Babatunde Fashola has said overloading of trucks is against road safety rules and regulations and constitutes barrier to prosperity and national development.
“Why the temptation to overload trucks against regulation and good practice may be appealing, it is ultimately a barrier to prosperity.
“Such practices may provide cheap and perhaps corrupt riches and income in the short term but they do more damage to our roads for which the cheap income is made.
“Those who engage in it prosper at the expense of others, this means that in the short run, the road is lost and the opportunities it offers diminishes,” he said.
According to him, all over the world, one common trend to prosperity is the level of compliance to laws and regulations for every nation that prosper; there is high level of compliance.
“In those societies, where there is high level of compliance, what you are likely to see is that the trucks are parked in proper parks and those parks create secondary opportunities to create jobs.
“You will not see trucks parked on the highways which impede access and opportunities; you will see trucks carrying the specified tonnage of cargo because they want the load protected,” he added.
He said the programme was for the stakeholders to brainstorm on ways to optimise the opportunities to be created by network of roads within the ECOWAS sub-region.
“This meeting will deliberate on how we can optimise opportunities that lie in road network like the trans-Sahara highway which connects Nigeria to Chad, Niger Republic, Tunisia, Republic of Mali and Algeria.
“We will indeed see how we can optimise the opportunities that lie along the Lagos to Abidjan highway that runs through the Republic of Benin, Togo and Ghana,” he added.
Support InfoStride News' Credible Journalism: Only credible journalism can guarantee a fair, accountable and transparent society, including democracy and government. It involves a lot of efforts and money. We need your support. Click here to Donate