Three times the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, took helicopter rides to inspect the Apapa traffic gridlock. After each ride, he presided over a series of meetings with government agencies/private sector operating within the ports on how to resolve the Apapa gridlock. After such meetings, he would direct relevant government agencies to immediately embark on the decongestion of the bridges and roads on which trailers and tankers were indiscriminately and mindlessly parked to allow for free flow of traffic. On one of such inspection trips, he gave a directive that bridges and roads must be decongested within 72 hours. He specifically directed that the operation should be carried out by collaborative efforts of the Police, Nigeria Navy, Nigeria Army, the Nigeria Air Force, FRSC and the NSCDC, LASTMA, LASEMA, Container truck drivers, National Association of Road Transport Owners, NUPENG, Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria.
To underscore the seriousness of his order, the vice president five days later, on July 26, 2018, returned to Apapa again, this time, in company of the Lagos state governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, and managing director of the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Bala Usman and held a meeting with maritime unions, businesses, residents and other stakeholders at the Western Naval Command, Apapa. By this time, his 72 hour directives to the agencies to clear the traffic has failed and virtually all the roads were still impassable blocked, as usual, by rampaging trailers and tankers.
However, despite all the promises by the Vice President and orders to decongest the bridges and roads, nothing really happened on the roads. Tankers and trailers continued to defy the orders and security operatives could do nothing. The traffic situation in and around Apapa continue to deteriorate, stressing out motorists, suffocating resilient businesses and emasculating residents in a degraded environment.
Naturally, many analysts and residents concluded that the government has no solution to the traffic jigsaw in Apapa and had resigned themselves to finding innovative ways to cope with the mess.
Then came the election season and the compulsory campaign rounds to all the states of the federation by presidential aspirants. It was Lagos’ turn on Saturday Feb 9 and by Friday, all the intractable traffic situation in and around Apapa spilling to Surulere and adjourning roads such as Eko bridge had been totally cleared. Hence the president came in to Lagos, drove freely to all the places on his itinerary and experienced no traffic caused by the trailers and tankers that hitherto taken over the roads.
Many Lagosians who ply the roads daily noticed the swift action. So, the tankers and trailers could be cleared off the roads and bridges and for three whole years and after three helicopter rides and several directives by the vice president, nothing was done?
Nevertheless, road users were still grateful that the roads have been cleared and they could now drive to their homes and places of work in peace. But alas they were mistaken. Just a day after the president’s visit, precisely, Sunday, February 10, the trailers and tankers have started returning to the roads they vacated earlier. It then became clear that the trailers and tankers were only forced out of the roads to allow the president and his entourage drive seamlessly in and out of Lagos. Once the campaigns were done with and the president was safely out of Lagos, the bedlam could return.
Therefore, unlike what we had thought, the real problem was not the absence of ideas or lack of decisive action on the part of the government, but a total disregard for the citizenry by the government. Despite the huge revenue generated by the ports in Apapa and the sufferings the residents and those who work in and around Apapa go through daily, the government has no real interests in solving the problems of the ports and ameliorating the sufferings of the people.
Much more worrying however, is the real relevance and power of the vice president, who is beginning to look really pathetic and even irrelevant in the scheme of things in the country. If the vice president could not enforce the clearance of trailers and tankers from a small location in Lagos, we then wonder what influence he has on government policies and actions.
By our Reporter
