One of the most intractable problems with port operations in Lagos is that of traffic congestion. This is an age-long problem that got worse by the year despite efforts made by successive administration.
At first glance, most operators at the ports and residents of the Apapa area, where the Lagos Ports Complex and the Tin Can Island Ports are located, identify the dilapidated state of the roads as the cause of the paralysing traffic situation in the axis.
The management of the Nigerian Ports Authority also recognised the fact, not just for the Lagos Ports but for ports across the country.
So, shortly after our familarisation tour of the ports, we identified dilapidated roads around all the six ports and discussed the possibility of their prioritised rehabilitation with the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing (FMW).
We made it clear that fixing these roads was central to the full optimisation of the ports and got significant support from the Minister, Mr. Babatunde Fashola and his staff at the ministry.
This was despite our disagreements as to how much the state of the roads in Apapa contributed to the horrendous traffic situation that sometimes extended as far as Western Avenue and Ikorodu Road.
The minister’s argument was that the volume of cargo received in and evacuated out of the Apapa Ports, rather than the state of the roads, was responsible for the traffic situation.
We, at the NPA, agreed that traffic congestion at Apapa could be attributed to several factors. We suggested that all these issues needed to be attended to, and that the federal government should tackle the state of the roads alongside the other interventions.
We presented facts that the traffic congestion at that time could not solely be attributed to the situation at the ports. In a letter dated 16 May 2018, the Authority presented data for cargo throughput between 2010 and 2017 to the Minister of Works.
This letter showed that the highest figures for general cargo, dry bulk, and liquid bulk in Apapa and Tin Can Island Ports within the period was 83,461,697 and 84, 951,927 in 2011 and 2014 respectively.
We wrote in the letter: “It is evident from the above that the lowest recorded volumes were in 2016 and 2017 thus challenging the assertion that the rather abnormal congestion witnessed in 2017 had more to do with growth in volumes as against the highly deteriorated state of the port access roads and the absence of trailer parks/holding bays.”
We also recognised that a significant portion of the vehicles causing the traffic congestion are trucks moving petroleum products from tank farms located in Apapa. We made this point known even as we expressed commitment to solving the problem.
To show our readiness to walk the talk, the management of the Authority agreed to a Federal Ministry of Works and Housing facilitated tripartite agreement with Messrs. AG Dangote and Flour Mills of Nigeria for the rehabilitation of the Wharf Road access into Apapa. This initiative cost the three parties the sum of N4.3b out of which the NPA provided N1.8b. In addition to this, the NPA funded palliative works on the Creek Road axis.
The Authority also acknowledged the point about port congestion, which got worse with the closure of Nigeria’s borders with neighbouring countries like Benin, Cameroon, Chad, and Niger in August 2019. By the end of 2019, things got so bad that some vessels waited at anchorage, unable to berth for 25 days or more.
Although, global industry practice left the choice of destination to consignees, at this time, the NPA had to encourage the diversion of some vessels to the Onne Port. Some importers embraced the idea, and this brought about a reduction in the pressure on the Lagos Ports Complex and the Tin Can Island Ports.
The NPA also received complaints about inefficient cargo handling at the AP Moller Terminal (APMT). APMT is the largest terminal operator in the entire sub-region and the smoothness of their operations impact on port performance. So, something had to be done about this situation.
The Authority always held terminal operators to their obligations to the people and government of Nigeria, and the traffic situation reflected hugely on post-cost and demurrages that consignees were paying. The Authority intervened.
On 24 January 2020, I signed a letter warning APMT that the NPA would not tolerate delays in berthing vessels at their terminal. We pointed out that the Authority’s investigations had revealed that the poor state of handling equipment and infrastructure at the terminal was responsible for the unacceptable situation.
The letter explained that the situation contradicted the intention of the port concession policy as well as international best practices. The Authority, then gave the company two-weeks to fix the challenge.
There was very little improvement after 14 days. So, on 12 February 2020, I signed a letter giving APMT a 30-day ultimatum to improve efficiency. This letter specially accused the organisation of failing to improve the state of infrastructure in its Nigerian facility contrary to the agreement with the Nigerian government.
It read in part: “It has become necessary to reiterate the essence of the government’s decision to concession the ports in 2005, this being to engage the private sector in the development of port infrastructure to promote operational efficiency, invest in automation of port process and enhance the economy.
“We expect that as a serious investor, AP Moller terminal would have made a considerable investment in relevant port infrastructure to improve the condition of the port as inherited and would have invested in upgrading relevant cargo handling equipment in order to boost port efficiency. Our observations have not justified the reason for awarding you the concession, as we have not witnessed substantial investment by you in promoting port operations.
“This shortfall in efficiency is very glaring as there appears to be a very wide gap in your investment in Nigeria compared to your investments in our neighbouring African states, as they are better equipped and more efficient in their services.”
The letter referenced Article 6.1 of the concession agreement, which states that “the lessee shall use its best efforts to ensure that there is no decline in the standard of the operations.”
The Authority then warned that failure of the APMT to show commitment to improving cargo clearing and turnaround times within 30 days would leave the NPA with no option than to invoke the terms of non-compliance in Article 8.1 of the concession agreement.
This provision states that: “If the lessee fails to rectify its failure, the lessor may fulfil such obligation for and on behalf of the lessee at its own cost…”
To show our seriousness, the letter was directed to APMT headquarters in The Netherlands explaining the unacceptable state of infrastructure and handling equipment at their Lagos terminal.
On the receipt of our letter, APMT headquarters wrote to request for a meeting with the NPA. The Authority granted the request and on 4 March 2020, management of the NPA met with an APMT team led by Mr David Skov.
The team explained that consequent upon the receipt of the Authority’s letter on the situation, they have taken the following short- term measures:
(i) Immediate procurement of three cranes to improve customer experience and boost service delivery. The three cranes will be on their site in Apapa within two months.
(ii) Commitment to the investment of USD $40Million and yard/Equipment to cope with growth. This was to take short term investment to USD $80Million.
(iii)Commitment to working with the Authority on Yard expansion, Quay, and draft where they expect to make an investment of USD $150 Million.
The NPA followed up on these promises and on 24 April 2020, I joined a few other stakeholders to commission two new Mobile Harbour Cranes (MHCs) acquired at the Apapa Ports.
Even after this, the Authority continued to hold the APMT and other terminal operators accountable in line with the provisions of their agreements. However, while these efforts improved efficiency within the ports, they had little impact on the state of traffic congestion on the access roads.
I had always argued that the only way to decongest our roads and make them last longer is to deploy multimodal means of moving cargoes in and out of the ports. I argued at every forum where I had an opportunity that a situation where close to 90 percent of cargo in and out of the ports are evacuated by road is not ideal for the country. We need to explore the use of other means of cargo evacuation like the rails, the inland waterways, and the pipelines, for liquid bulk.
The tonnage from these articulated vehicles will continue to destroy the roads while we will continue to have congestions because of the number of vehicles, the state of the vehicles, (which causes rampant breakdowns) as well as the state of the roads.
We made efforts on this front. With support from President Muhammadu Buhari and Hon. Amaechi, the Nigerian Railway Corporation laid tracks into the Lagos Ports Complex. For the first times in years, we started to transport cargo by rail. This was important because it increased efficiency of the movement of cargo because one train movement is equal 70 truck movements.
The NPA also started to encourage consignees to consider the use of barges. This was the only way to optimise the comparative advantage that our rich maritime endowments confer on the country. So, in 2018, we issued licenses to barge operators and made the Ikorodu Lighter Terminal available for their operations.
As a way of deepening this initiative, the Authority signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with AP Moller Capital on exploring the inland waterways for the movement of cargo. The arrangement extended the use of barges to evacuate containers from the ports beyond Ikorodu to Epe and Ijegun.
While at all of this, we started conversations with the Lagos and Ogun State governments and private sector operators about licensing private truck parks. It was obvious to us that the electronic management of truck movement around the port corridor was the only way to confront this hydra-headed problem.
Although, the Authority had always held this opinion, it became clearer with the failure of successive task forces set up by the federal and state governments to tackle the traffic congestion. With every task force came stories of increasing compromises pointing to how much people profiteer from the chaos at the points.
For example, a report published in THISDAY on 21 March 2021, indicated that an underground economy of over N12b per annum has been built around corrupt practices by officials of task forces around the Apapa ports. The report stated that: “with over 100 trucks visiting the Lagos Ports – Apapa and Tin-Can Island daily, task force, security agents and Lagos traffic officials make a whopping N12.5billion yearly controlling traffic into the Apapa and Tin-Can Island Port…”
It further laid credit to the Authority position that human interaction needed to be taken off the management of trucks in and around the ports.
We then started to seek electronic solutions to the increasingly problematic situation. The country was losing billions of naira to this traffic congestion daily, just as residents of the area are suffering, it was therefore expedient that something drastic needed to be done to solve the problem.
The Authority got proposals for solutions from some software development companies. After an internal review of the proposal, we selected Transit Truck Parks Limited to develop the software needed to create an electronic call up system to manage the movement of trucks.
Upon submission of the software, I directed that it should be forwarded to the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) for assessment and necessary approval. The agency eventually approved the electronic call up software, which is known as eto.
To make Eto work effectively, the authority registered and licensed seven truck parks. Investigations had revealed that many trucks milling on the roads have no ready business in the ports. They are only on the access road tramping, like rogue buses that leave motor parks to seek passengers on the roads in circumvention of procedure. These trucks drivers just drive towards the ports in search of business and constitute an impediment to those who may in fact, have legitimate reasons to be at the ports and other road users.
With Eto, all trucks with business at the ports must be parked in one of the seven designated truck parks from where they will be called into the ports when their cargoes are ready.
We encouraged transporters to register their trucks with the parks and download the Eto app before the 27 February 2021, date.
As part of the innovations, consignees were also stopped from returning empty containers to the ports. It became the responsibility of shipping companies, which have been mandated to have holding bays where consignees will drop the containers for onward transmission to the ports by the shipping companies. Such return must also be booked through the app. To ensure that shipping companies comply with the directive, the Authority decided that they would be denied 2021 registration unless they provided empty container holding bays and log on to eto.
Working with the Lagos State Government, the Nigerian Police, LASTMA and FRSC, the Authority warned that trucks found in the ports corridor without being called to the ports will be impounded and made to face the law. All trucks were to book at designated parks and await the call up into the ports through the app.
Read also: Importers count losses as vandals thrive at Tin-Can Port
The idea is that no truck is expected to be on the access roads to the ports unless they have been called with the evidence of the Etó ticket otherwise they would be impounded and dealt with according to the laws of Lagos State.
We took time out to sensitise all stakeholders and deployed information on all possible media platforms to ensure that everyone understood their responsibilities. After this, we decided to launch the app on February 27, 2021, with the effect that trucks without Eto registration would be denied entry into the ports.
The process took off as scheduled and daily review meetings with all stakeholders on the operations end gave good feedback. Representatives of the NPA, the Lagos State Government and the TTP sat at a daily review meeting where we discussed operations for the day and looked at areas needing improvement.
On 12 March 2021, two weeks after the introduction of the app, the Authority issued a statement designating truck parks for different categories of cargo.
The statement entitled: Electronic E-Call Up – Eto, NPA Designates Truck Parks, (please see appendix) acknowledged the teething problems we were encountering and explained that the decision to designate parks was taken after consultations with stakeholders.
These review meetings went on until the first week of May 2021 when I was asked to “step aside.” On occasions that I couldn’t be part of the meeting for any reason, I delegated to one of Executive Directors as a measure of the seriousness attached to the process.
I still believe that removing human interaction from the management of trucks alongside the deployment of multimodal transportation, as is done everywhere in the world, is the way to make our roads last longer and eliminate traffic congestion on our roads.
