3 - Port in Nigerian Urban Spaces: Can the Bicycle Transport in China Be an Option?

At the just concluded Olympics in Paris France, a Nigerian cyclist Ese Ukpeseraye reportedly borrowed a bicycle from the German team because the Nigerian Federal government was unable to provide bicycle for such an international sporting event. This is happening at a time the globe is thinking of curtailing the emission of gases from motorized and combusting motorized transport system. Meanwhile, Historians in Nigeria have demonstrated that bicycle transport in Nigeria was a viable option in colonial Nigeria for rural and urban transport scheme (Nwabughogu, 1976,Afigbo, 1981, Isichei, 1976, Chuku, 2005 ,Korieh, 2009 and Esse, 2017 ). Since the nation’s political independence in 1960 from Britain, the government’s transport policy became so car centric, and as such between the years 2000 to 2050, the government spent over 460 billion USD to mitigate challenges emanating from climate change(https://unfcc.int). This explains the frustration of the Olympic athlete stated earlier on bicycle as non-motorized transport system. The Chinese blue print on bicycle transport since the 1970’s, therefore, offers useful alternative in dealing with population growth, mobility, emission of gases and traffic decongestion. This paper significantly draws a comparative analysis on bicycle transport in China and its feasibility in the Nigeria As a result,sources for writing this paper will be drawn from the National Archives of Nigeria, newspapers, online publications and journal articles as well books related to both Nigeria and Chinese bicycle transport system. The data for writing this paper will be analyzed, synthesized and utilized for this research.