Increasingly, Apapa is becoming the proverbial tortoise which must be mentioned in most fairy tales more for bad reasons than good. Every serious economic discourse in Nigeria today references Apapa and highlights its contradictions as an otherwise economic growth enabler.
Apapa is Nigeria’s oldest and first port city. It is home to the country’s two seaports—Apapa and Tin Can Island. It is estimated that the two ports account for 70 percent of import and export activities in Nigeria. Apapa economy is estimated, arguably, at N20 billion a day.
Besides oil, Apapa is Nigeria’s major cash cow. A substantial percentage of government’s non-oil revenue comes from this port city. Numerous federal and state governments’ agencies, including Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), NIMASA, SON, etc operate at the ports, raking billions of naira revenue for the government.
Before now, Apapa was described as an aquatic splendour –a residential and commercial enclave where night life and other leisure activities flourished and thrived the most in Lagos.
But today, Apapa is a ghost of itself. It is a lost paradise. As a cash cow, it is gasping for breath. Gradually, but steadily, it is drifting and degenerating into a wasteland. Apapa typifies a city in static motion. It is a sleeping economy and a by-word for gridlock. The port city tells the Nigeria story—story of paradoxes and contradictions; of a country in need of help to save it from itself.
For inexplicable reasons, Apapa suffers government’s neglect, leading to decaying infrastructure, degraded environment, decrypt, desolate and deserted homes, offices and fun parks. The port city has been invaded by desperate people whose activities have put the city under siege, making it a difficult environment for business and living.
Read also: Apapa: A cash cow on death row
Though there is a little respite on its bridges at the moment, the roads are still clogged with trucks and tankers making the roads their resting places. Apapa Oshodi Expressway, the major route to the ports, is a nighmare; a highway to hell where trucks, buses drivers and motorcycles (okada) riders are in mortal conflict for space, making a jest of whatever is express about the endangered expressway.
Yet, both the federal and Lagos State government appear unconcerned about all these contradictions along with congestion and gridlock that are softly killing the port city and people’s investments.
Yemi Osinbajo, the Vice President; Babatunde Fashola, the minister of Works and Housing, and Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the Lagos governor, should worry about what has become of Apapa in their time. They should know that all eyes are on them to lead the journey to the solution to Apapa problem.
We recall with pain how Fashola, before 2015, taunted the PDP-led government at that time, saying that the solution to the Apapa port congestion and gridlock was not rocket science. Five years down the line, APC-led government in which Fashola serves, is yet to find solution to the Apapa problem.
Of grave concern to us and, indeed, to other well meaning Nigerians is the siege on the port city by trucks and tankers, suffocating the environment and creating impenetrable congestion and gridlock.
These have combined to raise haulage costs significantly, making it a lot cheaper to bring goods from China or Europe into Nigeria than taking same goods from Apapa to other locations in Nigeria.
By our last checks, transporting a 40-footer container from Lagos to Onitsha costs an importer N1.3 million, up from between N320,000 and N340,000 before the congestion in Apapa. Moving the same container from Lagos to Shagamu which before cost N120,000 to N150,000, is now N750,000 to N800,000.
For an importer to move his goods from Lagos to Ilorin now costs him between N860,000 and N900,000, up from N220,000 to N260,000 he used to pay. Transporting same size container to Abuja now costs N1.3 million to N1.4 million, up from N420,000.
This is of huge concern to all, especially the consumers of the imported goods who are at the receiving end of the increased haulage costs. Of more concern is the parking of trucks on weak bridges. Nigerians are afraid of the grave consequences if any of those occupied bridges collapses.
Bridges had collapsed before and there is no law against history repeating itself. On October 21, 1994, in Seoul, South Korea, Seongsu Bridge collapsed as a result of structural failure. 32 people were feared dead and 17 injured. In March 2007, in South East Guinea, a bridge collapsed under the weight of trucks parked with passengers and merchandise, 65 lives were lost. It also happened in India with casualties.
Nigerians have seen one taskforce after another set up to deal with Apapa problem to no avail. The latest was the Kayode Opeifa-led presidential task team ( PTT), now disbanded.
It was our expectation that the PTT would be a solution to the problem, more so as it had the backing of the president and also with the dislodging of security agencies with their checkpoints and illegal ‘toll collection’ from truck drivers.
But the solution did not happen, meaning that government, in our view, should be looking out for both temporary and permanent solutions. In the immediate to short term, government should provide and cause private sector operators to provide parks for these trucks.
As long term measures, government should construct rails to convey goods from the ports; resuscitate other ports, especially those in the eastern part of the country. There is need to expand the ports to accommodate more activities as their present capacity can no longer accommodate the influx of goods in and out the country.
