Apapa gridlock: Business leaders want FG, Lagos to tackle root causes

Apapa, Nigeria’s port city, is increasingly emerging one of the worst neighbourhoods to live and do business in, in Nigeria, given its degraded environment, collapsed infrastructure, traffic gridlock, and rising insecurity, business leaders in Lagos have noted.

They further say it is high time the Federal and Lagos State governments tackled the root causes of the problem rather than treating the symptoms.

The business leaders, under the aegis of Organised Private Sector (OPS), insist that the government must increase local capacity for refined petroleum products and return to haulage of the products by rail as against the current use of roads.

Apapa, Nigeria’s premier port city, where over 57 petroleum tank farms are located, ranks among the worst business environments in the world. About 3,000 tankers come to Lagos daily and over 90 percent of them find their way to Apapa to lift petroleum products.

As a result, all roads and bridges leading to the ports community are blocked to motorists and residents almost permanently, forcing commuters to spend hours in gridlock. Efforts by successive administrations in Lagos have yielded  little or no results as the tankers remain on the roads and bridges.

Olusegun Oshinowo, the director-general of Nigerian Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA), who decried the negative impact of what is happening in Apapa on the national economy, emphasised that government’s action so far, amounted to “treating symptoms and not the root cause of the problem”.

“The Cost of business in Apapa has increased. People are relocating to other areas. It is not as if they planned this but the pain and suffering have attained a level where they just have to take a decision, even for workers, it has become excruciating and it is telling on their health”, Oshinowo said.

Productivity is already suffering and the health of the workers is affected. As a result, the economy is becoming far less efficient and productive than it should be. Turnaround time for the tankers has decreased significantly because of the gridlock. That translates to higher cost for that business. For port users, the wear and tear for asset has increased. Activities of armed robbers have increased.  Life is going down the drain as a result of the gridlock

The entire Apapa environment is under siege and suffocating and it is such that residents and businesses that can no longer cope are relocating, leaving a very pathetic situation in the Apapa property market which has seen dying demand and high vacancy rate for both residential and commercial properties.

Chudi Ubosi, the Principal Partner, Ubosi Eleh & Co—a firm of estate surveyors and valuers—confirmed to BusinessDay that as a result of this unfortunate situation, property value in this area has dropped by as much as 50 percent, adding that Apapa has also seen over 40 percent vacancy rate.

Ubosi explained that in its good days, Apapa property market was ranked alongside Ikeja GRA, but that is no more the case, pointing out that because of the present situation, where a parcel of land sells for N400 million in Ikeja GRA, same size of land in Apapa will struggle to sell for N200 million.

He noted that many of the high rise buildings such as the Development House on Wharf Road is scarcely occupied because many of the tenants have moved office to more convenient and profitable areas.

The diminishing property value and rising vacancy rate in Apapa are not of greater concern than the impact of these developments on other upscale locations in Lagos such as Ikeja GRA, Ikoyi and Victoria Island, which are the next destination for businesses and home seekers from Apapa.

Former Lagos governor, Babatunde Fashola, underscored this when he said that the dying demand for property in Apapa would be transferred to the other side of town such that “we are all going to pay for it. If I cannot live in Apapa again, the next thing I will do is ask, where else can I live?

“It is either I move to GRA Ikeja, or I go to Ikoyi or Victoria Island. So we will only come and put pressure on the rent in those places; that is what is happening already. The people in Apapa are not going to evaporate, they are going to put pressure on those other parts of the city where you and I will live”, he added, stressing that the result of this would be increase in rent in those places.

In a city with as well over two million housing units deficit; one in which commercial office buildings go for as much as $1,000 per square metre, and one in which a standard plot of land goes for as much as N200-250 million, cannot afford to lose one part of it due to unwholesome activities of a few business owners.

Recently, Akinwunmi Ambode, the governor of Lagos State, visited Apapa to assess the intractable situation, decrying the blockade of access roads by tankers and container bearing trucks, a development he described as unacceptable, but over which the state government appears helpless.

“As immediate palliative, we would set up a task force that would involve most of our security agencies including the police and we would do a 24/7 monitor of the traffic.

“ We would pay more attention to enforcement. We are going to give incentives to our law enforcement officers to ensure that the traffic law is obeyed,” he said.

CHUKA UROKO & JOSHUA BASSEY