Funso Doherty, the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) candidate for the Lagos State governorship, has claimed that entrenched interests within the informal transport sector are deliberately blocking efforts to modernize the state’s public transit network.
Doherty made the assertion on Friday during a televised debate organized by the Nigeria Debate Consortium—comprising Channels Television, TVC News, The PUNCH, TheCable, and Vanguard. Throughout the session, he criticized the state’s continued reliance on dilapidated commercial vehicles and the pervasive sway of the local “agbero” system.
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The candidate questioned why past and present administrations have allowed thousands of substandard commercial buses to dominate Lagos roads without meaningful reform.
“Our public transportation system remains outdated, with thousands of rundown buses still operating on our roads,” Doherty said. “We must ask ourselves if this is truly what our people deserve, and why comprehensive modernization has taken so long to achieve.”
He argued that the failure to overhaul the urban transit infrastructure is not an administrative accident, but rather the result of a lucrative status quo that benefits powerful figures.
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“The absence of modern transportation is deliberate,” he stated. “Entrenched stakeholders profit immensely from keeping the bus network exactly as it is. The agbero system forms an entire economic ecosystem, and leadership has consistently lacked the political will to dismantle it.”
Pledging a complete restructuring of the transit sector if elected, Doherty emphasized that his administration would remain independent of informal transport syndicates.
“We will modernize public transportation because we will be accountable to the voters who elect us, not to the agbero network,” he concluded.
