For too long, Apapa, Nigeria’s premier port city, has been in the news for the wrong reasons. It has been a city under siege, an occupied territory where the unwholesome activities of trailers and tankers have made all routes to the city impassable, destroyed the environment and literally put the residents in prison.
Repeated public outcry and residents’ outrage over the impact of congestion and gridlock in the port city on their businesses and investments have caused stakeholder interventions, leading to the setting up of one taskforce or committee after another which hardly produced any results.
This time, a new taskforce has been set up by President Muhammadu Buhari with a marching presidential order to clear ports congestion in two weeks, cause trailers and tankers to vacate port access roads in 72 hours, and start emergency clear-up of the Apapa gridlock.
Expectation is that respite will come the way of residents, business owners, motorists, port users and anybody who has something to do with/in Apapa as the new taskforce is coming from the highest seat of power and is coming on the assumption that it cannot afford to fail in its assignment.
The announcement of the new presidential order and taskforce, Wednesday, was however received with scepticism by some. This is because Apapa is not new to presidential orders. The order given by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in August 2018 never worked, while several taskforces set up at various levels of government failed.
But despite the scepticism, BusinessDay gathered that “it is not going to be business as usual this time around because this new taskforce is different.”.
The new taskforce, according to Ayo Vaughn, who is a member, has the full backing of President Buhari who set up the taskforce chaired by the Vice President.
Vaughn, who spoke to BusinessDay on phone, Wednesday, said the presidential order expects the trucks on Apapa roads and bridges to find their way into the Lilypond Container Terminal and the Tin Can Trailer Park, which is being constructed by the Federal Government on Apapa-Oshodi Expressway.
But the challenge, BusinessDay finds, is that whereas the Lilypond Terminal has been opened and put to use by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), completion/opening of the trailer park is still being delayed.
Adedamola Kuti, Federal Controller of Works in Lagos, however, is optimistic that “the trailer park would be completed very soon because we are working hard on it” and that the presidential order would be achieved with the Lilypond Terminal already open and functioning.
A source close to the Federal Ministry of Works, Power and Housing told BusinessDay that the ministry has set middle of June as a tentative date for handing over the trailer park to NPA.
Adams Jatto, general manager, corporate and strategic communications of NPA, noted that the park had issues with basic facilities such as lighting, toilets and others that are supposed to be put in place before it can be put into use.
“The ministry gave the NPA till the first two weeks of June for them to complete the facility and get it ready for use; the park is almost completed and that is why we are now using Lilypond Terminal pending when the park is completed,” Jatto said.
Remi Ogungbemi, chairman, Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO), also believes the presidential directive would work, explaining that about 85 percent of trucks that operate at the port have their private parks away from the transit park.
Ogungbemi, who spoke to BusinessDay on phone, noted further that the problem had been that the trucks were all coming to the port environment at the same time due to lack of call-up system to regulate their movement into the port.
“The directive is long overdue and I believe that with the provision of Lilypond and other individual parks, such directive will make the environment more conducive. It is a welcome development,” he said.
On the checkpoints, he said the army and naval officers have no option but to vacate the bridges and Apapa roads as directed by the Presidency.
“The Navy must go back to their barracks, which is long overdue. It is even an aberration for the government to use military personnel to control traffic. Instead of helping the situation, their presence has been compounding the issue,” Ogungbemi said.
“Military personnel cannot be the solution to Apapa gridlock. One of the solutions is converting Lilypond into transit part, which the NPA has done and it can accommodate about 1,000 trucks,” he said.
He said there are other parks which other individuals are working on, citing the example of a park that can accommodate about 1,500 trucks.
“But any trucker parking in such park has to pay, which is better than parking on the bridges which can constitute environmental hazard to the society and can put lives and property in danger,” he said.
Meanwhile, there is palpable fear among Lagos residents that pushing these trucks out of Apapa by executive fiat would compel them to overrun the surrounding areas like Surulere, Olodi Apapa, Lagos-Badagry Expressway, Festac Town, Costain, and other areas that are already feeling the heat of the rampaging trucks.
When BusinessDay visited Apapa-Oshodi Expressway and Lagos-Badagry Expressway on Wednesday, it was discovered that trailers and container-carrying trucks have converted the main carriageway of the roads into parking lots. This was observed especially between Cele and Mile 2 inward Apapa, while both sides of the Lagos-Badagry Expressway, especially between Orile and Mile 2, have been taken over by trucks going to Tin-Can Island Ports and some other trucks evacuated from Ijora-Wharf Road axis.
“It is good that government takes drastic action like this to free Apapa from perennial gridlock. But there should adequate planning to ensure that other parts of Lagos are not at the receiving end of that action. The planning should be holistic so that it shouldn’t be a case of shifting the problem from one spot to another and not solving it,” said a Festac Town resident who did not want to be named.
CHUKA UROKO & AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE
