Ontological Foundations for a Theory of Transport Justice in the Nigerian Context

The concept of transport justice, concerned with the fair distribution of transport benefits and burdens across social groups, has been elaborated primarily within liberal egalitarian philosophical traditions that may not adequately capture the communitarian and Ubuntu-influenced normative frameworks operative in Nigerian social and policy discourse. This study undertakes a foundational theoretical inquiry into the ontological bases for a contextualised theory of transport justice applicable to the Nigerian transport system. The research adopts a philosophical inquiry methodology, combining systematic literature synthesis of Anglo-American transport justice scholarship with interpretive analysis of Nigerian political philosophy, customary ethics traditions, and constitutionally enshrined justice principles. The study then grounds the theoretical synthesis empirically through deliberative workshops conducted with 80 transport users, policymakers, and community leaders across the South East, South West, and North Central zones, using a participatory philosophy methodology. The study advances an original Relational Transport Justice framework that foregrounds social interdependence, communal mobility entitlements, and intergenerational equity as co-equal principles alongside the individual access rights central to existing frameworks. The framework generates novel normative criteria for evaluating transport policies that diverge meaningfully from Rawlsian and utilitarian standards in key respects. It is applied to critically assess three current Nigerian transport policies: the BRT concessioning model, the fuel subsidy removal, and the rural roads programme. Theoretical contributions include a critique of methodological individualism in transport justice scholarship and a proposed African relational ontology for transport ethics. Keywords: transport justice, normative theory, Nigerian philosophy, relational ethics, mobility rights.