national objectives and thus national development? But before we address this question let us discuss transportation in the evolution of the Nigerian nation. 3. TRANSPORTATATION IN THE EVOLUTION OF THE NIGERIAN NATION Geographically, Nigeria occupies a strategic and central position in Africa. In fact, the centrality and strategic position of Nigeria geographically in the African continent is described by Ukwu (1985: 117) thus: The area has from historic times been one of the major crossroads of Africa, culturally and economically. The boundaries of seven of the major language subfamilies of Africa meet within it, and ancient, political and economic relationships link it with the surrounding areas and across the continent to the wider world. The review continued: Some of those links have been of special historic significance: the Trans-saharan routes focused on Kano/Kaduna in the northwest and in Bornu in the northeast, through which the earliest trade links between the area and the Mediterranean Coast-lands and Europe were established and Islam introduced; the Sudan corridor, the political currents of which continually swept the northern parts; the trade routes linking the area to the forest kingdoms of Western Guinea lands; and the less-intensively used links across the mountainous eastern borderlands, which mediated our links with Central Africa and the Indian Ocean lands and the introduction of some most important food crops today. Concluding, the review pointed out that: The initial phase of European contact with Nigerian territory was seaborne. The ports, both coastal and riverine, became the points of access to, and bases for the European penetration of the interior. One of the earliest and most significant results was the introduction of new crops, some of which have become central to the local agricultural economy. Thus the above excerpt summarises the centrality and strategic position of Nigeria, geographically in the African continent. However, while the development of European trade led to the rise of many trade centres in the coast, creeks and river systems and greatly enlarged the scope of trade, the means of transportation remained traditional up to the beginning of colonial rule. The dominant forms or modes of transportation were animal and human portage on land and dug-out or hand-pooling canoe on water. Thus, although the extent and vigour of trade and marketing was well attested to, the nature of the existing means of transportation limited the scope of longdistance trade to a few trade staples that were able to bear their costs such as gold, salt, kola, pepper, natron, metal tools, textiles, horses and slaves (Ukwu, 1985). Such trade did not involve many of the people whose daily cycle of interaction was confined by their location. Even where there was specialized production, it was usually under centralized control by the state or the merchant princes or by specialized communities. Thus the expansion of economic opportunity was by itself capable of stimulating greatly increased production without any significant change in transportation as was the case with the palm oil trade in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Hence, it was not until the development of new means of transportation under colonial rule that the various parts of the country became drawn systematically into the orbit of modern society and the economy. 302 Journal of Economics and Sustainable Development ISSN 2222-1700 (Paper) ISSN 2222-2855 (Online) Vol.6, No.9, 2015 www.iiste.org 4. DEVELOPMENTS IN TRANSPORTATION According to Walker (1958) the development of transportation and communication under colonial rule reflected both the priorities of the metropolis and the local technological and economic environment. And as observed earlier, the initial phase of contact was waterborne, with the ports, both coastal and riverine, as the points of access to, and bases for penetration of the interior. Thus, the earliest British efforts at transportation development were concentrated on clearing and dredging rivers, notably between 1900 and 1931 and until the northern and southern railway systems were linked in 1912, the water ways provided the only mass transport links between the two areas (Ukwu, 1985). However, with the integration and expansion of the railway system, the internal waterways were abandoned. Although motor vehicles were introduced as early as 1909, it was not until 1926 that there was a comprehensive plan to organise a road system. Thus, serious road construction did not start until the late 1930s, but subsequent development in road construction was so rapid that, according to Ukwu (1985) road transportation soon became the dominant mode for medium and long distance movements. Consequently, working from a perceived similarity of the pattern in Nigeria and Ghana, Taafe et al (1963) postulated a colonial model of transportation expansion in underdeveloped countries thus: Phase I: A scattering of small ports and trading posts along the sea coast, with little interconnection except for local crafts and with extremely limited hinterlands; Phase II: Emergence of major lines of penetration with development concentrated in a few major posts and their associated routes; Phase III: Development of feeder routes from interior centres springing up on the penetration routes, and the establishment of lateral interconnection between internal and coastal nodes; and Phase IV: The completion of a coherent network and the development of high-priority linkages between the most important nodes. So, relating the Taafe et al (1963) colonial model of transportation expansion to the specific case of Nigeria, Ukwu (1985,: 120) asserted thus: For Nigeria, the second phase may be said to be represented by the railway development phase and today the association of the railway line with the concentration of modern facilities in Nigeria is still overwhelming. The third phase is reflected in the rapid expansion of road transport between 1945 and 1960, while the development of the high priority linkages is still in process, the last developed now being the Lagos-Kano, Port Harcourt-Jos, and Lagos-Onitsha routes, the two of which reinforce the older pattern of dominance. And as observed by Ukwu (1985), today ultra-modern roads have emerged from nearly all parts of the country comprising of Trunk ‘A’ network made up of the North-South and East-West ones forming the basic grid of the national network into which other link roads enmesh, as well as Trunk ‘B’ and ‘C’ roads. In addition, international highways leading to Nigeria exist. They include the road link with Niger Republic via Zinder; Cameroon via Marocia or Mamfe; the Republic of Ghana, Togo and Benin via Idiroko and the Republic of Chad from Ndjamena (Anyanwu, et al, 1997). With respect to the various forms of transport the main trends of development could be summarized by reference to a few key statistics. Thus, according to Ukwu (1985), there were some 1,300km of motorable roads in 1925, 40,000 in 1950, and 100,000 in 1975, while new motor vehicle registration rose from 3,130 in 1930 to 6,240 in 1950, 33,290 in 1965 and 75,215 in 1974. In 1980, there were a total of 114,768km roads in Nigeria and the additional length of Federal Government roads between 2003 and 2006 are 34,340.95km in 2003 and 34,341.25km in 2006 while uniform licensing scheme production statistics from 2002 to 2006 showed registration figures of 692,987; 565,582; 480,251; 506,162 and 762,016 respectively for 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006. On the other hand the railway reached the peak of its traffic in 1960/61 when it carried 7.9 million passengers, declining to 4.7 million passengers in 1973 (Ukwu, 1985). However, Anyanwu et al (1997) presented a passenger traffic of 9.6 million in 1960-1971; 6.1 million in 1972-1978; 8.2 million in 1979-1982; 11.5 million in 1983-1987 and 4.4 million in 1988-1992, thus giving a peak in 1983-1987. The figures in the first decade of the 21st century are 987,088 in 2002; 1,622,271 in 2003; 1,751,159 in 2004 and 752,482 in 2005 (NBS, 2008). There has been a rapid increase in air transportation since the 1970s, although not all the cities are linked, and the linkage structure further reinforces those of road and rail. Presently, Nigeria has 20 airports 303 Journal of Economics and Sustainable Development ISSN 2222-1700 (Paper) ISSN 2222-2855 (Online) Vol.6, No.9, 2015 www.iiste.org namely; Murtala Mohammed-Lagos, Aminu Kano-Kano, Port Harcourt, Margeret Ekpo-Calabar and Nnamdi Azikiwe-Abuja, all international airports. Others include Akure, Benin, Enugu, Ibadan, Ilorin, Jos, Kaduna, Maidiguri, Makurdi, Sokoto,Yola, Minna, Owerri, Katsina and the recently completed Akwa-Ibom airport at Mbo. This implies that 19 out the 36 states have airports, since the names of most of existing airports tally with the names of states or state capitals (Wilson, 2005). In terms of passengers carried, it rose from 597,270 in 1975 to a peak of 2,575,038 in 1985 and started declining to a low of 354,000 passengers in 1993 (Anyanwu at el, 1997). In recent times, the figures for passenger arrivals at both international and domestic airports are 3,920,031; 4,938,077; 4,501,785; 4,532,334 and 5,700,311 respectively for 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007, while the corresponding figures for passenger departures are 3,930,644; 4,443,537; 4,785,263; 4,573,457 and 4,725,785 (NBS, 2008). With regards to water transportation, the number of seaports in Nigeria has increased from 2 in 1960 to 14 presently. These include Apapa, Tin-Can Island, Port Harcourt, Okrika, Federal lighter Terminal, Bonny, Warri, Koko, Sapele, Container Terminal, Roro, Federal Ocean Terminal, Calabar and Tuma. In terms of foreign trade cargo loaded and discharged at Nigerian ports between 1999 and 2005, the figures for instance are:- 96,817; 111,279; 10,679,109; 13,288,917; and 13,551,854 for 1999, 2000, 2003, 2004 and 2005 respectively for the loaded, while those for discharged are 13,975; 15,991; 23,099,847; 23,359,879 and 26,051,234 respectively for the 1999, 2000, 2003, 2004 and2005 periods; and the net registered tonnage of vessels entered in Nigerian ports between 1999 and 2003 are 57,193; 123,037; 130,014; 118,211; and 132,388 respectively for 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 (NBS,2008). The discovery of crude oil and the associated gas has popularized pipeline transportation in Nigeria. Thus there are two pipeline network in the country presently namely, petroleum and gas pipelines. The petroleum pipeline network is made up of five subsystems namely:- the South-West system connecting the major depots at Mosimi to Atlas Cove, Lagos, Ikorodu, Ikeja, Ibadan and Ilorin depots; the Warri to Benin to Ore pipelines; the North to South system made up of the 606km transmission line linking Warri and Kaduna for conveying Escravos crude oil and imported heavy crude to Kaduna refinery; the Kanduna to Jos to Gombe pipelines; the Kaduna to Zaria to Gusau pipelines as well as the Kaduna to Zaria to Kano pipelines. The other is the South to East line linking Port Harcourt to Aba, to Enugu to Markurdi. There is also the Warri to Escravos line designed essentially for the exportation of crude oil (Anyanwu, et al, 1997). The natural gas pipeline network is made up two systems namely the Western and Eastern systems. The Western system is made up of the Delta Steel Aladja to Ughelli area line and another which links Escravos through Warri and then Ajaokuta/Abuja, Egbin and Sapele thermal power stations. These lines are used to convey natural gas which serves as fuel to the various power stations, steel complexes and rolling mills in the country. Eastern system of the natural gas pipeline is not as developed as Western system. However, there are gas pipelines connecting the Obrikom and Obite from the ONELGA gas field, and from Soku through Rumuji to Bonny for the Liquefied Gas Plant. 5. THE IMPACT OF TRANSPORTATION ON NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT The impact of transportation on Nigeria’s national development has been pervasive. However, for ease of analysis we choose to evaluate the impact on Nigeria’s national development from three perspectives viz: economic, social and political (Ukwuu, 1985 and Okeafor, 1998). Let us take them in turns. 5.1 The Economic Impact of Transportation Economically, transportation impacts on our national development in the following ways: First, it utilizes a sizeable number of the nation’s labour force. For instance, the transportation industry provides employment to the following categories of Nigerians. (i) all operators on road, rail, sea and air transportation services; (ii) bus, taxi, truck including private drivers of such vehicles and owners of tankers; (iii) operators of transport related terminals such as motor-parks, airports, seaports and railway stations in various locations of the country; (iv) air craft, motor vehicle equipment dealers and parts dealers; and (v) transport related industries such as car-parts dealers (both new and used), car mechanics and garages, fuel service stations, highway employees and agencies, government transport employees, etc (Wilson, 2004). All these work in different capacities and different parts of the country to enhance the operation of the nation’s transport system. In quantitative terms, the transportation sector accounted for at least 0.84 percent on the average of annual employment of 49,522,028 Nigerians between 2003 and 2007, and the real growth rates of employment in the sector at constant 1999 level were 13.28, 7.65, 5.39, 6.75 and 27.6 percent respectively for 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 (NBS, 2008). The implication is that positive developments in transportation are more likely to increase employment opportunities for the citizens, thus fulfilling the fourth national objective of “a land of bright and full opportunities”, taking into cognizance the consequences of unemployment on the nation. Second, it increases the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Nigeria in combination of number of ways. First, its services move goods and services to near and distant markets where they attract higher prices and 304 Journal of Economics and Sustainable Development ISSN 2222-1700 (Paper) ISSN 2222-2855 (Online) Vol.6, No.9, 2015 www.iiste.org profits for producers; the higher prices and profits from sales attract business units to expand production which end up increasing their level of output. Second, transportation services spur the level of economic activities and economic development by enhancing the mobility of production factors such as labour, capital and entrepreneurship, thus permitting large-scale production or operation and the attendant increase in output. These activities widen the area that consumers and producers can draw upon for their products and resources as well as expanding the area to which a given producer can distribute its products. Finally, its services and related revenues to transport owners increase with increase in productive activities and the employment of personnel and their incomes, etc increase. All these increases in the value of goods and services arising from increases in the level of transportation services and prices combine to increase the value of the GDP. For instance, between 1981 and 2006, the transportation sector contributed above 3.4 percent on the average to Nigeria’s GDP. Thus positive developments in transportation could really affect the economy favourably to make it a great and dynamic economy, ala, second national objective. Third, the Nigerian economy is crude oil and recently, natural gas driven. For instance, crude oil alone accounts for over 80 percent on the average of the Federal Government revenue annually as the figures 80.6, 84.7, 85.1, 87.2 and 78.1 percent for 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 respectively, show (NBS, 2008). But crude oil production in the country depend to a large extent on transportation especially pipeline, and to a lesser extent sea and road transportation. This implies that positive developments in transportation will affect the Nigerian economy positively through increase in crude oil production and the attendant increase in revenue to enable her become a truly strong and self-reliant economy and a land of bright and full opportunities, ala, first and fourth national objectives. On the other hand negative developments in transportation could adversely affect the oil sector and thus the revenue position of the country and the attendant negative multiplier effects. Fourth, electricity is vital for development such that the rate of energy utilization is often used as a development index. This is due to the fact that the effect of electricity usage revibrate through the economy, serving first, as a source of energy for industrial and commercial outfits, as well as wide spread domestic use and second, as an outlet for the products of other industries like coal, fuel, oil, natural gas, diesel oil etc, and the attendant employment generation. Apart from the Kainji, Jebba, Shiroro and recently Zungeru power stations that are generated using water, the rests are thermal stations which make use of gas mainly, or fuel as the case may be. The gas that fuels these power stations are transmitted through pipeline as discussed earlier. The import is that positive developments in transportation have the potentials of enhancing uninterrupted power supply all things being equal, and the attendant boost in virtually all the sectors of the economy, thus making the economy a truly strong, self-reliant, great and dynamic one, ala first and second national objectives. Fifth, it allows geographical specialisation of industries. The existence of transportation services allows firms as well as regions of a nation to specialize in the production of goods or products and services which they can produce most economically in line with the Richardian principle of comparative advantage which asserts that an area should specialise in the production of goods for which it has the greatest comparative advantage or the least comparative disadvantage. Without effective transportation services it will be difficult for specialisation to take place. In Nigeria, the northern part uses its inertia to specialise in the production of crops like beans, pepper, onions, yams, vegetables, etc and rear cattle, goats and sheep etc in large quantities while the southern part concentrates on the production of forest products like kola-nuts, palm oil, garri etc. The availability of transportation has given room for the existence of a strong North- South internal trade relationship in which the excess products from the North are moved to the South where they are most needed while the excess products from the South are moved to the North where they are most needed, thus fostering unity between the two regions and strengthen the national economy, ala first national objective. Equally, the above relationship permits largescale production, expands local products market and provides place value to the products, all of which could combine to make the Nigerian economy a truly great, strong self-reliant and dynamic one, and land of bright and full opportunities, ala first, second and fourth national objectives. Finally, the world today is a global village in which Nigeria is a participant. The existence of transportation networks like roads and railways and terminals like airports and seaports enables Nigeria as a nation with the aforementioned national objectives to be achieved, to participate in this global village. 5.2 The Social Impact of Transportation Positive developments in transportation service equally impact positively on the social life of a nation in two significant ways. First, transportation makes it possible for (i) people who live in one area or part of the same city or different cities in the same country to travel to other areas or parts of the same city or different cities in order to maintain family or friendly ties over time; (ii) workers to and fro on daily basis from their work places; and (iii) schools to operate and students to obtain education. Again transportation complements communication network. For instance letters, packages etc move from senders to receivers in other parts of the country or even outside the country. Thus, the Nigerian postal services e.g NIPOST, depend on the transportation system. 305 Journal of Economics and Sustainable Development ISSN 2222-1700 (Paper) ISSN 2222-2855 (Online) Vol.6, No.9, 2015 www.iiste.org Finally, it brings people together. Individuals, economic units and communities develop at different rates and execute different programmes. Thus, effective transportation services can make it possible to bring together these separate individuals, economic units and communities to use common systems, standards and services such as education, sports and politics, thus fostering a united, just and egalitarian society in line with the first and third national objectives. 5.3 Political Impact of Transportation Positive developments in transportation services can be used to regulate the political life of a nation in two basic respects. First, it acts as an aid to govern the states and the nation. For instance, national, state and local governments design and construct feasible rout/routes or transport facilities around the country in order to maintain an effective transport network system. These facilities as earlier observed, include highways, seaports, waterways, railway routes and airports etc. Government designs the transportation in order to enable its leaders and politicians to travel easily and interact with the people they govern. Again, transportation is needed in order to create and maintain national unity and enforce national laws and regulations. Finally, it makes the defence of a country cheaper. For instance, national governments generally recruit and maintain their armies at strategic locations within the country. Transportation services is what the national command uses to effectively move military personnel and equipments to troubled areas whenever the need arises; the deployment of the Joint Military Task Force (JTF) to the Niger Delta region of the country in the wake of the militancy in the area and recently to the Northern states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa to quell the Boko-Haram insurgency are cases in point. Again, effective transportation services enable the government to retain the number of soldiers which can be effectively moved to protect the nation in the event of emergencies. Thus, a nation like Nigeria must first and foremost exist to formulate and the put in place programmes to achieve the five national objectives outlined above. This explain the importance of positive developments in transportation in the national life of Nigeria. However, despite the importance of transportation in the national life of Nigeria, the resources committed to the development of the transportation sector appear to be inadequate. For instance, between 1977 and 2006, the estimated recurrent budget expenditure for both transportation and communication combined by the Federal Government averaged 1.2 percent of the total annual budget for the 30 years interval. This probably explains why the transportation networks as typified by the deplorable condition of the Federal roads, are in shambles. With respect to budgeted capital expenditure, the Federal Government spends on the average 9.7 percent on transportation and communication sectors combined, which in our view is inadequate, given the importance of transportation in the national life of the country. 6. CONCLUDING REMARKS In concluding let us relate the issue of developments in transportation to the achievement of national development. To start with, it can be argued that a relationship exists between transportation and development. Second, the emerging literature shows some positive correlation between positive developments in transportation and the attainment of national objectives. The import is that positive developments in transportation by way of increasing the budgetary allocation of resources to it and effectively utilizing such resources to implement transportation projects, are capable of enhancing the attainment of national objective, while the reverse may hold for negative developments in transportation. But a cursory look at the budgetary allocation of resources to the sector in the past three decades (1977-2006) shows that the sector has not been given the attention it deserves, as only 1.2 percent on the average of recurrent expenditure is allocated to the sector and its complement – the communication sector, annually and 9.7 percent on the average of capital expenditure is allocated to it and its complement, not to talk of actual release of the budgeted funds and proper utilization of such funds, given the high level of corruption in the country. So it is safe to conclude that the transportation sector if it continues to be starved of resources as it is currently done may not enhance the attainment of national development. Separating transportation from communication in the allocation of resources and increasing the allocation to each, especially to transportation, actually releasing the budgeted funds and proper utilization of the approved and released funds to implement the designed transportation facilities are necessary if it is to contribute its quota to achieve national development .Given its multiplier effects, transportation deserves special treatment in order to enhance our attainment of national development. REFERENCES Akpakpan, B. Edet (1987) Crossroads in Nigerian Development. Port Harcourt: New Generation Publishers. Anyanwu, J. C. A. Oyefusi, H. Oaikhenan and F. A. Dimowo (1997) The Structure of the Nigerian Economy (1960-1997). Onitsha: Joanee Educational Publishers Ltd. BBC. 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Port Harcourt: ROD Printing and Publishing Company, Chapter 5 (pp. 93-128). 307 The IISTE is a pioneer in the Open-Access hosting service and academic event management. The aim of the firm is Accelerating Global Knowledge Sharing. More information about the firm can be found on the homepage: http://www.iiste.org CALL FOR JOURNAL PAPERS There are more than 30 peer-reviewed academic journals hosted under the hosting platform. Prospective authors of journals can find the submission instruction on the following page: http://www.iiste.org/journals/ All the journals articles are available online to the readers all over the world without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. Paper version of the journals is also available upon request of readers and authors. 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