Apapa Gridlock: Cashew nuts, sesame seeds, cocoa rot away in warehouses

Nigeria non-oil export has come under serious threat owing to the worsening state of the Apapa and Tin Can roads that leads to the nation’s Lagos sea ports.

As a result, agro commodities worth billion of naira are rotting away in various warehouses as port processes are becoming impossible owing to the negative impact of the deplorable state of the Apapa and Tin Can roads.

“The Apapa road linking export terminal at the ports is in terrible shape. A lot of wearhouses are filled with agro commodities instead of being promptly shipped and they are rotten away,” said Tola Faseru, president of the National Cashew Association of Nigeria, at a press conference in Lagos.

“An exporter, who ships 1,700 tons of commodities per day under normal circumstances when Apapa road was in good condition, now manages to only ship between 100 and 250 tons, and this is bad for business.

“The problem at the port is giving rise to huge corruption as uniform men now collect a bribe of N25, 000 on every container,” Faseru said.

He said that exporters’ truck drivers are idling away on Apapa road, waiting in their trucks for as long as seven days to get into the port as against four hours.

He stressed that transaction cycles for export are taking longer than necessary and foreign buyers are beginning to question the integrity of contracts they enter into with Nigerians.

The national president stated that priority should be given to exportable commodities in line with the Federal Government economic diversification agenda.

Also speaking at the press conference, Anga Sotoye, national publicity secretary, NCAN called on the government to declare a state of emergency on the Apapa road due to the threat it has on the zero oil economy Nigeria hopes to achieve.

“We have increased our cashew production from 160,000 metric tons to 175,000 metric tons this year. We need to export them and the gridlock in Apapa is a threat for us to achieve it,” Sotoye said.

“We need urgent help and that why we are calling for help and we believe the government will listen. We need action on fixing the Apapa issue and it has to be done now,” he added.

Adeyemi Adeniji, CEO, Startlink Global and Idea Limited, said trucks take seven to 10 days on Apapa road and 15 days at the APMT, meaning that their non-oil products start depreciating when they get to the ports.

“Nigeria is competing with the best origins of the world. It is quite unfortunate that with the recent happenings, we may start losing all that we have achieved do far,” Adeniji said.

 

Josephine Okojie